Tag Archives: potty training

A Tale of Three Potty-Training Experiences

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On every online parenting forum, you’ll see parents who post questions about potty-training, and other parents leap in to share their experiences. The wise ones say “here’s how it worked for me, but your experience may be different.” But that message can get drowned out in “just do it MY way, and it will go great.” Or they may share stories of on-going, exhausting battles.

For a first-time inexperienced parent, it can feel overwhelming. It may feel like “I don’t know what the right answer is!!” And the answer is that there is no one right answer. Like all things with our children, what works depends on: their temperament, our temperament, their motivation to learn and our motivation to teach, plus circumstances in our environment.

As a parent educator, I’ve read countless books and articles, and talked to countless parents about this process. I’ve summarized my best advice in this one-page summary, or in the long version. I also address the 20% of kids who refuse to poop in the potty.

In this post, I’ll share stories from my personal experiences of how this can play out. I have three different children, and three different potty-training journeys, so I’m definitely not telling you any “right answers” here, just the range of what you may experience.

Child #1: At a fairly young age (probably around 2), she could keep her diaper dry for hours. She could pee in the potty when I put her there. She could poop in the potty. She had good body awareness, so knew when she was doing something. So, most of the skills were in place. But… she lacked motivation. She was a child who was very engaged in her play – she had an incredibly long attention span where she would stay focused on what activity for a very long time. She didn’t like transitioning from her chosen activity to other activities. So, if she was in the middle of something and needed to poop, she’d just do it there in her diaper. She didn’t want to interrupt her play to go to the potty. Sometimes she needed to pee badly enough that she was rocking her bottom back and forth, but if we asked her if she needed to use the potty, she’d just say “I fine. I fine.” In other words “leave me alone – I have more important things to do than go to the potty.” I think we tried some motivational things along the way like stickers, but it wasn’t enough. So, when she was 3, I bought a cool dollhouse and some fabulous big girl underwear. I put them in the closet, showed them to her, and said “whenever you’re ready to start using the potty ALL the time, you can have these. But once you have these, we’re not going back, OK? It will be no more diapers from then on. So, you decide when you’re ready for that.” I closed the closet and walked away. She went to use the potty, and was potty-trained from that moment forward. Now again, remember this was a child who already had all the skills in place to make this move. This was just the final motivation to commit to a new way of toileting, even if that meant interrupting her play.

Child #2: She pretty much trained herself. We were busy and didn’t have a lot of time to worry about it, or nag her about it, but it just happened. She’d follow us into the bathroom and follow her sister into the bathroom, so she knew how it all worked. As she got older, she’d pull down her own clothes and sit on the potty, and was soon peeing into it successfully. We talked about it, and praised her for it, but it wasn’t a big deal. We didn’t require that she use the potty, but she generally chose to do so, and I think she totally gave up diapers at around 2 years 9 months.

I think part of this was having a big sister to watch. But, a big part of it was her temperament. She was (and is) an independent child who likes to be seen as mature and competent and doesn’t like to burden others. She liked taking care of her own needs.

Child #3. When he was 2.5 years old, we thought we were on the verge of potty training. His bladder control was perfect. He could keep his diaper dry for hours until he got to a potty. He was dry overnight. He wasn’t pooping in the potty yet, but we figured that would come soon.

He finally pooped in the potty for the first time a year later at 3.5 years old!

He had one week of doing it consistently. Then he stopped.

The next time he pooped in the potty, was a year after that. He was 4.5 years old!

In that full two year period, he had perfect bowel control and predictable bowel patterns. He would choose to poop in his diaper every afternoon, when he was alone for naptime. He went to a preschool that required potty training, and we explained our circumstances. We told them that they would never need to deal with it, and sure enough, he never peed or pooped in his diaper at preschool the whole year. He saved it till he was home for nap time.

Why wouldn’t he poop in the potty? I wish I knew! We tried to figure out if it was fear or aversion or if he’d had a painful poop that scared him or what. We never knew. We tried to motivate him in a lot of ways. We tried offering stickers and candy and so on. But, although he would sit on the potty for us, no poop ever came out. We gave him privacy, we tried to help him feel safe. We tried having him sit on the potty with his diaper on to see if he could poop if the diaper was on. Nothing worked. You just can’t get someone to poop on command. When he reached 4.5 we started having occasional success which we rewarded and praised. We went on a road trip, and were afraid we would lose progress when we were away from home, but instead, that was when he finally potty trained. We did give him rewards for each poop, but I don’t think that was the reason he did it. I think he was just finally ready to do it, and the rewards were a nice perk.

