Second take - Input requested: Potty training
If I remember correctly from your blog, your oldest daughter and my daughter are about the same age (she is 2.5). She is not potty trained yet, and with baby #2 due at the end of the year, I'd really like to focus on potty training soon and get her out of diapers. I've been looking online, and there are tons of websites out there that promote their method really working. I was wondering - did you use any particular 'method'? Or do you just have any tips for what worked for you? And around how long did it take for you? -TI recently mentioned in the comments section that Kathrynne was potty-trained. From that little comment, I have received numerous requests like the above email begging for hints and tips and tricks on how to potty train. Honestly, I feel less than qualified to answer any of these since it took me much longer than I would have liked with Kathrynne, and I fell off the bandwagon more than once and lost precious ground. However, for those interested, you can read more about what we did here.
I posted asking for input from readers on this back in May (read the responses here), but since this seems to be a topic that a lot of moms are searching for answers and help with, I'm asking for input on this again from all you experienced mommies who didn't get a chance to share your secrets the first time around. I'm sure I could learn some tips for next time around along with the other moms who have written me struggling with this.
posted by Crystal Paine at 10:00 AM
14 Comments:
I'm like you, Crystal... I certainlly don't feel like an expert in the potty training department! Our oldest daughter, who is now 3 1/2, wasn't the easiest child to potty train, but we finally got there! I hope things will be a little smoother with daughter #2, who is now 14 months old. There is an interesting article on potty training that I recently read in No Greater Joy magazine... just go to www.nogreaterjoy.org and click on the link "Potty Time".
~Kristy Howard~
Crystal,
I've gone back and labelled my potty training posts to create a new category dedicated to potty training on my blog. Every child is different, and I'm certainly no expert, but maybe our experience will prove helpful to others.
I have 3 boys so far trained--I hear boys take longer or start later than girls--but my boys all trained around the age of 3--My biggest advice is to wait till you see signs they are ready--children will begin to hide behind objects, like furniture or doors when they are having BM. That was always my big indicator. But once they did that I can honestly say it took less than a few days and they were done. My 3rd son really sort of trained himself--He just said I want to go potty and wear big boy pants. (I think he wanted to be like his big brothers!) I put them on him and he needed no "training" It was rather amazing. My oldest son did suffer for many years with bedwetting. It truly can be a bladder problem. He is a heavy sleeper but also has an easily agitated bladder--we would avoid juice, popcycles, and chocolate after 6 p.m. But my other two sons totally had no problem with bedwetting--Each kid is different and you will soon find this out if you haven't already :) They are each so special and unique. Just be patient and positive--We all get it eventually!
If your child is like mine (a lot of boys are) and likes to take apart things and see how things work, the best "reward" we've found is to let him see the inner workings of the toilet tank if he stays dry.
That's the key for us, too....we reward for staying dry between potty visits, not for actually going to the bathroom in the potty. It takes the pressure off somewhat (to "perform").
Good luck to you all!
- Meg
Crystal,
My daughter is 3 and has now been potty trained for 3 weeks. By trained I mean that she notices when she needs to potty and goes to the toilet on her own and takes care of her business independently. She wears a pull-up when we go out and when sleeping, and usually wakes up dry and has no accidents.
We have been encouraging her to go on the toilet for quite some time and she was aware when she needed to go - but by the time she told us, it was too late. She was all talk and little action. We postponed serious potty training until after she was 2.5 years old because that is when we traveled to China to adopt her little brother. With all that change, we didn't want to add additional stress to her or the need to retrain should she regress (which she did a little).
A friend suggested I read a book called "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" by Nathan Azrin, and we used the bulk of his suggestions to finally train our daughter. It took her a little over one day to get the knack of it. She was finally ready (and boy was I ready!), and we just had to bite the bullet and do it. It has been such a blessing and she is tickled pink to be wearing big girl panties now!
I hope this is helpful somewhat.
