By Jenny Mills.
Is that a toddler sitting on a potty in the garden? I hear you ask! Yes, it is. It seems I’m not as perfect as Gina Ford and all the other bloggers and journalists teaching us how to potty train. But we have pretty much cracked it. And here’s how:
So, my daughter, just before her second birthday, started struggling with a sore “pee pee”. Firstly, the doctor advised she had thrush. Then the next doctor said she didn’t have thrush. Somewhere in between doctor visit number four, and waiting for a hospital referral, we discovered it was an internal kind of nappy rash. As soon as the nappies came off for the day, it cleared. If a wet nappy was left on for more than five minutes, it came back. Being a full time working mum, with Millie at full-time nursery, I can instruct, beg and ask… But the staff are busy and sometimes simply can’t keep checking and change her instantly. So we started to train her to tell us.
Step 1: How to Start Potty Training
First off, your toddler has to start recognising when they are doing the motion. Motions being the feeling in needing or doing wee or poo. What the difference is. They may not be ready to stop it, but they can learn to know its happening. From a very young age (one onwards) we began talking to our baby about her motions as changing nappies. Letting her see her nappies and telling her the name of her motions. We also encouraged her to come to the toilet with us and told her what we were doing and that soon she would be able to use a potty. Understanding, the names, sights, sounds and motions is important.
Step 1: How to Potty Train A Toddler
Next, we encouraged her to tell us when she was doing the toilet in her nappy. We began this by allowing non-nappy time. Either you can do this with bottom half naked. But, for us, we preferred to put pants and trousers on her to catch what was to come. Then when it did we said “is Millie having a wee wee/poo poo” and quickly lift her and take her to the bathroom. Here we put her straight in the bath, stripped and rinsed and redressed her. This taught her to understand each motion and that there was an action to come.
Don’t Dispair
We didn’t feel she was ready yet to train, so we kept nappies on a night and when going out. We even went back to full-time nappies for a spell. When she reached 2.5, the coronavirus lockdown happened. So, we decided this was the perfect time to crack potty training!
Step Two: How to Toilet Train
With step one of potty training under our belt, she was well versed to when she was doing the toilet and always told us, or came to find us, if we were in another room, to tell us she had done the toilet. Then we would instantly change her. So, now, we simply started back in pants / no nappies.
Don’t wait for them to tell you. It’s like training a puppy to toilet train. We went cold turkey. No nappies at night either. Instead, we placed an anti-wee bed mat in her cot. As soon as she wakes, we put her on the potty. Mid-morning we put her on the potty. After lunch, we put her on the potty. Mid-afternoon, we put her on the potty… and so on.
How To Encourage Potty Training
But, it’s not as simple as meeting the cues… As parents, we have to manage the tantrums too! So, successful potty training has to be a game. We got overly excited about every successful pee in the toilet. And encouraged her to stay sitting on the toilet with the promise of a treat after (be that a chocolate mini egg, a sticker or a game of her choice after). If she sat on the toilet but didn’t pee… she didn’t get a treat. We just said, “Well done for trying. Mummy is so proud! Try again soon and when you wee wee, you can pick your treat”. When she had a wee and didn’t tell us first she needed the potty, we never scolded her or got angry. We just told her that “mummy/daddy was feeling sad that she hadn’t told us” and “now we have to get you washed and changed with no treat.”. This worked well. She didn’t get upset or have a fear of getting it wrong. She just wanted to engage with us and get her cuddles and treat.
Best Potty & Best Travel Potties
So, in one of the many Potty Training Tips articles I read, it said to “keep the potty the same” to avoid tantrums of your toddler wanting to use the other potty, than the one you managed to run to at the time. So I did this for the initial training. But for out and about I bought a padded portable toilet seat with handles. Details of all are below.
I found at the start, she was a bit scared of the big toilet, so we focused on the potty only. As her abilities in Potty Training progressed, however, she more often chose the toddler padded toilet seat with handles. Or, more often than not, took the seat off the Fisher-Price My Potty Friend and placed her padded seat and handles on this instead. We let her make choices, which ended with better potty training results.
Best Potty For Training Boys and Girls
- Fisher-Price My Potty Friend: This has been very popular and helped us grow Millie’s excitement and interest in potty training. But after about 3 months of use, it stopped singing. This hasn’t been an issue as she is now in the swing of things.
- 2 in 1 Toddler Potty Training Seat Baby Kids Fun Toilet Trainer Chair: Following the “keep the potty the same” advice I bought this slightly cheaper version of the Fisher-Price Potty for grannies house.
- Padded toilet seat with handles: I bought two of these very cheap in Home Bargains or B&M. Once Millie had the handle of going to the potty, she began to prefer to use this potty seat on our toilet.