By a few weeks after that, he was pretty much independent. He knew when he needed to pee or poop. If we were out of the house, he’d ask to use the potty. At home, he’d just go use it on his own whenever he needed it. He didn’t wipe himself, so that was still a learning process to go through. But huge progress at the end of a long marathon.

By temperament, he is a child who thrives on routine, and likes to do things the same way every time. So, I think he had a routine for his bowel movements and it was working for him, and it was hard for him to change to a new way of doing things. (When he got older, he was diagnosed with autism. He’s a very bright kid with strong language skills and a fair grasp of social skills, so you might not peg him as autistic, but one of the ways it manifests is that he has a really hard time with change. Here’s some advice I found later on about potty training a child with autism.)

So, we’ve tried child-led potty training, we’ve tried sticker charts, we’ve done gradual, we’ve done “Big Day”, we’ve tried a wide variety of methods. But our success depended not so much on what we did as the parents, but on our individual children and what worked for them. The best recommendation I have for other parents is: collect advice. Try the things that feel like they match your preferences and your child’s personality. If they work, keep doing them. If they don’t work, take a break for a month or so. Try not to stress about it. Try again with a new approach when you feel like you can do it in a non-stressed and supportive manner. Try not to lose faith along the way. You’ll get there eventually!

For more info, read my one-page summary of potty training, or the long version all the options for potty training. Or read about kids who refuse to poop in the potty.

Potty Training Overview

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pottyI have a fully detailed post on the potty training process, but if you prefer the short 1-pager summary, click on the image below, or view/print the Potty Training Overview.

potty training stages

Read the columns titled: Stage and “What child knows…”   Find the stage for which your child can consistently do all the things described in that second column. That tells you what your child’s developmental stage is. Then look at the third column for what you can do to help them progress to the next stage.

I hesitated to give any ages for any stage, because the age at which children reach each stage can range a great deal. It depends on gender, the child’s temperament, parent’s temperament, cultural expectations, and other external influences. Focus more on the signs that they are ready, and less on age!

More info from the American Academy of Family Physicians; American Academy of Pediatrics and the University of Michigan.

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Motivation, Punishment and Reward

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starsOur kids are always learning from us. They learn by observing as we role model a variety of skills, they learn by interacting with us as we play, and they learn when we actively “teach” them. There are many things we teach casually, and aren’t too worried about the exact timeline when our child picks up the idea. Things like covering your mouth when you sneeze, saying please, or putting their dish in the sink. There are other things though that we may have a sense are REALLY IMPORTANT, or that we believe MUST BE DONE BY A CERTAIN AGE and those are the things we tend to stress about our child learning. Potty training and reading both fit in this category for many parents. What happens when there is something we really want our kids to learn?

The first thing I’d ask you to consider: Is this skill developmentally appropriate? Can we typically expect a child of this age to learn this thing? Once you’ve learned it is appropriate, then you can consider teaching it.

Motivation

There will be many times in your child’s life where you want them to do something they don’t want to do, or there’s a skill you want them to learn because it will be valuable in the long run, but they aren’t particularly interested in learning at this moment in time. How can you help them find their own internal motivation? Potty training is one of our first chances to explore this challenge, so we’ll use it as our example.

First, consider your motivations. Why do you want your child to learn this new skill? Here are some common reasons and some examples from the potty training process.

  • Outside demands: Is it pressure from a pre-school or daycare that requires it by a certain age?
  • Peer pressure: Is it because other families are doing it, and you’re feeling peer pressure to keep up? The media and social media can also create this pressure of what our child “should” do.
  • What you do or don’t want to do yourself: Are you just tired of changing diapers? Or tired of paying for diapers? Or washing them?
  • What you want for your child: You want to encourage your child toward independence in all areas?

The clearer your motivation, and the stronger your motivation, the more time and energy you’re likely to be willing to commit to the process. Some parents actually find that they’re not actually motivated to teach a skill. For example, the diaper routine might be working for their family’s schedule and commitments. This is fine for a while, but at some point (maybe three years old for potty training?) it’s time to help your child move forward.

Then ask yourself: What are your child’s motivations? Try to view things from your child’s perspective and understand why they might not be as interested in learning a new skill as you are in teaching it.