Blessings,
K. Hewett
I was very frustrated when I began potty training my son. So I began researching potty training and a common theme seemed to be praise and positive reinforcement. I came across a website called www.pottytrainingrewards.com. We hung it in the kitchen and named the little boy on the front of the package, Bobby. My son could not wait to go to the potty so he could push the button, hear the praising message, and get his chocolate reward from, Bobby. It really got my son excited about using the potty himself and it was fun for him. Because he became so involved, potty training was easy. I took a chance with this product and it turned out to be amazing. My son was using the toliet the very first day. So give it a try. Best of luck!
I am of the opinion after helping toilet train some of my siblings and three out of 4 boys, wait until they are really ready. It is so much easier! It may be 18 months or it may not be until they are 3.5, but it is so much easier than pushing them sooner. I read a thing about potty training about the brain, and I cannot remember now, what exactly it is, but there is something that in development that has to happen in order for a child to be able to regulate bathroom signals. It can happen at all different ages for different children.
Things I do from the time before they are actually potty trained at all, is just set them on the toilet every diaper change and see if they can go. If they do, make a huge deal of it! My son loves it!
Check out the latest edition of "No Greater Joy". They have an article on infant potty training that is pretty worthwhile. It will also put some perspective on how to potty train toddlers or older ones too.
Here is the address (sorry it isn't linkable from here....I am NOT "really cool blog" savvy)
"www.nogreaterjoy.org"
C.A.W.
The biggest tip I can give is get a little potty chair (the toilet seat covers are for experienced potty users!) and carry it around your house so that it is always near your child. When your child has to go it is only a few steps away! When the child has better control (between 2-3 years in my personal experience) and knows what is going on move the potty chair slowly (a couple of feet each day if the child is succeeding) towards the bathroom. Use positive rewards NOT punishments or it will turn into a power struggle and the child will fight you. The most important advice I got is that your child WILL be potty trained although if may feel to you that it will never happen! My first was potty trained at 3 (power struggle!) my second at 23 months.
Hi Crystal,
We don't think we're experts by any means but wanted to share a little of what's been a blessing to our family.
Using cloth diapers is key in looking at the amazing way that God created babies to communicate their potty needs. Since we were short on money when we were expecting our first, we couldn't afford the infant potty training books being sold. We just read about other's stories online and how "they worked" things. We were also motivated by the way some friends of ours who used somewhat of the same method and were Christians. I was fascinated that their seven-month old son would crawl and tug on her skirt to potty.
We started with our first when she was a week old and a little earlier than that with our second. We felt really committed and happy to be faithful with our communicating (because it wasn't forced like some people like to think when you use the word training for potty) when our first was three months old.
I could go and on on the topic but to make a long story short, we had one poopy accident between the time that our first was 3-10 months old and that's because I wanted to sleep in just a little bit longer. So yes she pooped in her potty for over half a year without a poopy accident in her cloth diapers. It saved a lot of washing even more but there are so many rewards for all members of the family this way. Our little girl did become a crawling-tug-on-mommy's skirt to pee pee kind of baby. She actually did it on her own. When you learn about infant potty training, you learn to see how infants communicate this to you. I still remember her changing cues from twisting in my arms, to touching certain things in the house. It was truly amazing to see and experience. Babies are so smart.
We kept our first in bigger cloth diapers and she learned to pull those up and down herself and go to her own little baby bjorn potty on the floor a few months after she turned one. She was panties soon after that and could have been a lot earlier if they made them that small.
I felt lazier at times with our second because my husband was deployed so much. I could see how much time I saved with our first by being so diligent with her in the beginning. Our second was in panties shortly after she turned two.
I am pregnant now with our third and due in a couple of months, Lord willing. At first it seemed as if my husband was to deploy again shortly after our baby was born and after our experiences, I felt committed to communicating faithfully with our third as we mostly did with our first. Praise God that he is no longer deploying and we still have our cloth diapers from our first and second to use with our precious baby.
