So potty training is the hardest part about parenting a toddler. That and when they get a sassy mouth and start saying no all the time. Pass the soap, please.
Here is my take on potty training. We are still not completely potty trained. But luckily I pay attention so when I see him grabbing his behind or his pants, I can yell "Runnnn" and it avoids most accidents. We still have several accidents a week though.
I originally thought that potty training was over and done with when one day, Andrew would say no matter where we were "I have to go potty" and then he would either go himself if at home or I would take him if we were in a store. Ha ha. That didn't happen nor does it happen now. I am going to abbreviate potty training to "pt" from here on out.
1. PT when your child is able to pull down his own pants. Otherwise, you will have to rely on him telling you or you will just have to make him do it all the time which makes you the one trained, not the child. Why do this when diapers are more convenient? My mom insists that you should PT when they are 2.5 and she won't accept that we should just disagree on this point. I don't see the point if they are not able to pull down their pants and go on their own.
2. PT in the summer when they can walk around in their underwear or wear shorts with elastic bands that they can easily pull off. I did a thing when I had Andrew walking around with no clothes but then I just found that I had to start over when I put him in clothes so I don't think I will do that again. I also am a big advocate of PTing when your schedule is less hectic. For me that is usually the summer or in May.
3. Don't wait until you think your child is ready. Although there are some children (aka girls) that will just decide that they will want to be a big kid and wear underwear, I don't think this is the case for most boys. I think boys are lazy (sorry guys). Why interrupt play time with that dumb potty thing? It's bad enough when we insist on changing their diaper.
4. Use a reward system. We used candy and stickers and both worked well. I switched to stickers when he started eating a mad amount of candy but back when he would have 1 success a day, I didn't mind using candy. We had a reward chart on the fridge and bought super cool stickers and he got excited about putting the stickers on.
5. We had pee down before poop and the poop thing took a long time. We had many many accidents before he would do it the 1st time. Once he started, we had a special box of cars for him and he would get a car for each time. After 8 times, we told him the cars were gone and congratulations for being pt-ed.
6. First week - I like the advice many gave me of load them up on juice and make them go potty every 30 minutes. Stay home for a few days and don't go out as that will just mess things up if you are constantly putting them back in diapers/pull ups. There will be many accidents. We had many accidents for many weeks. Just stick with it.
7. He started to get the hang of it at home but didn't do well out. We had a portable potty seat we took with us but it was unstable so he was still scared. So for awhile we carried the actual child potty seat in a plastic bag. Oh what a drag but it was good. If you want to not have accidents while you are out, potty before you leave home, potty when you get there, potty when you leave. When he was still having a lot of accidents, I did use a lot of pull ups but I would just try my best to keep it dry. But he knew when he was wearing a pull up so the sooner you can get him out of that the better. All kids are different but I was quick to learn that my child was not going to say "I have to go potty" when we were at Walmart. Not ever. So I have to be the diligent one when we are out.
8. Childcare - He was doing very well at home before I pulled the plug on pull ups at church. Since I know that he doesn't tell me when he has to go potty, I assumed the same at church. And since I wasn't there with him, I didn't know how often they would take him or whether they would take him or just ask him if he needed to go in which case the answer is always no. So ask your childcare workers how they handle potty training. I eventually just pulled the plug on that too and he does fine. I potty him before I take him and most of the workers make him go at least once and I stopped putting juice in his bag so he has to just drink from the water fountain.
9. If you have a boy, don't wait too long to teach him that he can pee standing up. Enlist Dad to help with this task. Since the toilets are so big in public places, I have Andrew stand on my feet and that seems to work. We told Andrew that he could "make bubbles" and he got excited about that. We use a little potty at home which he still likes to use even though he could stand up which brings me to the next point which is don't wait to long to transition from a little potty to a big potty. I still like the idea of the little potty because the big potty can be very intimidating at 1st and also you want what is easiest at 1st because they don't give you a lot of warning. All of sudden they realize "I gotta go NOW". But now Andrew is more in control and we are just going to have to make him use the big potty and he is going to complain.
10. The potty seats are wobbly and sometimes fall in. Hence one of Andrew's hesitations of using it. I like the Potty Pal Standard Toilet from Target but I haven't tried it yet. And of course you would need a step stool. For the little potty, I love my Baby Bjorn potty seat - the big one with the insertable bucket. We have had no leaks with it. We have a small one that goes in the trunk of the car.
11. Forgot about the car - I try to avoid this but sometimes it is unavoidable that there are no bathrooms and your child has to use the trunk. This is where the little potty comes in handy. Instead of dumping it out where ever I am (I think that is gross). I have a roll of paper towels and I waste a bunch of them (dont tell my tree hugger friends) but sopping up the pee and then putting the paper towels in a plastic bag or ziploc bag. Note - it's very rare that there aren't bathrooms so I have only done this once. And I actually can't even think of when I last had the potty seat in the car.
12. Naps and nighttime - This varies widely per child so don't feel societal pressure to get this done. You will know your child is ready when he has a dry diaper all the time when he wakes up. I can potty Andrew right before his nap and he will still wake up wet. And one time he put himself down for a nap (isn't that great!) and he wet himself so I know we aren't ready. On that same notion, if I think he might fall asleep in the car, I go ahead and put him in a diaper.
13. Diapers vs Pull Ups - Diapers are cheaper. If you are early in the stages and you are not going to be taking him to the potty, just use a diaper. If you are taking him to childcare and you think the worker may try, use a pull up. I found at my church in the beginning that they weren't taking him to the potty, nor were they changing his diaper so he was soaking right through the pull up so I went back to diapers for awhile. As we got more and more along, I have found that Andrew will hold it for long periods of time while we are out and while he was at church so eventually he would sometimes go to church and his pull up would be dry especially if I had pottyed him before I took him to class.
Gosh, I don't know if I have anything else to say but I have been typing forever!!
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