In our potty training example: Why might a child prefer to continue to use diapers? Some ideas: they’re used to eliminating in their diaper – it’s comfortable and familiar. They may be in a state of regressing a bit, and not feeling bold enough to be ‘a big kid’. They may not like interrupting play time with trips to the potty. They might be frightened of the potty. They might be rebellious toddlers, defying their parents ‘just because.’ They might have a desire to be completely in control of their bodies. They might also have been constipated at one point, and found that it hurt to have a bowel movement, and be afraid of repeating that experience.

Then ask: What might motivate your child to use the potty? Some options are punishment or rewards…

Punishment?

It’s best not to use punishment. Punishment can definitely work in the short term, in that a child who is punished for doing something (e.g. eliminating in a diaper) may well try hard to avoid that punishment in the future (e.g. by using the potty). But it could also shame them and damage their self-esteem. And it also means that they’re doing something only to avoid punishment – not for any positive reason.

On the other hand, logical consequences are appropriate, as long as they are done without shaming. For example, having them help with clean-up after an potty-training accident allows them to see the consequences. Or taking back the big kid underwear, saying ‘it looks like you’re not ready for this yet… let’s go back to diapers for a while’, helps them to see what the goal is and what the reward is of accomplishing it.

Rewards

Many people use a sticker chart, or other reward system when they want to shape behavior. The general idea is: talk with your child about what you want them to do, tell them that when they do it they’ll get a reward. Then involve them in setting up the system: pick out the reward, or make the chart, etc. For rewards, it’s best to choose something cheap and easy to obtain, like a sticker. (Not candy.) For a toddler, the reward needs to be immediate for them to understand “when I do this action, I get this reward.” Older kids can work toward a bigger reward over time – “if I do all my chores this week, we’ll watch a movie together on Friday night.”

Make sure they are clear about what the behavior is you are working on, and be consistent about the response. For example: “if you sit on the potty, you get a sticker whether or not you pee there” may be a good first level. Later on, when they’ve mastered that step, you ask more of them: they need to actually pee or poop to get the sticker. You may choose to also have a cumulative goal to work toward, like “once you’ve pooped in the potty 10 times, you will have filled the chart, then you get a new toy.” It’s important to think of these rewards as short-term reinforcement, not an on-going system! Over time you will phase out stickers completely. Rewards can be a very effective tool for toddlers. However, you don’t want to over-use rewards! And you want to make sure the focus is on accomplishing the goal for its own sake, not on just doing something so they get a reward.

Expectations

If you regularly say “If you do this [bad thing], then I will punish you by [negative consequence]”, your child might come to feel that you expect him to do bad things and you look forward to punishing him. Instead, try “When you do this good thing then you get this [positive consequence].” Make sure your tone of voice implies that you have confidence that they will do the good thing because that’s what you expect of them.

Praise

When your child accomplishes something for the first time, definitely praise them. If it’s a HUGE accomplishment, make the praise really big. But honestly, if it’s small accomplishment, the praise can be just a quiet observation that they accomplished it. As they start repeating a skill again and again, on the way to mastery, we can fade out our praise. It feels silly and a little embarrassing to get praised for something you’ve mastered (as you know if your child has told you something like “You peed in the potty! Good job mama!”) Praise them for what they have done, and the work it took to do it.

Read more about praise here.

The Downsides to Rewards & Praise

Critics of rewards say they are a short-term solution to gain compliance with parental requests, not a long-term path to instilling the behaviors, qualities, and values you want your child to attain. And, research has found that kids who are raised on a series of rewards can become more self-centered, materialistic, reward junkies looking for their next fix from parents who can become exhausted by coming up with new rewards.

Research has also shown praise can backfire. If we continually praise our child for being “smart”, “beautiful” or “strong”, then they may be afraid to take risks – not wanting to do anything that they might not succeed at… fearing that then we will realize they’re not so smart or strong or beautiful after all – and thus not lovable. Also, when a child is vigorously praised for every little thing she does, she may not know whether praise is genuine.

Experts recommend that when you want your child to learn a new skill, think about what it is you are really trying to teach and stay focused on that. Work with your child to find their motivation for learning this new skill. As they make attempts along the way, give specific praise for their efforts and their commitment, and specific recommendations for how they might improve. The emphasis is more on the process than the product, more on the work they do than on the “talent” they have. When they accomplish a goal that they set, then it is totally appropriate to celebrate that with something (Stickers? M&M’s? A special toy?) as long as the emphasis is on the value of the accomplishment itself, not on having done whatever they needed to do just to earn the reward.

