Potty Training

I have had tons of people ask advice on potty training. I am not an expert, unless potty training three children makes you an expert, which I doubt. Every child is unique, but there are a few universal things about potty training that you should know:
1. Every child needs to be potty trained.
2. Potty training is hard.
3. There always accidents.

I used the “potty training in a day” method with all three of mine and it worked wonderfully. That is not to say that there were no accidents, but it really worked well!

So here’s the idea:

1. You get the child prepared. This means you talk to them about potty training before you start the actual potty training process. You get underwear (lots of underwear—it’s cheap and sometimes you just want to throw it out instead of try to save it) and get the child excited about the underwear. You talk about becoming a big boy/girl and that you’re going to throw away all the rest of the diapers. You plan a start date together.
*make sure you plan the start date on a day (or two is even better) when you plan to be AT HOME for pretty much the entire day.

2. The big day is like a celebration day—their graduation from diapers! They are now a Big Boy/Big Girl! This is exciting! They wake up; you throw that last dirty diaper away together and make a big deal about putting on the undies. Don’t bother with pants—this will be a day of accidents!
*I like to cover my area carpets and major kid-traffic areas with blankets/towels that will absorb the accidents and be easily washed.

3. Push the liquids—we want lots of opportunities for practice. Water, juice, milk, whatever—just get them to drink as much as possible.

4. Every time they go on the potty, they get a little treat and lots of praise. The treat is individual to each child—something little that they love. It could be a baby tootsie roll or a little toy—it depends on your philosophies and the child’s preferences. I usually make a little prize bowl and after they go on the potty they get to choose one prize.

5. After they have done their business on the potty and picked their prize, they get to call someone on the phone and tell them that they went on the potty. (I usually prepare the most important people in their lives for this a few days in advance. Daddy, Grammies and Grandpas, aunties—whoever your child may want to share their news with. The conversation goes something like this: “hi, ____ wants to talk to you.” ____gets on the phone and says something like, “I went pee on the potty!” and the special person says something like, “wow! I am so proud of you! You are such a big boy/girl!”)



Here are some pointers and things you may need to expect:
*poopies on the potty are kind of hard (no pun intended;)—you usually only get one shot a day and that’s not very much practice. You should not be surprised if this takes few days to get it right. If necessary, the poopy prizes can be a tad bit more elaborate.

*Do not, I repeat, DO NOT get pull ups. They confuse the child. Pull ups are diapers. You are getting rid of diapers.

*It’s an important part of the learning process to feel that gross feeling of urine running down your legs. Don’t be afraid of that. They will learn much quicker if they are able to be a little disgusted. In my experience it’s a big surprise the first time this happens—they aren’t used to thinking about going to the bathroom and paying attention to the messages their body is sending. So be understanding and supportive—do not show anger and frustration at their accidents.

*Putting the child to bed in underwear is a little scary, but at this point, the child probably does not go to the bathroom all night long. Usually they hold it and urinate first thing in the morning, so it’s not as tall of an order as you might think. I usually get one of those plastic mattress covers and put it under the sheet. They are only a few dollars at Wal Mart and aren’t as uncomfortable as you might think—they are hardly noticeable at all! In my experience, my children have never wet the bed while potty training (maybe at other times, but that's another blog for another day...), so I really think most parents psyche themselves out about bet wetting for nothing.

*It will be hard "going out" with a brand new potty training child. They don’t have a long time in between “I think I have to go potty” and the actual event occurring. You need to know where all the public potties are—kind of like when you were pregnant. One thing that I learned from another mom that was largely helpful was to keep one of those baby potties in my car with wipes for emergencies. Usually you are either in your car or close to your car and the child can sit on the potty and go. You dump the contents of the potty and “wipey” it out. It saved us many times.

*In my experience about 2 weeks into this, the potty training is “old hat” and you haven’t needed to praise the child so much and have stopped the prizes and all the sudden they revert and get lazy. The accidents increase at this time. This is normal. You have to make adjustments and find new ways to encourage at this time.

*do not start potty training until you are resigned to work hard at it

any questions?