Posts tagged as:

potty training help

Potty Training Steps

Gathering the right potty training steps, prior to starting potty training is essential to starting off on the right foot.

Here is a list of potty training steps to help get you started with those potty training procedures that will help you best.

Proper Potty Training Steps

Potty Training Step #1
At the earliest possible time, start standing behind your child as you are changing them rather than laying them on a diaper changer. Going to the bathroom is about taking care of business, save the playtime and jokes for afterward. By making the process clinical rather than fun and games, you will be making the evolution far more natural for your child. When it is time to ask them to use the potty, they will be far more likely to walk without pause and sit.

Potty Training Step #2
Establish the connection between their personal potty chair and the family toilet.  Your child will soon graduate to dumping waste on their own. For now, celebrate the small step of moving the waste from their little potty to the big big potty together.

Potty Training Step #3
Let your child come and go naturally. Never make them feel like a hostage sitting at the potty until they produce. This potty training tactic offers zero results. Your child’s will is likely strong. Tell them great job for trying even if they produce nothing. For #1 you can turn the faucet to a trickle to trigger that flowing feeling inside them. This is an oldie but goodie for a reason.

Potty Training Step #4
Once finished, prolong the victory with a quick lesson in hygiene.  Show your child how to wipe from front to back while explaining why their waste must be eliminated because it gets rid of the bacteria inside us. Proceed to the sink where you can sing ABCʼs while washing your hands together.

Phrases
Sing the Can Can Dance Song when they successfully use the potty, with the words: Hip hip hip hooray _____ went potty today.

Rather than using “good boy,” or “good girl,” use positive specific praise to recognize their behavior such as, “You did a great job going to the bathroom.”  Also, try phrases like “Your potty is waiting for you. Let’s hurry and go so we can play.”

The best potty training steps and phrases use language that is supportive rather than condemning. For example, “That’s okay accidents happen, you’ll make it. next time. Letʼs keep practicing”

Like most things worth learning, it is more important to potty train well than it is to do it swiftly.  Two to three times in a row is a success, two to three days a celebration.  Two to three weeks is a victory.

In an upcoming post, we’ll move beyond potty training steps to discuss a few daily potty training routines. Until then….

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 0 comments }

Potty Training Readiness

How do you know when it is the right time to start potty training your child?

Potty training readiness isn’t always clear.

Deciding when, and how to move our wee ones from diapers to freedom is something every parent must eventually face.

The common timeframe offered by experts is somewhere between 18 months and 3 years of age, though age is never as relevant as potty training readiness.

  • If your child can tell you about their dirty diaper, they are probably ready.
  • If your child can articulate their need to be clean, they are probably ready.
  • If you can have a conversation about potty training with your child, they have already been ready a while.

Toilet training might be the first major chasm we cross as parents. It involves us as much as them, delivers them from one era to the next, and must be driven by careful, consistent and considerate thought.

Learning to use the restroom isn’t just about losing the diaper, it is also about gaining personal responsibility.

When we allow our children to stay in diapers after we know they are capable of doing otherwise simply because they do not wish to take their next step, or because it is more convenient for us, then we are allowing them to make the rules and setting a poor precedent at too early an age.

Worse than bypassing potty training readiness, we are teaching our little one that weʼre comfortable with the idea of cleaning up after them, until they decide different.

We know what youʼre thinking —  “But my daughterʼs only two.” That may be true, but sheʼll soon be four, then six… then sixteen. Right now, sheʼs learning who she is and the early years are paramount.

For some children potty training is effortless, as easy as slipping vegetables into their mac and cheese. For others, potty training is a trying time when our little spawn will heavily assert their will.

This difficulty cannot detour us. Remember, itʼs called potty training.  We may have a little extra laundry, and a load of extra conflict, but the battle is relatively short, and the aftermath will leave your child (as well as yourself) stronger than ever before.

This is all pragmatic, yet perfectly practical parents seem to lose all perspective when it comes to searching for potty training readiness signs.

Itʼs delicate. Either we hedge because of the anticipated difficulty, or we allow fear to paralyze our momentum, afraid of the damage to our child’s psyche if we push too hard or too fast.

