20 month old naked potty training confused on progress!
ADDITIONAL EDIT:
I should mention days 2-4 she began to consolidate pee and put her legs together/walk on top toes. She has gone in the potty with prompting and help on and started peeing a few times total.
HOWEVER the last 2 pees of the day today were successes though they were prompted.
Is that enough progress to be encouraging by day 4?
My husband and I have a wonderful 20 month old daughter who is very intelligent and communicative. She knows many words and some sign language, but mostly has lots of jargon she uses and sounds like an adult when talking. She does not communicate when she needs to pee or poop.
We wanted to start potty training our daughter at 20 months because we have a big international move happening in August/September. We didn’t want to start it too close to this major life event. We felt she is ready because she doesn’t do well with diaper changes and tries to pull at them and take them off. We’ve had a baby bjorn potty sitting in our bathroom for a while for her to get used to and sit with us on while we pee (she chooses to sit whenever she wants) we’ve been very vocal with her about her poops and have helped her through them since a very young age.
I read the oh crap potty training book and didn’t love it but some of it resonated and I’ve always heard about naked potty training being effective, so we thought we’d give it a go. My husband had a 4 day stretch off where we could try it out. This was the longest stretch of time we could possibly get for this for both of us to be here for her. I’m a SAHM and we live overseas, so I have no support system here for help. We cannot afford a nanny currently.
Day 1 we said goodbye to diapers and began the day nakey. We started with a lower to the floor portable potty because our daughter is in the 3rd percentile for her age and is very small, so I thought it would be easier for sitting. She didn’t like it and it became a battle and seemed way too stressful for all of us day one. Many accidents. FREQUENT PEEING. 24 times. Some successful potty transfers, mostly floor. Lots of crying. My husband and I realized it could be a size issue where she felt she was falling in because it was too wide of a bowl for her. So we switched to the baby bjorn potty with the backrest. That was the one she was familiar with and she seemed more open.
Day 2 only 14 pees and few successes. We thought it was a height issue since she couldn’t sit herself on this potty alone. So we got the regular baby bjorn one. Great fit, but she still struggles with sitting down easily. She’s way more willing to use it.
Cut to today, day 4 we tried to not prompt much at all and simply remind her it’s there if she needs it and transfer her if she starts peeing. We missed a lot and we had some successes. She points to the p otty when we ask where pee goes. She’s been excited to flush her pees and poops (she’s done 3 poops successfully when we’ve caught her about to push) and she’s more relaxed with this potty. When we thought we were having progress she peed in her high chair at snack time (we thought we were past this) and twice on me while I nursed her today and once on my husband while they were reading. She mostly freezes and stands when she’s about to start peeing. At most seems to understand she’s going right as she’s doing it. Very little time for us to act. A handful of times today she’s seemed clueless. She once said potty right before needing to go and my husband didn’t get her there fast enough so we felt like we failed then too.
We feel like we really screwed this up with too much pressure, visible stress and over prompting. Did we blow it? Is she at a disadvantage being too small to easily sit on the potty without assistance? Do we go back to diapers? If so, how? Will this only confuse her more?
I worry it will take months after we move to get settled in and have a solid routine before we can start again and she turns 2 right when we’re moving, so I don’t want to wait much longer than that. I have been struggling with OCD and still some postpartum anxiety. I am really stressed and not sure how to proceed. Any advice is welcome. I value science based parenting as well as gentle parenting! Thank you for reading this!
EDIT:
Additional context:
We live in the center of Barcelona, Spain and have no parks close by. Everything is a 20 minute walk. We have no outside or grass at our apartment building. She has been saying park everyday and been feeling very cooped up. We normally are out and about every day and she’s very social.
I also have digestive issues that I’m working on getting diagnosed. I have to sometimes go to the bathroom (#2) multiple times in a day and have to shower off afterwards. Today I’ve taken 5 showers between my bathroom visits and getting peed on. I don’t know how I can do this naked method alone. My husband and I can’t even do it well together. He feels like we’re really close. Every time I get hopeful I see her seeming a bit too clueless. Do I need to have more faith or stop the stress and just enjoy my daughter? This weekend feels like it’s destroyed our quality of life, but doing this all over again feels demoralizing.