Potty Training Tips

1. Evaluating Your Child’s Readiness

● Does your toddler have the required verbal understanding? This includes being able to understand and carry out simple instructions.

● Does your toddler show signs of wanting to do more things for herself such as pulling up her own pants?

● Is your child’s bladder and bowel control adequately developed? For instance, can he go for two or three hours before wetting his diaper?

● You really must not go on to step 2 until you’re confident your toddler can handle being toilet trained.

2. Let’s Go Shopping

You want to make this shopping trip as much fun as possible for your toddler. So what’s on that shopping list? You should get:

● Underpants, preferably vibrantly colored. It’s even better if there’s a picture of a favorite cartoon character on them. Diaper or training underpants can be a practical solution for trips out but make sure you treat them as real pants not diapers.

● A wall chart and stickers for home.

● Remember to let your toddler have a say in the purchase choice.

3. Farewell to Diapers

● Put your toddler in pants. There’s no retreating back to diapers even if there are two or three accidents along the way.

4. Give Your Toddler Plenty of Fluids

● The more your toddler drinks the more he/she will need to urinate. So they should get plenty of practice in using a potty.

5. Ask Your Toddler if He Needs the Potty

● If he/she says no, that’s fine. With all those drinks they’ll soon need to go. Ask again a little later.

Here is a set of skills that parents can check to determine whether their child is ready.

□An understanding of what the toilet is for.

□Language or signs (such as pointing) to indicate the need to use the toilet.

□Motor skills to get oneself to the toilet and sit on it.

□The ability to stay dry for at least two hours after a diaper change.

□Fine motor skills to get clothing off and on.

□An interest in modeling or pleasing parents.

If your child has a little accident, it’s okay. Don’t be angry or disappointed, it’s a work in progress. Just say “you’ll do better next time”. Take him/her to the potty and have them sit on it for two or three minutes. Give him/her fresh pants to put on. At short intervals, take him/her back to the potty for a total of 10 times. This helps build muscle memory. Very soon, their muscle memory will kick-in and they will urinate in the potty on without prompts.

The relationship between child and parents is important, because potty training can set the tone for communication with the family. Potty training encourages children to begin to understand gender identity, privacy and ideas about who’s in charge of their body and life. At Children of America, we partner with families who are beginning this process at home. It must

be a joint effort and one that is noted on the daily communication for parents regarding potty training efforts during the day.