Potty Training?!?

Jordyn is exactly 17.5 months old today. 

And she went pee pee in the potty for the first time!!

So does that mean we're supposed to start some sort of formal potty training system now?? I wasn't planning on that anytime soon. I think I may just keep following her lead, which was my plan for now.

I ordered her a potty a week or two ago, and she'd sat on it briefly once or twice, but then we were out of town for the past five days. Earlier this afternoon, she sat on it again briefly while I was also on the (big) potty. But then tonight, she started to say "potty" and head towards the stairs (the potty is upstairs, and we were downstairs). I decided, "what the hell", fine, let's go upstairs and sit on the potty - we've been stuck inside all afternoon due to a snowstorm, and it'll give us something to do. 

So upstairs we went, I pulled down her pants, took off her diaper, and helped her sit on the potty. She's  still a little tentative with the actual action of sitting down, I guess because she's not completely used to there not being anything underneath most of her tush when she does, plus there's the splash guard thing that she has to sort of sit behind. She sat there for maybe 10 minutes or so, maybe even longer. Every so often she'd stand up, and I'd ask if she was finished and ready to go put on a diaper. She kept answering "no", but then again, she always answers no these days! Again, since we had nothing else to do, I went with it. She'd sit back down each time. We read some books, and I figured, hey, maybe she'll just randomly happen to pee while she's sitting here, and we can throw a party. Well... she did! At least, I think that's what happened. Who knows, maybe it really was a purposeful pee! I had been asking her if she was going to pee pee in the potty, and encouraging her to do so. 

She started to reach between her legs and put her hands into the potty, and I told her that hands don't go in the potty, that potties are only for pee pee and poopy. She kept putting a hand back in, and then one time she said "wah-tuh" (water), pulled her hand out, and when she touched her leg it was wet! I was totally surprised, because I hadn't heard the pee pee hitting the bottom of the potty, and I thought I would have. I did throw her a party! I don't want to reward with food, but I loaded on the praise big time. 

So now I don't know what to do. It almost felt wrong, somehow, to put a diaper on her right after that. Like, "yay, you went pee pee in the potty, now here, next time pee pee in a diaper". Huh? That seems confusing. But obviously she's not ready to not have a diaper on yet, so I guess I don't really know how to proceed. As I said, I think for now I'm just going to follow her lead. Is there such a thing as toddler-led potty training?? If she asks to sit on the potty, I'll certainly let her do it. And I may ask if she wants to sit on the potty before bath time, and maybe first thing in the morning, at least on the mornings I don't have to get to work and we're not in a rush. But I won't push her to do it if she doesn't want to. I may get a second potty to put on the first floor of the house. 

I know some kids are actually potty trained by now, or are well on their way. I just didn't think Jordyn was there yet. I figured she'd have to sit on the potty multiple, multiple times before anything actually happened. But yet, here we are. I'm so proud of her! Maybe potty training will end up being easier than I thought...