Last night, Tristan decided that he wanted to give the toilet a shot! He didn’t deposit anything in there, but he sat for a good five minutes.

We were about to serve dinner and I went into the bathroom to use it. Tristan followed me in; this isn’t altogether unusual, although his interest is usually just limited to watching the routine and watching the toilet flush. At that very well-timed moment (dinner about to be served), he began motioning for me to lift the cover, and then the seat, and then put his potty seat on top of the toilet. We pulled his pants and diaper off and I sat him up there. He started to panic, as if he were afraid to fall in, and then James came into the bathroom and handed him a distracting light-up toy. Tristan sat there playing with the toy while seated on the toilet.. I made sure he was pointing downward so that we didn’t get a nasty surprise all over the toy. After a few minutes, he wanted to come down from the seat, but he did a really good job in asking to use the toilet (kind of hard, but he said “off” and pointed to the lid, and then gestured toward the insert, so his intentions were clear) and sitting on it for his first real try.

He repeated some of the process again today and one of his therapists was here to see.. yay! So we might have a new toilet user on our hands whenever the process works itself out. Not looking forward to nighttime training (this child fills up diapers overnight like nobody’s business) but very enthused about the possibility of this important step toward independence!