Sources on Internal Motivation, Rewards and Praise

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My Child Won’t Poop in the Potty!

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NoPottyDuring the potty training process, about 20% of children go through a phase of refusing to use the potty at all, or refusing to poop in the potty. For some the phase lasts a month or so. For others it can be a year. This is called “Toilet Refusal for Stool Only.” One scenario is a child that asks for a diaper at nap time or bed time, go in their room and poop in the diaper, and then asked to be changed. Clearly, they have bowel control, and are making a very conscious choice about when and where to poop. It’s just not the choice you wish they were making.

An important note here: I’m not talking about “stool holding” here. That’s a child who refuses to poop at all, anytime, anywhere. That’s a different issue and it’s a medical issue that can cause constipation and bowel impaction and requires different treatment (see here).

I’m talking about kids who have regular, normal poop once or twice a day, just not in the potty. And I’m especially talking about a child who you know is developmentally capable of pooping in the potty because they’ve done it in the past… they’re just not doing it anymore.

So why does a child do this?

There are lots of proposed reasons. Most won’t make sense to you as an adult, but they may be what your child is feeling.

  • Fear of Pain: They may believe pooping in the potty will hurt. This sometimes follows an episode of constipation, when it did hurt. It’s hard for them to understand that the pain won’t always happen when they poop on the potty.
  • Fear of Falling In. Fear of being Flushed down the Toilet. Using a small, non-flushing potty rather than sitting on the big toilet may help with this one.
  • Fear of Losing a Part of Themselves: Some boys fear that if the poop falls out of them and into the potty, then maybe their penis could too. I also know of a girl who was terribly frightened the one time she saw the poop coming out while she was on the potty and then getting flushed down – she feared that part of her was gone forever.
  • Hate the sound of flushing. Some children are very frightened of a loud flush. Sometimes it helps if they are in charge of flushing so they know when it’s coming. Sometimes it’s better to let them leave the room / the stall before you flush. On auto-flush toilets in public bathrooms, you can cover the sensor with your hand or a post-it note until they’re done.
  • Desire for privacy. If you’re always with them in the bathroom, and they always poop when they’re alone, try just giving them a little privacy on the potty! (On the other hand, some kids want company in the bathroom and if you’ve been trying to send them in on their own to give them privacy, maybe they’d rather have you there.)
  • Sensory issues. They’re used to the poop staying next to them as it fills the diaper. Feeling cold air on their bottom and feeling the poop fall away from them may be uncomfortable to them. An intermediate step may be to have them sit on the potty with their diaper on until they can poop there, and then remove the diaper.
  • Shame. They’ve been taught that poop is disgusting and are ashamed of it. In one study, they encouraged parents to never use negative terms for feces, and – before they start potty training – to praise children for pooping successfully in their diaper. These children might still go through a period of refusing to poop in the potty, but it was a shorter-term problem than it was for the control group in study.
  • Power struggle. Many children go through periods of rebellion, and if they learn that this really pushes your buttons, they may keep doing it to get a reaction.
  • Autism, developmental delay, or physical challenges can lead to this issue.
  • Emotional trauma or sexual abuse.
  • Temperament or Personal Preference. Some kids just like to use their diaper and see no reason to change.

Which one applies to your child? You may be able to guess, or if your child is old enough to talk about it, then ask them in a really non-judgmental open-ended way. “I notice that you always poop in your diaper and you won’t try pooping in the potty. Why is that – tell me more.” They may be able to tell you.

How NOT to respond…

Don’t punish. Don’t scold, shame, or publicly humiliate them.

Don’t show a lot of emotion about it. Be very matter-of-fact. “It looks like you pooped in your diaper again. Remember, I’d like you to use the potty. Let’s go get you changed.” Be bland and boring during the diaper change.

How do you get a child to poop in the potty?

It’s hard to make someone poop on command! And no, threats don’t work either, because when we’re scared, our sphincter muscles tighten up and it gets harder to poop.

What can you do? Here are some suggestions – don’t feel like you have to try them all. Some will feel right for you and your family’s situation. Others won’t.