As far as cerebral ruin, weʼre not suggesting anyone wrap their child in chains until they can properly eliminate. We are simply saying that it is important to honestly observe our children to search signs of potty training readiness for it is us who know them best.

Once you feel confident your child understands what is happening (and what they are supposed to do), and you are comfortable that their bodies are capable of getting the job done, you mustn’t stand idle and allow your child to make messes without accountability.

Potty training doesn’t begin when you finally decide to grit your teeth and buy a couple dozen pair of underwear.  It is an awareness that should be woven into conversation from the changing table forward.  If approached with the proper measure of communication and warmth, potty training will be a positive and empowering experience for all involved.

Children develop at different speeds and there is no single shining moment that burns brighter than the others. You can set your child up for the greatest success by starting their toilet training at the most appropriate time.

Though the verbal and emotional parts of potty training should begin at the earliest opportunity, there are a few particular skills your child should have before moving on to the more physical part.

Make sure your child can do the following:

  • Sit down without support
  • Run or walk fast
  • Pull his or her pants up without assistance
  • Provide a verbal or visual cue to let you know they need to go potty.

If your child has difficulty with any of the above, a wee bit of practice will get them going. Again, fun is the name of the game.

Run around with your child outside. Chase birds and butterflies, make sure to use prompts such as, “Let’s go,” that precede the action. Teach your child to pull their pants up and down by themselves and be mindful of the behavior displayed prior to elimination.

  • Does your child assume a certain position?
  • Does your child make any particular sounds?
  • Does your child’s face turn red?
  • Does your child retreat to a specific location?

Once you are sure your child has achieved potty training readiness, it’s time to move on to the next step: potty training preparation.

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 2 comments }

The Key to Potty Training Success

Toilet training your child is a major milestone in their young life, both physically and mentally.

It is also 100% necessary.

Within a fairly narrow window of time, your child will first learn they have the power to control their waste and then be asked to master the necessary control.

The key to potty training success isn’t simply crossing the finish line, it’s making the experience pleasant for all involved as well. Your child, like all children, has their particular likes and dislikes; things they enjoy doing along with those things they don’t enjoy nearly as much.

By making potty training an engaging experience, you will not only make it easier on yourself, you will make it easier on your child as well. Potty training success, here we come!

Please allow us to introduce ourselves and tell you how we led our own children to potty training success. This blog is co-authored by Sean and Cindy Platt. We have been married for eight years and the best of friends for twelve. For the past three years, we have run a highly specialized preschool where learning is always put first.

Despite some of our students joining class at only three months of age, our school is no less a learning environment for the infant as it is for the toddler.

In our Kinder Garden, we start early and finish strong.

Our preschool is based on the philosophy that everyone is a student and learning begins at birth. It doesn’t make a bit of difference who you are or whether or not you have yet to celebrate your first birthday. Everyone is a learner. This philosophy has not only ensured that even our one year olds can spell their names, it also helps to establish the early habits that make fluid potty training fully possible.

Though Seanʼs first experience with potty training toddlers began only after the birth of our daughter, Cindy has been an educator for two tireless decades. Her personal history is flocked with fantastic results because she enters and exits every affair with elevated expectations.

Teaching our daughter was (somewhat surprisingly) a snap. Though we had done our homework and felt we were prepared, we still didn’t know exactly what to expect.

Some things you cannot truly understand until they are actually happening. Fortunately, our first experience benefited from a year and a half of constant communication. We are incessant explainers and our daughter a relentless listener. Once it was time to train our daughter, we articulated our expectations, then crossed our hearts and braided our hands.

The gods of toilet training seemed to be smiling on that particular day as our daughter went to bed as dry that night as sheʼs risen each day since!

Fortunately, we found our initial potty training success wasn’t a fluke.

The summer when our son turned one was when we opened our pre-school. Our transition was immediate. We interviewed clients, selected our families, and then opened our doors to absorb a myriad of families (and philosophies) all in unison.

With a preschool in full bloom, and a few students already past the prime time for potty training preparation, we quickly decided to decrease the diapers and increase the underwear.

