This is part three of a 3-part series on Potty Training: click here for part one, part two
(If you don’t have little ones you must be bored silly with my blog...but stick with me; I promise this is the last installment of my potty-training rant!)
In the last two posts (here and here), I wrote about our experience with the current “Potty Princess” in our home, the confounding struggle we had to get one of our boys to finally stay dry thru the night, and generally ranted about our culture’s bizarre diaper-dependency training.
Yes, if you are letting your child stay in diapers much past the age of two, you are TRAINING them to wet their pants. I’m not trying to be cruel, but let’s be honest...a three year old is walking around, talking in complete sentences, retaining long-term memories, becoming a real kid & not just a baby. Allowing him to pee his pants, while you wait for ‘readiness signs’ - is working against you. Start conducting the potty train when your child is around two, and you’ve caught her at a stage where she is just beginnng to retain skills & long-term memory, and hasn’t spent 6 or 9 or 12 months learning the habit of peeing herself.
I know, I know – everything you read in parenting magazines told you otherwise, and I wish I could apologize for them. But they aren’t sorry. They want us to believe that we need to buy bigger & bigger diapers, for another month & another...so that Huggies will continue supporting them with nice glossy ads. Ready to stop paying ‘stupid tax’ to the diaper companies?
I always felt like it was easiest to potty train in the warmer months, so our first two children with summer birthdays were out of diapers by about 22 months. Our third baby had a January birthday, and so we didn’t do potty training till Spring, when she was about 27 months. The next little one had a fall birthday, so we did his potty training during the summer, at 22 months. However, our fifth child, with a February birthday, was kind of a potty genius...begging to use the ‘big-boy-potty’ when he was just 18 months...so he was completely out of diapers by 20 months. Yeah, that was a little weird.
Funny story about him:
We were shopping in City Market when Canyon was about 18 months, just beginning to string together words, and starting his phase of wanting to go potty like big brother Ian.
He’s sitting up front in the cart, in a diaper, like any regular 18-month old baby, and starts saying, “go potty, go potty, go potty!”
I’ve a cart full of groceries, am trying to keep 3-year old Ian in check, and in no mood to hold his tiny bottom over an icky public toilet.
Me: “Canyon, you don’t need to go potty.”
Canyon, louder: “potty, potty, GO POTTY, Mommeeeee...”
Me, exasperated: “Canyon, just pee in your diaper like a normal baby!”
Canyon, emphatically: “I NOT normah baby, Mommy! I ‘Canon Josha Meeyer’!”
So now we're there with Serene... 'Cause of having two in diapers (baby Nekoda is 8 months old) I was super motivated to get her using the toilet, so we did her potty training in July, when she was 21 months.
And here’s the truth: despite different temperaments, circumstances, maturity levels, boy or girl, all the children were ready before the age of two.
Most healthy children are ready to use the potty anywhere from 18 months to 28 months. Forget about so-called ‘readiness signs’ – if your child can walk, respond, and answer a simple yes or no – they are ready.
Here’s how we CONDUCTED THE POTTY TRAIN:
Carve out FOUR FULL DAYS – minimum – where your entire focus is potty training. Take a 4-day weekend or whatever you need to do, cancel any appointments, skip church, don’t run any errands. This is intense training!
Prep for about 3-4 days prior:
~ go shopping with little one to pick out big-kid underwear or panties (at least 8),
~ talk about how fun it will be to start potty-training,
~ make or buy a special juice (ours only drank water, so any juice was a treat),
~ have a special sippy cup,
~ select a ‘reward’ treat for successes,
~ make sure you have a stopwatch or watch with timer,
~ purchase or pull out the potty seat or insert, etc...
(we never used separate potty seats – just used one of those little padded inserts, right on the big potty, with a step-stool for little legs – so no mess to clean up & no weird transition to big potty later)
~ oh – and NO pull ups!! Those are concessions for naps & night time only!!
DAY ONE –
“Good morning, little one! Let’s get rid of that yucky diaper - today is the day you get to wear big boy underwear! Here you go...aren’t they handsome... And here is your special juice, in your new cuppy...wow, what fun!”
~ Make sure there are toys & fun things in a confined area where you won’t freak if he pees on the floor. It will happen!
~ Set your timer for 10 minutes. When it beeps, put him on the potty, with lots of excitement & encouragement. He probably won’t go yet. Just say, “good try! We’ll go again in a few minutes.”
~ Timer set for 10 minutes again. Put him on the potty. Encouragement, excitement...and if success, wahoo! He gets a teeny treat! Could be stickers, a chocolate chip, raisin, whatever – but there is an immediate reward.
~ Refill his special juice (yes, you’re trying to keep his little tank full, full, full), and keep up the 10 or 15 minute intervals till lunchtime. You don’t ask if he needs to potty...you put him there, no options. But really, he’ll eventually get excited when the timer beeps, cause its another potty opportunity!
~ Obviously there are going to be accidents. Usually within the first half-hour. And quite a few more times in the first couple of days. Thus, I try to do our potty training in warm weather, so little one is in t-shirt & underwear, and the ‘oops’ isn’t that big of a deal. Even after the 4th or 5th puddle of piddle, it doesn't mean your train needs to derail! Always, always immediately take your little one directly to the potty after the accident – to reinforce that pee goes in the potty. (unless you have crawlers or other kids who will get into it, clean the mess up after you sit him on the potty for a second or two)
~ Remember this is training, and you are teaching your child to have success going potty, by filling their bladder, taking them frequently, and celebrating each little tinkle. You’ve got to keep resetting that timer, so you don’t forget...several accidents in a row will be demoralizing for you and for little one.
