How to Successfully Potty Train Your Toddler
Apparently June is Potty Training Awareness Month.
I find this to be a bit of a curiosity. The art of potty training toddlers has been around since the evolution of man, so I would imagine that most people are aware that potty training does, indeed, exist.
However, I will concede that the strategies of successful potty training have differed through the centuries and across cultures. Having successfully potty trained all four of my children, I know what worked for us and I am happy to share it with you.
All four of my children were successfully potty trained around their second birthdays. My oldest (who is a boy) trained at 22 months. The rest trained between their 24th and 26th months. I know this is not common, as most people wait to potty train until the child is closer to three years of age.
But by the time my children were two, I was done with the potty training process. I did not want to change diapers anymore. So, as soon as they showed any interest in the potty, I ran with it.
I honestly believe that successful potty training is as much about training parents as it is about training toddlers. If parents can get beyond the messiness and inconvenience of it all, potty training can be a quick and easy ordeal.
10 Steps To Successful Potty Training
- Do not begin the potty training process until your child shows some success/readiness
- Once you have decided to start the potty training process, do not waver or your child will become confused.
- Go cold turkey! This is the most important step. Once you begin potty training do not go back to diapers or Pull-Up type training pants (only use these at nap and bedtime).
- Throughout the day during the potty training process let your child wear underpants or no pants in the house. If you must go out, put plastic training pants over the underpants. Your child will feel the wetness but the mess will be minimized.
- If you must go out, take the potty with you! Keep the potty it in your car in case nature calls before you get home. (Some plastic bags for disposal will also come in handy.)
- Give your child tons of praise for his potty training successes and lots of patience for his failures.
- Do not get angry or frustrated with your child for “accidents” even if they are on your new white rug.
- Stay close to home for about a week – until the potty training successes outnumber the accidents.
- If you begin to doubt your decision to attempt potty training, give it at least a full week before you decide to give up. Potty training really takes time and patience before you will see results – think of it like having a new puppy, really
. - Nightime potty training should follow but will take longer, anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more.
The above steps for successful potty training worked for our family but may not be right for everyone. The most important thing is your child. Do not place stress or direct anger at him/her throughout this frustrating potty training process. Show lots of love and encouragement. Whether he potty trains at two or three or sometimes even later is not important, he will eventually get there.
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My brother’s little girl developed some difficulties with the whole potty concept about halfway through her training, which had been going really well up to then. She’s a bit of a diva (understatement!), so we figured she was seeking attention…
You’ve brought back vivid memories of half the extended family crowding into a tiny bathroom to inspect the contents of the flush and applaud wildly! There was a song, too, as I recall.
I plan to bring this up in front of her boyfriends, oh-so-casually, the very minute that she gets old enough to date. LOL
The scene you described is a familiar one replayed many times in our house. I can’t say that I miss it, but children at that age are so precious. Potty training is a major accomplishment for them (and us!).
Neena, did you do any of that recommended stuff like let the child pick out their new underwear or their new potty? Did you give anything other than praise for the accomplishments?
Sue,
I did not take the kids shopping for the potty or underwear, although these strategies could be helpful.
I had the potty sitting out from the time they turned one. I let them play with it and always sat them on it before their bath. That is how we had some of our earliest successes. I would tell them that one day they would be using the potty and wearing big boy/girl underpants just like mom and dad and brothers.
Praise was the only incentive, partly because there were older siblings to contend with – who would want to share in any type of rewards as well.
Keeping a stack of books in the bathroom helped them sit for longer periods of time and during the actual training, would let the kids sit on the potty in the family room while they watched tv – anything to get a success so I could shower praise and make them want to use the potty again.
My daughter is going to be 14 months in a few days. I started to potty train because I was changing so many dry diapers. Actually I switched from Pampers Ultras to Luv’s because I felt like I was wasting money. She knows when she pees, poops because she stops dead in her tracks with playing and does it. So I just started to make a new habit since I am a working mother. Every morning, after daycare, after dinner, and before bed sit her on the potty. I have toys in a bin for her to play with. Sometimes I feel like that is the only place we have quiet time to play. We have been doing it more and more over the past month and she gets it. Yeah she still goes in her diaper here and there when we are running around but being a working mom I can’t have the usual fits with my child that my friends have, our time together is not much and I like to keep it positive. We are creating a habit that she will need to know for the rest of her life. Why not start young it is just having paitents to sit on the floor and if she does it good! If not whatever! This readiness thing well, my daughter was not ready to eat when born and the doctors forced me to wake her ever 2 hours around the clock for 7 days. Its like anything else they don’t know it until they practice it.
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