Well this is my first time on here and in a very short space of time all Mums of pre-schoolers and beyond will relate to what experiences I am currently going through with my 20 month old toddler Charley....When hes good, hes very very good, but when he is bad he is HORRID!...

Take yesterday for instance, we spent a very pleasant few hours at a friends house and then went to the shops and for a very special treat had dinner out rather than indoors - he was such a good boy, did'nt scream, did'nt throw himself on the floor, perfect, I almost thought that being a Mum really was'nt that bad after all!

Well today was the opposite of that, you know when you just 'know' how they are going to be the moment they awaken, well when I went to get Charley up this morning he had a real grumpy face and moaned as soon as I lifted him onto the changing mat to get ready for the day ahead.

Today, I decided would be 'the day' when I made a start on the dreaded potty training, I have got the essential equipment - potty (x2) special toddler wipes, pull up training pants and a rough guidebook as well as a fellow Mummy doing just brilliantly with potty training :)

Now I know that so many of you will be crying out 'its too early to train him yet!' but like babies, all toddlers are different too! although he can't talk yet, or pull his trousers up (both of which are undoubtedly advantageous for potty training!) the other vital signs are there - he is aware that he is going for a wee or poo (he stops what he is doing) and he has got bladder control - I change his nappy without worrying about getting an eye full! and going back to my fellow Mummy friend above, who sits her daughter on the potty after every meal and whose daughter is just under 2 weeks older than Charley is doing very well with potty training achieving a poo in the potty each time - very impressive and after observing such training in progress really feel that the whole plan is 'doable' - after all, once they realise there is a choice then surely it is just prolonging the whole operation, and I really firmly beleive that the big companies are just after making even more money out of us parents happily emptying our pockets in our endless puchases of pull ups, pyjama pants, todder wipes, soap etc.

As I was avidly against this profit making from the start, I chose to use cloth nappies with Charley and I'm hoping this will also give me a slight head start as he already knows the sensation of being wet - cloth nappies do not have the huge absorbency of disposable nappies.

So anyway, I digress, day one of potty training, dressed all very smartly in his pull up pants, my partner telling me to prepare for the worst as of course pull ups are pretty much non-absorbent! breakfast finished off very nicely and so time for him to sit on the potty with which he has been acquanited to in the last few months. Trousers and pants down, Charley nicely sitting on the potty like a good boy....all good so far. I know that Charley does a poo within an hour of breakfast, so there we were, 20 minutes later, nothing. Charley getting fed up with sitting on the potty, started reading books to him to keep him seated.....still nothing. So anyway I gave up as after all one of the golden rules of potty training is not to force them to sit on the potty as this can lead to them rejecting the potty altogether....

Feeling a little disappointed, I let him get on with his own thing for 10 minutes, and during that time......yep you've guessed it, he did the long awaited poo!..... So had to remove the pull up and tryed again with a second pull up trying very hard not to be too disheartened (it is only day one after all!) Charley was not keen at all to be reseated on the potty after lunch and during that time he did a further poo in his pull up - hey ho! After that I abandoned the efforts for today and put him back in a nappy!

As I'm writing this, and Charley is asleep in his cot, I look back I guess as all parents do on the day and realise that tomorrow is another day and another chance to try this potty training out again, after all as my partner quite rightly tells me, potty training is the hardest thing to accomplish during toddlerhood. It may be that we decide to try again in a few months, but like everything else in our trials and tribulations as a parent, we as parents, have to try things out often by experimentation and whilst it may work and pay off, leading to a great sense of achivement, quite often it does not, and the key is to not to become disponent, they all get there in the end, and like every path in life, the progress comes at differing speeds.

Saying all that, I will let you know how we get on in day two....