~ In the afternoon you can begin to stretch out the intervals, and it's likely even the very first day, your child will begin to tell you when they need to go potty.
~ We used pull-ups ONLY for naps & bedtime, and even then, treated them like big-kid pants, pulling their cloth panties or underwear over the pull up, for the child’s perception of being a big-kid-now.
DAY TWO -
“Good morning, little one! Oh-oh, those big boy pants are wet...but you’ll learn to keep them dry soon! And remember, today you get to wear big boy underwear again! Here you go...aren’t they handsome... And here is your special juice, in your new cuppy...wow, what fun!”
~ Basic repeat of day one – except that you will gradually space out the intervals of putting your child on the potty.
~ Again – remember, you are not waiting for him to tell you, and you are not asking if he needs to go – you simply take him to the potty at frequent intervals, all the while keeping his bladder full, so that he is being trained in potty success.
~ Always reward that success immediately with the little treat, sticker, or whatever...and don’t punish the accidents, just quickly take him to the potty, then clean up & put on dry pants. If you are pushing fluids & taking him frequently, he’ll have a successful tinkle very soon.
DAY THREE –
Yup, it’s like ‘Groundhog Day.’
~ Basically the same thing, with gradually increased intervals. You should be able to set the timer for 30 or even 45 minute intervals now. If he isn't going at least every hour, you need to keep him more hydrated!
~ Remember - you are not waiting for him to tell you, and you are not asking if he needs to go – you simply take him to the potty at frequent intervals, all the while keeping his bladder full, so that he is being trained in potty success.
~ Now it's time to introduce a minor consequence for any accidents. No shaming, no major discipline – but little one needs to understand that peeing on the floor is a “no-no!” For all of our kids, that was all it took; a frown, and a stern, “no-no! Peepee goes in the potty! You don’t pee in your pants!” Then take him to the potty, reminding him where it’s supposed to go...and insist on his help with the clean up. Some kids enjoy this, but most think it is yucky.
DAY FOUR –
By now your little one should be chugging along with the potty train, and today is when you transition away from being the conductor of the potty train, and allow him to conduct it. In other words, put those big boy underwear on him, keep that sippy cup full, but turn off the timer. Obviously you are still 100% focused on potty training, so you need to be watching for signs that he needs to go...ask frequently, and sometimes just go plop him down on the potty...but you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that he is happy to let you know when he needs to go, and still excited about the process of success & reward.
NAPS & BEDTIME –
~ For my oldest three kids I actually put a diaper on them at naps & bedtime. They were the quickest to eventually stay dry during sleep times. As I write this, I’m wondering if it was because they wanted to be done with those ‘baby’ diapers and only wear big-kid pants.
~ I used pull-ups at naps & bedtime for the next three...and they were all a bit slower to stay dry (or downright delayed, with one of them). You can read in part two, how we learned the hard way that lack-of-training to stay dry thru the night was actually passive training to wet the bed.
~ Here is a trick we tried with Canyon, and will now start with Serene:
Put their very favorite big-girl panties on UNDER the pull-up. That way she will feel it immediately when she wets the bed, and will be sad to have soaked those fancy princess-pants. If the big-kid pants are dry when she wakes up – woohoo, a treat! If they are wet, oh bummer, into the laundry, and she has to wear those plain, drab, white panties. What a disappointment. No shame, no punishment, just a natural cause & effect.
TRANSITION BACK INTO LIFE –
This is sometimes the hardest couple of days. If you have errands to run, or work commitments, caregivers stepping into the picture...you’ve got to fight for consistency in taking little one potty. Even 2 or 3 days of failure, and you’re almost back to ground zero. Whatever you do, DON’T wimp out & put him in pull-ups for that outing or first day back in preschool! That will be training him to pee his pants again! Let the caregiver know, pack a change or two of clothes, and allow some natural-leaning failure for the first week or two. As with any training process – there will be some backsliding & stumbling along the way – let him experience natural consequences, rejoice with his successes, and he will quickly learn.
A disclaimer about ‘late’ potty training:
If your child is already past 30 months, this process may take longer. You have to remember that you are working against several months or more of passively training your child to wet their pants.
No, you’re not so terrible. Sadly, you’re completely in the norm: pottytrainingconcepts.com tells me that today, the average age to potty train is 30 months; webmd.com states that on average, girls are potty trained by 36 months, boys by 38 months.
So does that mean you should heave a sigh of relief and let your little guy keep pooping in his shorts? I guess so, if you are good with paying more ‘stupid tax’ dollars to build another floor on the Pamper’s high-rise. And if you are good with facing a much, much harder battle of wills with a stubborn, completely diaper-dependent 3-year old. Waiting to potty train till junior shows those proverbial 'readiness signs' just doesn’t pay off. Our society reveals that fact. Just check out the diaper aisle at Walmart. Fifteen years ago, size 6 diapers didn’t even exist.
Not to mention the fact that when I volunteer in the church nursery I am beyond disgusted to have to wipe poop off of some 30 pound kid’s much-too-big-for-a-diaper rear end.
Okay, ‘nuff said.
Way more than enough.
I’ve still got one in diapers, and another to train how to stay dry thru the night –
not an easy task...so I’m on this journey with you!!!
Please, post any suggestions and tactics that have worked for you...
or any questions & frustrations you have along the way.
This is part three of a 3-part series on Potty Training: click here for part one, part two