It was time to put our potty training success methods to test on a school full of children.

We started with the oldest and went straight down the line, piling packages of unused diapers as though our preschool was an annex for Babies “R” Us. Because we were dealing with different parents each with their own style of parenting, we did face some early resistance. That resistance evaporated like midday dew however, once those parents found themselves surrounded by the success of others.

Potty training isn’t magic, itʼs a process.

You must start with a strategy, then proceed with the will to make it happen. Anyone who says potty training can be completed in a single day without fail probably isn’t painting an accurate picture.

With a proper plan, certainty in your method, and the conviction to see things through, your potty training will not only be successful, but it will be a rewarding experience for all involved as well.

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 3 comments }

Infant Toilet Training

Infant toilet training is something that is widely misunderstood in America.

For the next four posts, we’re going to explore many of the misconceptions and misinformation that surrounds the subject.

Welcome to part three of The Truth About Infant Toilet Training. Click here for part one, here for part two, and here for part three.

So far we’ve discussed the differences in global perception with infant toilet training. Today we’ll discuss some of the more distinct advantages to the practice.

A potty trained infant is often spared the suffering of diaper rash and will never need to sit in their own mess while waiting for mommy or daddy to clean them. This will allow them to develop fewer (if any) issues with constipation or urinary tract infections.

Compared to contemporary American practice, the of infant toilet training seems downright genius. Old tradition has seen potty training starting at an age where children are too young to question rather than at around the two year mark, when a child’s will is ready to peak. Teaching them anything at that point seems to adopt a difficulty of its own.

Another phenomenal benefit behind infant toilet training is teaching letting go rather than holding back. Letting go is a wonderful lesson to teach your child from the very beginning, not only with infant potty training but for a well lived life in general.

In addition to the bond between baby and parent will be naturally enhanced due to the parents need to pick up the subtle cues of their child’s thought. The parent must learn to observe the warning signs that their baby will invariably make prior to elimination, and the baby must learn how to signal their parent.

Observing the cues of your child’s intuition will allow an early toilet training parent to fall in perfect step with their child’s natural rhythm.

It is a wonderful thing to view your child as a little person with their own thoughts and abilities. Your infant can show you what they’re capable of. Some signals include: growing quiet, starting hiccups, rubbing noses, scratching feet, kicking, shivering, or feeling warm to the touch.

Fathers, who can’t bare, deliver, or nurse their child, can sometimes take the lead in this early toilet training adventure.

No matter the age of your child is, they are never too young for potty training exposure. Infant toilet training may be the answer.

If you would like information or help getting your infant potty trained, we are always here to help. Leave a question in the comments on the Ask Dr. Potty page and we’ll answer it as soon as we see it.

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 0 comments }

Elimination Communication

Elimination Communication is a method of potty training that is widely misunderstood in America.

For the next four posts, we’re going to explore many of the misconceptions and misinformation that surrounds the subject.

Welcome to part three of Understanding Elimination Communication. Click here for part one and here for part two.

So far in the series we’ve discussed the differences in global mentality in regard to elimination communication and toilet training between America and the rest of the world.

Read on.

More than 50% of the world’s children are potty trained prior to their first birthday.

So what are we missing?

From birth forward, infants are aware of their body’s need to eliminate. While it is true that muscle control is not yet fully developed, an infant can still learn to release upon simple command.

By relying on thick and absorbent disposable diapers, today’s average American parent is merely teaching their baby to ignore the otherwise obvious signs of elimination.

This adds unneeded difficulty to eventual potty training.

Ingrid Bauer, well recognized author of the book, “Diaper Free! The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene,” believes the optimum time to pull the trigger on toilet training is within the baby’s first six months.

In order to start elimination communication, the baby must be held by their thighs (comfortably) in a seated position against their stomach. It’s part of an infant’s instinct not to go to the bathroom on themselves. A parent can play into this natural instinct by positioning them over the potty at the appropriate time and encouraging them to make the natural hisses and grunts that sometimes accompany elimination.

Communication is of course required on the part of the parents, as they must learn to observe their child’s natural rhythm. Some parents elect to keep their child in the same bed with them, with the potty at arm’s length, so they may attend to their child’s needs whenever required.

No it isn’t easy, but yes it may be worth it. Consider the many advantages of elimination communication.

Families able to successfully potty train their infants will save thousands of dollars on diapers. Not only is this a boon to the family bank account, it is a tremendous benefit to the environment.

Each year American landfills are over crowded with 22 billion disposable diapers!

A potty trained infant will also be spared the suffering of diaper rash, never need sit in their own mess while waiting for mommy or daddy to clean them, and develop fewer (if any) issues with constipation or urinary tract infections.

In the next installment of Elimination Communication, we’ll finish our thoughts and leave you with a bit to ponder.

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 5 comments }

The Truth About Infant Potty Training

Infant potty training is something that is widely misunderstood in America.

For the next four posts, we’re going to explore many of the misconceptions and misinformation surrounding the subject.

Welcome to part two of The Truth About Infant Potty Training. Click here for part one.

In the first part of our four part series, we discussed the inherent difficulties in waiting to start potty training.

Getting your child to see things your way becomes exponentially harder as they grow older.

Why wait?
Why make it harder for yourself or your child?
Why continue to change diapers day after day, year upon unnecessary year?
Why continue flushing money down the toilet with the expense of diapers, when you could be flushing your child’s pee and poo?

Potty training infants could be the answer.

The United States is now witnessing a growing trend to embrace the infant potty training principles already displayed by much of the world. Thousands of people across the nation are currently joining or have already joined Internet news groups and e-mail lists that allow them to discover all they can about infant potty training. Together these parents are learning a multiplicity of invaluable elimination communication techniques that allow them to encourage their infants to eliminate inside a toilet, sink or otherwise appropriate receptacle.

Their babies may be too young to walk or talk, but they are certainly old enough to observe and respond. Potty training infants might just be the future in America too.

One of the primary roadblocks to the widespread adoption of this early potty training method, at least within this country, is that it lies in direct opposition to the strategies articulated by the most famous child development expert of all time, Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Dr. Spock spoke the gospel for many American families throughout much of the last century, not just about potty training infants, but all manner of child rearing. His final advice on potty training said it was best to hold off until the child had demonstrated readiness on his own. Something that certainly never happens in the first year. Failure to heed this advice, according to Dr. Spock, would only lead to eventual rebellion, digression and bed wetting.

A fan of infant potty training he was not, but Dr. Spock’s theories no longer hold water after decades of distance.

Humans have potty trained their infants for thousands of years. For 99.9% of that time it was in a tribe’s best interest to get their child trained efficiently, a practice that has continued across most of the globe without the slightest bit of damage to worldwide psyche.

Relatively speaking, Dr. Spock’s school of thought itself has shown itself faulty and is perhaps an infant that needs to be trained. With infant toilet training, there is rich tradition and a wide body of knowledge, experience, and recorded data to articulate direction.

Parents in over seventy-five countries, including India and China (sharing the largest proportions of world population), wholly embrace the practice of potty training their infants. Chinese babies, for example,  are most often found in split bottom pants that allow for simple squatting and easy elimination.

These countries not only believe it is best to potty train infants early, they believe that early toilet training helps contribute to early cognition. By stoking the skill set of their children at the earliest possible age, they are adding fuel to a fire they want to burn in perpetuity.

Many parents who bring home children adopted from other countries are flabbergasted to find their “babies” welcomed into their new home fully capable, ready, and eager to use the toilet.

For those who know, this isn’t surprising. Potty training infants is little different than teaching them to nurse.

We’ll find out more in part three of The Truth About Infant Potty Training.

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 3 comments }

The Truth About Potty Training Early

The process of early Potty training is something that is widely misunderstood in America.

For the next four posts, we’re going to explore many of the misconceptions and misinformation that surrounds the subject.

Welcome to Part one of The Truth About Potty Training Early.

Phoebe Allan is an adorable seven month old baby girl. She has squishy little thighs and, like just about every other cute baby in the known world, a beautifully dimpled baby bottom.

So what’s the difference between Phoebe and most of the other infants swaddled across our 50 states?

