Potty Toilet Training
Before You Start Potty Toilet Training
A little bit of planning and good advice can help to reduce the frustration that often accompanies potty toilet training.
Start brainwashing your child...oh, alright then, maybe ‘brainwashing’ is too strong a word.
Say ‘educating’ if you want!
Start educating your child early on.
What we really want here is to build up some interest and excitement in your child about the joys of being independent and using the toilet.
Your child has REALLY got to want to try!
REMEMBER: Balance this enthusiam with a relaxed and stress free attitude.
No pressure, just fun and freedom for your toddler.
Here’s How To Do It:
- Buy some books on the topic of toilet training, like Fuzzy Bear's Potty Book or Let's Go Potty. Include them regularly in your daily reading pile.
- Let your child enjoy a DVD on becoming potty trained, like It's Potty Time or Bear in the Big Blue House: Potty Time with Bear.
- Leave the door open when you go to the toilet so your child can see it’s not a scary, mysterious place to be. Don’t be squeamish about this. It has real positives for your child and it won’t be forever – as kids get older just about everything adults do is gross and you’ll be surprised how quickly your kids start insisting you close the door.
- Talk about going to the toilet in a positive way. Say things like “I was speaking to Aunty Kate today and she says Jessie doesn’t need nappies during the day anymore. Isn’t that fantastic?!”
- Buy a potty so your child can see what it looks like and get used to it. They may play at going to the toilet on it; they may use it to play with their toys. Even if they decide they would rather use the big toilet from the start, it’s handy to have a low, on the floor type potty for your child to experiment with in the lead up to training.
- Buy one of those fantastic Corolle Potty Training Dolls that can “wee” and show your child how to help it to go to the potty. If it’s all going well you can take them right through the steps from “Oh, I think I need to use the potty” to pulling down clothes, “weeing”, wiping, pulling up clothes, tipping contents into the big toilet and washing hands.
- Start this process at least a month before you hope to try training your child. Two or three months would be even better. Don’t make a big deal out of it, or use any pressure. Just make it something that is part of everyday life.
- Have some friends or family with slightly older kids to stay. Younger children usually idolise older kids and will want to be just like them. Sometimes knowing that cousin Jack uses the "big toilet" is all that is needed to convince a child that ditching the diapers is a good thing.
The Best Time to Start Potty Toilet Training
The best time to start is:
- In summer – no cold toilet rooms; your child wears less clothing or even pants off!
- When life is pretty quiet – no visitors, no new babies, no one is sick, no stress.
- When your child shows an interest.
- When you and your child are getting on well.
Don’t start toilet training just because everyone says you should. Or because you want it sorted before you all go on holidays. Or because all the other kids in playgroup are.
If it’s too stressful. If your child is being really resistant and no amount of cajoling, story telling, peer pressure, praise, or treats work, then give yourselves a break!!
Maybe it’s still too early. It’s no failure to stop for a few weeks, or months and try again later. Each time you and your child try, your child learns more. They can build up their confidence and their sense of control grows.
In the meantime, keep reading them stories on the subject of going to the toilet or potty (what child doesn’t delight in anything to do with 'poo' or 'wee'?) and let them overhear conversations about how their friends are going with their toilet training.
Make sure you praise any little visitors who can use your toilet. Make it a positive thing.
But NEVER, EVER make comments like “See? Jason is only 2 and he can use the big toilet. Why can’t you do that?” Besides being incredibly hurtful for your child you’ll just increase their resistance to trying. Your child isn’t stupid. Let him overhear the praise for Jason using the toilet and work out for himself that maybe potty training is not such a bad thing after all!
Your child will work it all out in their own time.
Yes, it’s time consuming. Yes, your child will test your patience to the extreme. Yes, there will be messes, accidents and tantrums – your child may throw a couple, too!
Just remember that you will both survive it.
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