Before getting pregnant with Rosen, I had this ideal, that somehow I would get Bastian potty trained before the baby came. Because wouldn’t it be nice to only pay for diapers for one child? Bastian was just over two when Rosen was born, and I didn’t feel like getting him potty trained in the last months of my pregnancy. But, we potty trained him shortly after, and I want to share my tips to help you potty train your toddler!
Let them tell you when they’re ready
This is something that everyone tells you. “Let your toddler tell you when they’re ready to potty train if you want it to be easy!” And I’m here to say….that’s probably your best bet, in most situations. When I was first pregnant, I tried to force it on him. I got him a little seat, and would let him sit on the toilet on his tablet to encourage him to use the toilet. And it didn’t work. I was bummed, but I didn’t want it to be a negative experience, so I backed off.
A few months after Rosen was born, I was sitting on the couch with Bastian, when he turned to me and said “Mom I need to potty”. I was surprised but I picked him up and dashed to the toilet, set up his seat, and put him on the toilet. I was honestly kind of shocked when he just…peed. In the toilet.
No pants for a weekend
I made sure that the house was a comfortable temperature for him, and I kept his pants off for the next few days(except for sleeping). No pants, no underwear.
Ask them if they need to use the potty every hour
I set a timer on my phone, so I wouldn’t forget. Every hour I asked him to go potty. If he was in the middle of something, I would pause what he was watching/playing, so he wouldn’t feel like he was missing anything but taking time to use the toilet. If he had accidents, I would increase how often I asked him to go to the toilet until he stopped having accidents. Then, we went back to an hour.
Explain that they need to listen to their body
That first day, after he had used the toilet a few times and I realized that we were committing to potty training, I sat down and talked to him about listening to his body. I explained that his body would let him know when he needed to use the toilet. And that he just needed to tell me, and I would take him. He knew that it was uncomfortable to have an accident, even without underwear on, and didn’t have very many accidents those first few days.
Pants, no underwear
After about 5 days of no underwear(you may not need this long! I was nervous to introduce pants) he started wearing pants. Honestly, the reason for this was because he had a play date planned on day 5(this was last year, pre COVID) and I obviously did not want him to not wear pants during his play date. But I knew that the security and closeness of underwear could make him feel a little too comfortable, like a diaper, and I wanted to prevent accidents if I could. He had more accidents the first few days of wearing pants then he did the last few days of no pants. But after a few days of pants, when the accidents stopped, we made the switch.
Underwear with their favorite characters makes a big difference
It really does. If you can take your child to Target with you to pick out underwear with their favorite characters on them, they will get excited about it. We started with non character underwear, but he had less accidents in his “favorite” underwear when we did get him some. So if your toddler is still having a lot of accidents, I would recommend giving this a try!
One of the hardest parts of potty training for me, was taking him out of the house. I didn’t want him to have an accident when we weren’t at home. The first few times, I put him in a pull up when we left the house. He always came home with a dry diaper, so we started going on short outings in his underwear. I’d always ask him to go potty before we left, and would offer the potty as an option when we got to our destination before heading home. I never forced him to go, if he told me he didn’t need to.
The only time he ever had an accident out was after falling asleep in the car. He woke up, and peed immediately. Other than that, he’s never had an accident when he’s been out!
I truly think the key is to take cues from your kid when they are ready. On top of that, being patient with them. It’s been almost a year since he was potty trained, (about 9 months) and he still sometimes has accidents. He still wears pull ups to bed. It’s a journey and every child will learn at a different pace! Try to keep it a positive experience for your child!
I never thought I would write the word “potty” so much in a blog post, but here we are.