This page will provide you with many ideas and information you can use to potty train your toddler. I have tried ideas from using pull-ups and stickers to M & Ms and Skittles as rewards. However, knowing when your child is ready to potty train is probably the most important thing you can know when heading into this journey.
Potty training is a huge milestone for all children and it can be a very daunting task. I hope you can find some useful information here to support you through this journey.
Just keep in mind…as with all things, this too shall pass!
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the “What to Expect…” series of books. The one in particular here that I’ll refer to is “What to Expect In the Toddler Years”. There is a section in this book that details the things that indicate if your toddler is ready to potty train; such as being able to pull their pants up and down, being able to tell you when they need to go to the bathroom, etc. You can also surf the web and find additional information.
Here are a few tips from my experience and the experience of others….(read on)
Here are a few tips from my experience and the experience of others:
- Potty Training Babies. This comes from an article I read in the Detroit Free Press, Tuesday, September 23, 2008. The article is called “Toilet learning helps parents ditch diapers”. It essentially tells of a woman who knows how to toilet train babies so you can use diapers at a minimum, thus saving the environment and potty training your child at a much earlier age than the norm. I know for a fact that this works because when we adopted our 12 month old daughter from China she and her little friends from the baby home (as we like to call it) would go on command as she describes in the article. If you want to learn more you can go to Sarah Wood’s yahoo group and websites at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiaperFreeBabyofNorthCarolina
www.diaperfreebaby.org
or e-mail her at sarahwood@diaperfreebaby.org
- If there’s one piece of advice I could give on potty training it’s to not push the child into it if they don’t want to do it. They will cooperate when they are ready. If you push it when they don’t want to then it will take you a LOT LONGER to potty train them than it would have if you waited. I understand there can be a lot of anxiety in getting a child potty trained if they are, for instance, going to a pre-school that doesn’t take children still in diapers, or if your child is 3 and you think they should be potty trained by now. I also understand there may be grandparents, friends, or others, who also criticize your intuition and/or method on this subject. YOU are the one responsible for getting the information and actually potty training this child, not them. Although their ideas are well-meant I’m sure, just listen to them and tell them “I’ll keep that in mind” so as not to alienate them. YOUR CHILD WILL BECOME POTTY TRAINED. ALL CHILDREN DO!!! Be patient.
- Work with them on the mechanical skills of pulling pants up and down and verbal skills of what has happened in their diaper (”Kayli poo poo-ed in her diaper. Poo poo goes in the potty. (dump the poo in the toilet) Do you want to flush the potty or do you want Mommy to flush it?”) Start verbalizing what it is and show it to them so they can see what you’re talking about. Start saying that it goes in the potty.
- Have a positive attitude when working with your child. Have an upbeat and kind voice tone. If you become upset with them whenever they have an accident or go in their diaper/pull-up again, it will only make matters worse. Trust me!
- Find what motivates your child in a positive manner. You don’t want to take away things if they aren’t potty training or if they have accidents. They are LEARNING and this will take some time. Every child has a motivator of some sort. Use this motivator to reward them for going ON the potty. Things that motivated my children were princess pull-ups, stickers of their favorite character, M&Ms, Skittles, and I have an aunt who helped my cousin potty train her son (who was having a difficult time!) by offering to buy him his “dream bike” if he stopped using diapers and pull-ups. It took a little time but eventually it worked! Some motivators will work for a while and then the child becomes bored with them and you have to change it. A motivator is only expected to last until you feel your child is going on the toilet as a habit then you’ll want to start weening them off the motivator, especially if it’s candy! I’m not an advocate of bribery or rewards but in the case of potty-training I personally do whatever it takes to get them potty-trained then I ween them off of it once they are trained. “Short term pain for long-term gain,” is my motto in this journey!
- My oldest son was 3 ½ and was still in pull-ups. He did not care if he went in it. He would have rather played all day in a dirty pull-up than stop to go to the bathroom. It finally took the director (an outside third party) to tell him could not come back to school wearing pull-ups or diapers any more. This was on a Friday. She told him (I talked with her previously so we were on the same page) that I would take him shopping to buy his favorite big-boy cotton underwear and when he brought them in to show them to her she would give him a prize from her prize cabinet. He was geeked! We bought the underwear then the next day we went to the zoo. We did not take any pull-ups or even a change of clothes. My husband and I figured he needed to learn how to do this like a big boy and suffer the consequences if he had an accident (by wearing his wet clothes home). We put a towel in the car just in case! However, we took him to the bathroom every hour and sat him on the potty even if he didn’t want to because he would not want to wear wet clothes all day. He did not have any accidents, not even on the way home which was a 45 minute drive! He showed his underwear to his director and she rewarded him with a prize. This was the turning point for him. After the M&M motivator ran out he just didn’t want to deal with sitting on the potty anymore. He still had accidents from time to time but we didn’t punish him for them.
- Don’t punish your child for accidents. I believe in letting children learn from the natural consequences of their mistakes and not bailing them out no matter how difficult it is for the child (or the parent!). I told my oldest son, and hardest to potty train, that he had only one pair of underwear that he had to wear all day so he had to keep them clean and dry. He inevitably had accidents so when he did I would have him put them in the washing machine, I would turn it on, and he would have to sit with it on the floor and play until the machine went off then he was to come and tell me when it was done. Then I would put them in the dryer and he would do the same. This happened a handful of times before he “got it” and the accidents stopped.
- I think boys are more hard-headed and stubborn (in general) when it comes to potty training. My boys were both 3 ½ before they were potty trained and at least 4 years old before the accidents stopped. That’s not to say that girls aren’t like that too. But like I said earlier, if you’re pushing your child to potty train then they will know it and they will resist!! This will take you a lot longer than if you let things happen when your child shows interest. If your child is older than 4 and is still not potty trained you may want to consult your pediatrician to see if there is anything else going on.
- Boys and underwear. If you’ve been having your son wear briefs and he’s still “going” in his underwear it may be that since the elastic band is in the same place that his pull-ups and/or diapers used to be and he may be thinking he’s still wearing them. Try putting some boxer briefs on him and see if this works. A friend of mine, Stephanie Liddle, tried this with her son and it worked from the moment she put those boxer briefs on!!! Thanks for the tip, Steph! <??>
- Girls . A neighbor of mine, Cindy Mattiuz, told me she bought princess underwear for her daughter and told her daughter, “You can’t pee-pee on the princess.” And you know what? She never did! May be worth a try! It was worth it for me! Kayli LOVES princesses and cried the first time she peed in her princess underwear. I didn’t put them back on her for about a month to let it go and then when I tried again she never did it again. When she didn’t have the pull-ups on she “felt funny down there” so she noticed when she had to go to the bathroom more and alerted me right away, and still does!
I hope you can find one of these tips helpful to you! If you have any ideas to add please let me know!
{ 0 comments… add one now }
You must log in to post a comment.