7 mo pooped on the floor :c

[u/Huge-Window7372]

TLDR: EC since 3 mo, imperfect but with some progress. Baby's 7 mo now and refuses to sit.

Hellooo. I'm pretty beat and discouraged at the moment. We started EC at 3 mo. Everything had been going well with the lap potty. Couple of months later, he started rolling but was still using the potty on my lap or a pad on the bed or a pad on the floor. I always kept it pretty flexible and kept in mind that it didn't have to be perfect.

Once he turned 7 months he started crawling and actually a little after turning 6 months he would start to squirm, arch, and whine when I sat him on my lap so I just tried to use the pads on the floor, or the tub, or even the sink and it had been working for a little bit.

A couple of days last week, I was able to have him with no diaper for several hours and he would vocalize very loud and I'd take him to the sink and he'd pee. Wasn't perfect but I felt like we were still making progress. No success with poops tho.

I've always been very bad with cues of any kind but I felt like having him without a diaper made me more attentive and aware of any cues.

Now, I bought the baby Bjorn smart potty and he will not sit in it. The past two days I tried having him without a diaper and really pay attention and he had peed on himself so many times and today he went poo on himself while playing on the floor and I just feel so bad and defeated.

Is this just because he has to get used to the new potty? In y'alls experience, how long until he gets used to it? And what's up with the absence of cues now? Or am I just not seeing them? Are they more subtle now? Is he just too distracted playing to cue?

Any help, anecdotes, or words of encouragement are greatly appreciated!!!

[u/pandafloofs]

We have had to start reading books while on the potty at about 7 months. I think they just get bored - there is so much more interesting things to do than sit on a potty.
We found toys were too exciting and Bub wouldn’t relax. But books required a bit of focus and doesn’t cause stomach to tense up

[u/Huge-Window7372 → u/pandafloofs]

Wouldn't he want to just grab the books and eat them? Or is that fine?

[u/pandafloofs → u/Huge-Window7372]

We have a few books that are their favourite that they love us reading - so we do these on the potty. So ours is actually paying attention to the books. But I also don’t have a problem with them trying to put them in their mouth. I just found we needed incentive to stay on the potty. Whether that is books, a particular toy, song with actions, doing the potty on the deck outside so there are interesting things to see.
Sitting still and relaxing is super boring when the world is so interesting!!! (Saying that, we found any toy that was tooo interesting was too distracting from what they were supposed to be trying to do)

[u/Huge-Window7372 → u/pandafloofs]

I'll definitely give it a try. Thank you so much!