  • Ask them why they don’t want to poop in potty. Address their fears. If they have any of the fears listed above, talk it over with them. Don’t expect to be able to just say “that’s a silly irrational fear” and have it go away. Take it seriously, validate it, ask them to help you figure out a plan for preventing that thing from happening.
  • Give them some motivation. Consider a reward system. Stickers? Big kid underwear? A cool toy they only have access to on days when they poop in the potty?
  • Withhold diapers. “Oops, we ran out of diapers. I guess you’ll have to use the potty.”
  • Or combine those two: say something like “This Sunday is our Happy No More Diapers Day. From then on, I want you to always poop in the potty. And hey, check out this cool doll house I got you. As long as you remember to poop in the potty, you can have it. If there’s a day when you ask for your diaper back, that’s fine. I’ll put the dollhouse away for a while.”
  • Give up for a while. Give control back to them. Say “When you’re ready, you’ll poop in the potty. Until then, I will change your diaper when you poop.” And then just go on with your life without fretting about the potty. Once a week, check in with them to see if they’re interested in giving it a try. If they say no, say “OK, I’ll ask again in a week.” Try to just relax and let the worry go in between those checks. In one study where parents “gave up” on potty training, then 24 out of 27 kids started using the toilet spontaneously within three months.

Constipation

Your child may have some short-term issues with constipation. You should expect to see at least one stool a day, about the size of a small banana, and fairly soft. If your child is only passing small hard stools that hurt to poop, that’s constipation. Make sure they drink plenty of water, eat plenty of high fiber foods, and get lots of physical activity to help making bowel movements regular and easy to pass. If constipation persists or recurs often, check in with your child’s doctor.

Sources:

How to Deal with Your Child’s Stool Toileting Refusal; Toilet Training Problems; Toilet Training and Toileting Refusal – a Prospective Study; Toilet Training Resistance.

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Potty Training

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Stages of potty training

The process of moving from eliminating only in a diaper to being fully potty trained can be divided into several stages. These stages, and the approximate age when children may be ready for them are:

1. Body awareness: Learning what pee and poop are, noticing internal cues that they need to eliminate. Children in this stage may not seem to notice elimination or only notice after it has happened and their diaper is wet or poopy.

  • If a family has practiced elimination communication (aka diaper-free) since birth, potty training may come quite early, because parents are used to watching for their child’s cues, and the child is used to going to the toilet as soon as they have an urge to eliminate.
  • For families that diaper, you may have talked to them about these ideas on occasion since infancy. Discussing it more as they near potty training age will help with this stage.
  • Teach them words for their body parts and products, and help them notice when they have eliminated: “your diaper is wet because you peed.”

2. Potty awareness: Learning what a potty is and what it’s for. Children learn by talking about it and by watching others. You might also read them books or show videos that discuss toilet use.

  • Many children have a surge of interest in the potty around 16 to 24 months. That is a fine time to buy a potty and start practicing, with no real expectation or pressure to begin using it.

3. Practicing: Trying out the potty on a regular basis, with occasional success. A child’s physical maturity and readiness skills (see below) generally appear between 18 and 30 months. Once your child is having a reasonable chance of success when using the potty, and is showing many of the readiness signs, you’re ready to move on to potty training in earnest. Many experts recommend that, if they have not already done so, parents begin a focus on potty training around 2½ years (30 months)

4. Potty training till child is primarily using potty: Goal is that during the day the child used the potty, with support from parents, and with only occasional accidents. (At night time, diapers are still used.) The average age to be potty trained is 29 months for girls, and 31 months for boys. 90% or more are independently toileting in the daytime by 36 months. They typically need help with tasks like wiping after a bowel movement for longer than this.

5. Independent in the Day / Dry Overnight. Overnight bladder control is typically the last step. When a child’s diaper is dry most mornings, it’s a good time to move away from diapers completely. This may be age 3 for some children, but may be longer for others. By age 6, 90% are dry all night every night.

All the time estimates above are only averages! When a child is ready, and how long potty training take depend a great deal on the temperament and developmental skills of the child, and also depend on the temperament and energy of the parent.

Is your child ready?

It’s important not to push a child to do it before they’re ready. You may remember taking a basic psychology class at some point, and learning about Erickson’s stages of development. His second stage, experienced at 18 months to three years is Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. If children are given encouragement and not pressured, they gain a sense of independence and competence. If pressured to achieve, and scolded for ‘accidents’, they suffer doubt and shame.

Signs of readiness. Here are some signs that tell you your child may be ready to potty train. These signs are a more important indicator than their age!

