Top Potty Training Tips and Tricks
Written By Parents For Parents
By Michelle Newbold
© Budding Books 2012
Copyright Notice
First Published in 2012 in Great Britain by Budding Books at Smashwords
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted by any means save with the written permission or accordance with the provision of the Copyright Act of 1956 (as amended). Any publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Copyright © Budding Books 2011
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Laura and Simon’s Story: Don’t compare yourself with others
Penny’s Story: View life through your child’s eyes
Stephen’s Story: There may be another way
Jackie’s Story: Use rewards for celebrating success
Richard and Sarah’s Story: Time for the toilet man
Samantha’s Story: Don’t let setbacks put you off
Oscar and Bridget’s Story: Patience
Nicola’s Story: Visit the Library
Rachel and Geoff’s Story: Communication is key!
Sophie’s Story: Familiarity made it easier.
Jonathan’s Story: It’s nothing like how I imagined
Paula and Mike’s Story: Too soon is too stressful
Wendy’s Story: Been there, done that, got the T shirt
Anthony’s Story: Rewards worked for me.
Tracy’s Story: Ignore the outside pressure
Darren’s Story: Make up your own fairy story
Bonus Section:
Introduction
So you find yourself in the throws of trying to potty train your reluctant toddler in preparation for the next step in their life – attending pre-school or day nursery – but you are either struggling to encourage your wilful toddler out of nappies, or this is your first baby, and you have never done this before, and you don’t know where to start.
This useful guide came about through the kind cooperation of a bunch of mother’s and fathers who have been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt.
The potty training tips and tricks contained in this book are actual methods used by parents to get their toddler nappy-free, and into pants. Just remember that each child is different, so what works for one child may not work for another, but hopefully there are enough tried and tested methods in here to give you something that works for you and your little one.
Each of our contributing parents tell you in their own words their potty training story, some of which are quite amusing, but in the end you see how they overcome the obstacles they face, and go on to potty training success.
Some of our parents also offer up their advice to you, the reader, in the hope that you can benefit from their experience.
Don’t compare yourself with others
Laura: Being first time parents to our son Ben, we had absolutely no idea how to tackle the potty training phase on our son’s life.
We had no close friends with babies and young children at the time, and being the oldest of three sisters, I was the first to dive into married life and have a baby.
My mother gave some advice of course, but she had to deal with cloth nappies with all three of us, and I believe that a soggy or dirty cloth nappy is far more uncomfortable for a baby to wear than today’s disposable nappies with the stay-dry linings, so Ben wouldn’t complain about being wet like we did with our mother.
Simon searched on the internet and found a book about potty training in 3 days, so we purchased it with idea that we would potty train him over a weekend when Simon could be home to help.
Simon is a very hands-on dad, and he had always done night feeds and changing nappies from day one, so I was glad he wanted to get involved with potty training too. I do believe that potty training can be a very stressful time for a parent, so having the support of a partner can really help take some of the pressure off, especially for a first-time mum like me.
Well, we tried potty training in three days with Ben. Well, technically we only tried one day of potty training in three days. We only made it through the first day, because it became clear that Ben was not physically ready. So we thought, hmmm…. we are going to have to come up with another idea!
Although the techniques in the book were good, and based on sound principles, we just thought Ben wasn’t quite physically ready to do the training, and maybe the book would work well with a slightly older toddler with a bit more bladder control.
The positive thing at this stage was that Ben would tell us when he had just done a wee into his nappy, so we knew he was aware of what we were trying to do, we just had to encourage him to hold onto it, and tell us when he needed to go so we could whip out the potty for him.
Simon and I talked it over, and we decided to encourage Ben to keep on telling us when he had done a wee, and to encourage him to tell us when he needed a poo so we could let him sit on the potty in the hope of catching something.
I knew Ben always had a wee first thing in the morning when he woke up, so as Simon got up for work before me, and usually Ben would hear him and wake up too, Simon would go into Ben and sit him on his potty while he chatted to him.
In just three days it became a kind of routine that Ben was used to, so even if he woke before either Simon or me, he would wait until Simon put him on the potty before having a wee.
I was absolutely thrilled that our routine was working, even if it was only for one wee in the morning.
I think it was after ten day or so of our morning routine when Ben was busy playing with some building blocks, when he suddenly stopped playing, stood up and said to me “mummy, I need a poo”. So I quickly pulled out the potty I kept behind the sofa, and he did his first ever poo in the potty!