I think not only using cloth diapers but communicating early with our child on pottying has saved us thousands of dollars on diapers and wipes. We also mostly use cloth wipes. We believe this is one big aspect that has helped us to become debt free.
We hope this helps. We've been so late in posting some potty tips on our website. We're still trying to work things out with changing the look and preparing to move across the world again!
Have a great day!
Franicia
We potty trained our daughter at 2.5 yrs by taking her to the potty every 15 mins (used a timer) and then stretching it to every 20 mins (using a timer). She was trained in one 4 day weekend by taking her potty every 15 mins or every 20 mins and using a timer (which helped everyone remember) eventually we did away with the timer and she would tells us when she had to go (now she takes care it by herself unless we are out and about and then mommy takes her. She will still have an accident once in awhile esp when she is outside playing and waits too long but she is only 3. I did the reward system with ds and dd too when they went potty #1 they got 1 m&m and when they went #2 they got three m&m's. I eventually did away with this too. Also my mom (Gamma to them) took them shopping for their first pairs of big kid underware and they got to pick whatever character ones they wanted, only catch was they could not wear them until they were going on the potty all the time before that they used the generic plain training pants that mommy had for them. Great incentive esp with dd and her princess panties!
No everything will work with every child, take what works for yours and leave the rest!
What an interesting variation of opinions and comments! I will add my 2 cents worth simply because I'm in the midst of training our 3rd child. What the other moms have said is true: each child is a little different. However, we have used a little method I learned from an older mom in church, and it has worked quite well for us. When my babies were little I would always say, "Poopy" or "Pee pee" (cheerfully) when I knew they were going. It has paid off that later, they can help identify what they're doing. We schedule a week or two to be home all the time. Then I set a timer for every 10 or 15 minutes or so and go to the bathroom and "try". If no success, we try again in a shorter amount of time. We make sure the child drinks lots of water to ward off frustration by haveing to just sit and wait. We literally do this all day, reading books, singing happy songs and giving lots of praise. Day after day doing this brings recognition of the process and helps a child realize they have some control to when their "stuff" gets let out. I tend to think using undies at that point is a lot better than using pull-ups because the child can see the accident and feel it. Child #3 has been a breeze, but it also helps to have bigger siblings to emulate. As a side note, after seeing my sister-in-law very successfully toilet train her less-than-a-year-old baby, I am conviced we could save ourselves a lot of battling later on by simply taking the time to train earlier. I used to think this would be a tremendous burden with other children in the house (maybe it would be...haven't tried it yet but hope to with baby #4), but if we're mamas at home anyway, why not?? Hope something here is useful. Enjoy your children! Christy W.
I tried potty training my daughter from the time that she was 18 months. It was very frustrating and I just stopped doing it. Any amount of pressure at all--and to her, just asking her to sit on the potty was extreme pressure--just made her very upset.So, I just kept her in diapers and occaionally asked her if she wanted to go. Then recently one Sunday, she just decided she wanted to go potty. She's 3.5, which is much older than I anticipated her to be when she would be potty trained. However, there hasn't been one night accident and I attribute that to letting her go at her own pace.
I am the third out of ten children, so really have helped do the potty training. My mother started once the baby's head wasn't wobbly anymore, and then pottied them when they woke and after she nursed them. They all made up there own little cue for needing to go potty. One of my sisters was allergic to plastic pants so she really needed training fast as we had to triple diper her which made lots of laundry. She was in regular pantys before she was a year. Most all the rest were in them by a year or in training pants they could pull down.
My Grand Aunt told Mom that her children were trained by the time they were one, but she didn't belive her till she actually had children of her own that she practiced early training on.
The manufactures are just trying to fool parents it can't be done till later and later because they want to sell a product. Hence there isn't much out there anymore to teach our generation the tips on training babies to use potty
I plan on starting my children young if God, so blesses me with a family of my own someday.
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