  • Cognitive:
    • Imitates adults and older children
    • Desire for independence – wanting to ‘do it myself’
    • Wants to put toys and possessions ‘where they belong’
  • Communication skills:
    • Able to understand and follow simple directions
    • Can communicate in simple sentences
  • Physical / motor skills
    • Able to dress and undress himself with help
    • Can hold her urine (keep diaper dry) for two hours
    • Has bowel movements at regular, predictable times of day
  • Potty and Body Awareness Stages – the more of these skills they have the easier training will be
    • Has words for urine and bowel movements, knows what they are, and where they come from
    • Shows interest in the toilet and what it’s used for
    • Is aware afterwards that he has urinated or had a bowel movement
    • Is aware when she is “going” – may tell you or may hide in a corner or behind a couch
    • Is aware before he goes – may tell you he needs to go soon, or may be able to answer a question about whether he feels like he needs to go.

Parental readiness

Before starting training, you may want to consider: Do you have the time and energy for it at this time?

  • The American Academy of Pediatrics says a parent should ask him or herself: will you be able to devote up to three months of daily encouragement to your toddler?
  • If you choose a “One-day” method: are you willing to pay very close attention to your child for the next week or two, really monitoring them, and are you willing to clean up accidents?
  • Is life fairly stable right now? It may not be a good idea to start at a time the child is experiencing major life transitions like a move, major vacation, or the birth of a sibling.

Steps to Potty Training:

Up front, it’s important to talk about roles: Your role is to create an environment which enables your child to move from eliminating in a diaper to use a potty. Your child’s job is do the actual work of learning how to do this… as the saying goes, “you can lead a child to the potty but you can’t make him pee.”

And learning to use the toilet is a hard job! A child has to learn to notice sensations they’ve been ignoring, and then remember to head to the bathroom, and then manage to get their clothes off, and then figure out just how to make all the right muscles work just right, on demand. It takes a while to figure it all out! The potty training books say children usually figure out bowel control earlier, as the urges are not as urgent, and it’s easier not to push out poop than it is to hold in pee. Anecdotally, parents may find that their child has bladder control earlier.

Here are some steps to potty use. Once they have some mastery of one step, move on to the next.

  1. Teaching the language of potty awareness and body awareness.
    1. Talk about elimination: yours and theirs. If you’re comfortable, let them join you in the bathroom when you use the toilet. If they have friends who are potty trained, ask the parent if it would be OK if your child accompanied theirs on a potty trip to observe a peer using a potty.
    2. Help your child notice when they’re peeing or pooping.
    3. Teach them the names of their body parts.
  2. Get a potty. When they show interest:
    1. Get a child-size potty or a potty seat to put on an adult toilet. Most children feel safer on a small potty where they can rest their feet on the floor. If they are using an adult toilet put a step stool nearby so they have somewhere to rest their feet when having a bowel movement.
  3. Have your child sit on the potty, with clothes on, to play or to look at a book.
  4. Have your child sit on the potty with clothes off, with no expectations that anything will happen. A natural time to do this might be during the diaper changing process.
  5. Show them where poop should go. When you change a dirty diaper, let your child see you dump the stool into the toilet. Then have your child sit on the potty for a moment and talk about the idea that their pee and poop could go there.
  6. Watch for opportunities to poop in potty. Watch your child for signs of concentration or pushing. Take him to a bathroom right away, take off the diaper and let him finish in the toilet. As you’re doing this, talk about how it feels when they need to poop, and what they should do when they feel that way.
  7. Go pants free for learning to pee in potty. Spend time at home when your child is diaper-free, place potty near where she is playing so she doesn’t have to stop what she is doing to use it when she has the urge (being diaper-less helps children become aware of the fact that urine and stool come from them, and it’s also faster to get on the potty which is better for the greater urgency of the need to pee.) Expect to be cleaning up some accidents.
  8. Once your child is managing to use the potty, transition to training pants or underwear for daytime, making sure to dress your child in clothes he can easily remove when needed, but continue to use diapers or pull-ups at naptime and bedtime.
  9. When ready, phase out bedtime diaper.

Steps 1 – 5 can happen any time, whenever convenient, with no pressure for anyone.

Steps 6 – 8 can be taken slowly, worked around the convenience of the family’s schedule and energy level. Parents offer the potty when it’s convenient (they’re home with time to spare) and let the child just use diaper to eliminate when the potty is not convenient (when they’re out and about or in a hurry to get out the door.) This method can take a few months to complete. The older they are when you start, probably the faster the process will go.