I was so happy, and praised Ben for being such a good boy. We then made a large chart from a sheet of card, and I drew a smiley face on for that day, and we stuck the chart on the fridge door. Ben then knew that every time he used the potty for a poo he would get another smiley face on the chart.
There were times when we couldn’t use a potty, such as while out shopping, you can’t exactly pull out a potty for your child to do his business while in the middle of a busy shopping centre for example, but on the whole it worked well at home, or when visiting friends where I could take a potty with me.
Over the next few weeks we tried to help Ben learn that there are times when he can and, even, should use the potty. We put Ben on the potty each time he woke up, whether from a nap or overnight. We put him on the potty before he went to sleep. We also sat him on the potty right before we left to go out anywhere.
We hoped that by providing him with several opportunities a day that came at predictable times, Ben would start to learn how to control his bladder and choose when to use the potty.
While we were not successful at potty training in three days, I learnt that children will develop at their own speed, and while I hear of other parents having their child potty trained as young as 18 months, I know I did what was right for Ben, and although it took us three months instead of three days, we did it in a way that was least stressful for all three of us.
My advice to any parent reading this who is thinking about potty training their toddler would be not to compare yourself or your child with others. Just because an expert in a book says you can potty train a child in three days, does not mean that should be able to. Just relax, and do it in your own time.
View life through your child’s eyes
Penny: I was sitting in the doctors surgery waiting for my appointment, and browsing through some of the mother and baby magazines you find there.
I read the advice saying if your child is two to three years old, it is time to consider potty training. This struck a chord with me as my daughter, Heather, was just coming up to two years old.
Many parents are confused as to how they should go about making their child use a potty, and kids are often hesitant to swap their nappies for a potty or toilet. I certainly was, so the next time I saw our Health Visitor, I decided to ask her advice.
My Health Visitor was a lovely woman who had raised three children herself, so she seemed to know what she was talking about. The best advice she gave me was to take each day as it comes, and to forget any little accidents that had happened the day before.
Heather certainly would be oblivious to any accident from the day before, so she told me I should be the same.
I never forgot this advice, and I managed never to get stressed out by little accidents, which I also think helped Heather too as she never became anxious about my reaction when they happened.
Before I started potty training with Heather, we went to the library and took out some fun children’s picture books about the subject. There are more books on the subject than I ever thought possible, and they are presented in a way that your child can understand, and makes the process look like fun even before you start.
We read these books together each night for about a couple of weeks before we actually started to potty train.
In the two weeks we were reading these books together, I introduced a potty to Heather. I had purchased one to show her, and even let her choose a second potty for her to keep upstairs. She picked a bright pink one – she is such a girl!
The potty we kept downstairs was stood in the corner of the living room in full view at all times. I let Heather play with it whenever she felt like it, and was very pleased to see that after only two days of having it and reading the potty books that she began to sit her teddies and dollies on the potty, copying the characters from the books we were reading.
At about this time I switched from using regular nappies to the pull-up kind that Heather thought were very grown-up, and she delighted herself by constantly pulling them up and down, just like real pants.
It didn’t take her long to realise that she could pull down her nappy and sit on the potty just like the child in the potty book did, so without me even trying to get her to sit on the potty, Heather took that step all by herself.
I was absolutely thrilled of course, even though for most of the time she sat on the potty without producing anything. She even took to sitting on the potty to eat her milk and biscuits!
I believe the first few times Heather actually did a wee in the potty were probably quite by accident, as she just happened to be sitting on it at the time. But she was quite clearly delighted when she produced something, and would pick up the potty and run to show me, spilling the content across the floor in the process.
No one said it was going to be a clean process!
After about a month Heather was successfully using the potty regularly, but I did keep her in pull-ups as well, especially when we went out shopping, or to visit her nanny.
Heather would still need nappies at night, and I was not quite ready to attempt to get her into pants until I knew she could stay dry at night.
This became quite a routine for us, and gradually over the course of about 6 weeks Heather was having more and more dry nappies in the morning. So I took the step to swap the pull-up nappies for proper pants, not just for the daytime, but for night-time as well.
Heather was really keen to wear her ‘big girl pants’ and it was hilarious watching her flash her knickers at all my family and friends for the first couple of weeks of wearing them.
Yes – there were some accidents, especially when Heather was really absorbed in playing, or modelling with play dough, but 90% of the time she was dry and successfully using the potty.
I have friends who went through potty training their children, and they read every ‘expert book’ on the market. Most of them ended up becoming really stressed about it all, and wondering why their child was not responding like the books said they should.