Phoebe is wearing thin cotton underwear and can still parade about in the same clothes she wore during her first six months cooing. This is an easy fit since Phoebe doesn’t carry all the bulgy baggage hanging from the rears of her peers.

Phoebe sleeps through the night without a diaper. While the sun is shining, at intervals scattered throughout the day, her mom places her on a little plastic potty as she makes the sounds that help Phoebe identify her usual time for elimination. Together they practice potty training early.

Phoebe and her mother hale from Kismet, Maryland. This location makes the girls a bit unusual since it is rare in the United States to find families practicing the principles of potty training early.

For the majority of American parents, the idea of effectively potty training their child before they are able to walk, and well before the terrible twos, isn’t just foreign, it’s condemned, chastised and widely misunderstood.

Parents in the United States are often horrified by the idea, seeing it as an ensuing nightmare fraught with eventual psychological damage for their child.

Yet early potty training is effectively practiced throughout the world.

Here in America, things are different. Most doctors and psychologists agree, children aren’t ready to begin potty training until two years of age at the earliest. Some even say not to potty train the child at all. Rather, children should simply be allowed to toilet train themselves somewhere between the ages of four and five when they deem it most appropriate!

Yes, children could learn to read this way as well, but what’s best for their budding brains?

The methodology behind early potty training states that children are never too young to learn. Parents can start introducing the concept of elimination to their children at an early age. By doing so, it will never be foreign. Instead just another natural part of their day.

By starting potty training early, parents can teach their baby while still in the midst of their most impressionable stage. As your infant gets older, they will grow increasingly comfortable in their diaper and more firmly fixed in their ways. As months pass, the difficulty with potty training only increases. After a child develops language and compounded experience, they are able to control their environment and their situation, thus exponentially compounding the difficulty.

Start early, finish strong. We’ll explore these early potty training ideas further with part 2 of The Truth About Potty Training Early.

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 2 comments }

Have to Go Potty?

The following “have to go potty” post is an email exchange between a Potty Training Power client and myself.

Names and contextual punctuation have been altered and the return email was edited for brevity.

____________

Hi Sean,

Well, it’s going pretty well here in potty-training land.  Yesterday, we had many more successes than accidents.  Today remains to be seen. :)  I am wondering, though, how do you move from the “I think I’m starting to go, so I run to the potty” to “I can sit down and go before we leave for the store.”  So far, we can’t really leave the house, because he can’t just “go” before we leave.

I know Is that just a learning thing that he’ll pick up as he gets better?  Or is there a way to teach him to go when he says, “I have to go potty”?  I do have him sit down and try going potty regularly, but so far, he’s never done it during those times.

Thanks for your help!

Alexa

____________

Hi Alexa,

I’m glad things are going well. It sounds like you are already through the worst of it. Here are our best “have to go potty” suggestions:

You’re changing the rules, so there is naturally going to be an adjustment period between the two of you. This is an excellent opportunity for a teachable moment, so long as it’s handled well. If your son feels like you’re in it together, he’ll be willing to do just about anything you ask. If he feels like he’s having to do whatever you say without really understanding why, then he WILL be more resistant to your methods.

Here are a few “Have to Go” strategies

Clear his bladder first thing in the morning. This is really important. If you start with an empty bladder in the AM, the rest of the day will be far easier to monitor. The last thing you want is to feel hostage to the house, nor do you want to give him ultimate power over your schedule.

Measure his liquid intake. Know exactly how much he is drinking. This isn’t something you want to do forever, but by measuring his liquids throughout the day you can begin to manipulate his body’s schedule.

Time the intervals between his potty breaks and note the changes. It may take a couple of days, but as long you’re consistent, simple math will make a pattern emerge. Once you can articulate the trends, your GOLD.

By this point, it’s just about getting him to comply. Simple bribery might be the trick. “As soon as you go potty, we can go on our (insert special adventure). Just be careful about giving him too much power. He may have total control over your schedule, but you don’t have to let him know it.

It sounds like the hardest part is over, but if it isn’t we’re still just an email away.

All our best, and good luck!

Sean

____________

As always…

Potty Training Power…AWAY!!!

{ 0 comments }