OR you can try the “Big Day” option, which is often promoted as “One Day to Potty Training” but may more likely be two weeks or so. (Unless your child is really really ready.)

There are variations to this Big Day plan, but here are some ideas:

  • Talk to your child about it in advance.
  • Prepare by getting big kid underwear or other item which your child can ‘earn’ by using the potty.
  • Make the day a celebration. Also, give your child PLENTY to drink that day to increase the chance that they will need to pee when you sit them on the potty.
  • On that day (or days), you may just let your child run around naked, and have them sit on the potty at short but frequent intervals. Or you may encourage them to sit on the potty for extended periods of time (e.g. 15 minutes on, 5 minutes off). If you choose the latter option, make it a pleasant experience by reading books together, or watching a movie, or playing with puzzles on a nearby table.
  • Celebrate every successful potty trip. Calmly clean up after accidents.
  • Plan on sticking close to home with extra changes of clothes easily available for the next few weeks as your child masters the post-diaper reality.

Whether you do the extended-time option or the condensed Big Day option, your goal is to get your child to primarily use the potty not the diaper. But we’re not yet getting the child to be totally independent! Expect to actively monitor potty needs for several months, suggesting that they use it at regular intervals, providing hands-on support with undressing, wiping, dressing, hand-washing and so on.

Expect that there will be accidents. Clean them up in a matter-of-fact way, talking about how your child could do things differently in the future. You may want to have your child help with clean up so they see the consequences. But don’t punish or shame child when accidents happen!

Expect set-backs and regression. There may be times where your child uses the potty for weeks, and you’ll think you’re done, and then they go on a potty strike for weeks and you’ll think potty training will never end! 80% of children have setbacks – which means they’re part of the normal process!

If potty training is really not working, stop, and try again in a few months.

Some More Tips:

  • Increase interest and appeal:
    • Try showing your child potty training videos, or reading books about the potty.
    • Have your child take a doll to the potty. There are specially designed potty training dolls who can pee which help to reinforce learning.
    • Make diaper changing boring and routine. Make potty time fun and interactive.
  • Timing and opportunity:
    • Suggest potty trips several times a day. Instead of asking “do you want to go potty”, try just saying “let’s go to the potty now.” That may meet with less resistance.
    • Try at times when your child is likely to succeed: first thing in the morning, when she has been dry for a while, just after a bath, or just after a meal.
    • Try setting a timer and taking your child to the bathroom at least 6 times a day. Once they are having less than one accident a day, start giving them freedom to decide if they need to go.
      • Most children pee 4 – 8 times a day, and have two or three BM’s a day. (Though some can skip days – know your own child’s pattern)
  • Make potty time a pleasant experience. We can’t relax our sphincter muscles when we’re stressed!
    • Read books, or sing a special song, or give a toy to look at. But nothing TOO distracting.
    • Don’t force your child to sit if he resists – don’t turn it into a battle of wills
    • Don’t require sitting on the potty for long periods of time (e.g. 5 minutes). Let her leave when she chooses. (Note: some behavioral modification methods have the child sit longer than this.)
    • Fill a bowl with warm water and a few water toys (like rubber duckies). Set it next to the potty, and encourage your child to play in it while they sit on the potty. The warm water may inspire them to pee. They can play with the toys for as long as they sit on the potty, then when they’re ready to get off the potty, you put the toys away.
    • Praise your child for cooperation with the process, and for trying, even if they don’t go.
  • Logistics:
    • When training a little boy, teach him to urinate sitting down. Standing up while urinating is a more challenging skill to teach later on.
    • When children are using an adult toilet, they may find it easier to balance sitting backward.
    • It is easier to train in summer when your child can run outdoors, bare foot and bare bottomed.
    • Consider training pants rather than pull-ups so they can feel when they are wet.
    • Underwear or other ‘big kid’ options (e.g. special toy) may be a good reward for potty training.
  • Attitudes and Family Values
    • Your child may want to touch urine or feces. Discourage this without over-reacting or shaming.
    • Your child may want to touch or examine his or her own genitals on the potty. This is a good time to teach proper names for body parts, and to discuss family standards for when and where touching is appropriate. This exploration is normal and natural behavior, and again, no need to over-react or shame the child.
    • Use simple and straightforward words for bowel movements (BM, poop), urine (pee), and body parts (e.g. penis, vulva.) Don’t use negative words like stinky, dirty, etc.

Reward System?

I have a full post on whether to use rewards when potty training and how.

Sources on Potty Training: