Just the idea seems overwhelming and slightly terrifying. There were so many questions, and I have two children I am going to attempt to potty train at the same time. It has been quite an adventure, so I want to share what I have learned thus far.
Research
Obviously, potty training has been around for quite some time. Billions of moms before me have successfully potty trained – so there was some comfort in that. I began my journey just like this – googling around and reading about what worked for everyone else. I am not trying to reinvent the wheel. I especially paid attention to what worked for different ages and boys vs girls. My daughter is 3 and my son is 2 and I wanted to kill two birds with one stone by doing them together. I asked my mom and my fellow mom friends how they approached it. From there, I came up with my own plan of attack.
Introduce the Idea
Thanks to Once Upon a Child, I have been in possession of a potty for months. It was a random purchase I made when I found it at the store, still in the box. I remember thinking “well, I was going to need that someday” so $15 later, I was the proud owner of a pink toddler potty, complete with flushing sounds. This brings me to my first recommendation – get a little potty that is interactive. It keeps the kids excited about going to the potty. My son especially would want to sit on the potty just so he could flush the little handle after.
I set that potty right next to the big potty in our guest bathroom and built it into our morning routine. Wake up, get out of our pajamas, go sit on the potty. Now this was something I did not want to turn into a fight. If my 3yr old, Ilyanna, was grumpy and crying about not wanting to potty, I did not force the idea. I did try to convince her, but did not start a fight over it. My 2yr old son, Setsuna, has always been more eager and almost never complains about my asking him to sit on the potty.
I also started bringing them with me when I went. I narrated what was happening, in toddler speak. “Mommy is going teetee. Now, I need to wipe because I went teetee. Ok, now I’m ready to close the potty and flush. And now, we wash our hands.”
I stayed at this level for probably several weeks. And that is totally on me. I wasn’t sure how to proceed and had not fully committed to potty training. Which brings me to the next point.
Commit
My pediatrician had recommended at Ilyanna’s 3yr appointment that we stop changing diapers laying down. As the parent, this was probably the most laborious part of the whole moment. Anytime we needed to change them, we took them to the potty, took their diaper off, sat with them for a minute, sang the potty song (there are a million on YouTube, you can pick your favorite). If the diaper was poopy, we would dump the poop in the potty. We used flushable wipes to wipe them, had them step into the new pullup, close the potty, flush and wash their hands. Every. Time.
So, once you decide that you are going to do it, do it. All in. For us, our next step that I chose was just being naked. In my readings, this basically was leaving the child naked for several days (excluding sleep times). When they made a mess, explain what was happening and have them help clean up. This sounded great to me, less laundry, less diapers. Setsuna was the first successful potty goer on day one. It took Ilyanna a few days to figure it out. Yes, there was more cleaning involved and scouring the playroom to make sure I hadn’t missed someone pooping was not fun, but for the most part this was a great first step for us. Both of my toddlers realized that what they needed to do was get to the potty before they made a mess, and they began to associate what their bodies were doing before making a mess. We moved the pink potty to the living room to keep it easily accessible and to keep them thinking about it.
Some people do this for just a weekend and boom, kid is potty trained. This was not my personal experience. My kids have activities in the afternoon, and so I was back to putting them in the pull up when we left, which I feel played a part in why it took us a bit longer. I was putting them back in what they were used to instead of risking the accidents out in public. So during the morning, we were diligent about going to the potty and then in the afternoons, it kind of slipped as we were running around. But in the end, this did work for us.
Introducing Rewards and Underwear
Every time one of them went potty successfully, there was a celebration. Lots of words of affirmation, high fives, happy dances. Then, they could have a treat. We used Hershey kisses and little butter cookies until settling on two M&Ms. Now with two children, there was the added drama of when one kid went potty and got a treat and the other did not. But I always just reassured them that if they went potty, they too could have a treat.
I had no idea that training underwear was a thing, but it is. It’s just a normal pair of underwear with some extra absorbency in the front, just like you would expect. You can get them at Walmart, I used these. This step was something that I read about, introducing them to the idea that having accidents and being wet was uncomfortable, so they needed to go potty before that happened.
For a short time, I also had a potty chart with stickers. I set a 30 minute timer and when it went off, if they were dry, they got a sticker for their chart. This was a great for a few days. My kids were excited about the stickers, picking which one they wanted and lining them up on their chart. Long term, they lost interest in the stickers. Also, my stickers weren’t sticking to the paper and I also have an 11m old crawling around and I got worried about her eating one so I eventually abandoned this method. However, it absolutely helped with associating going potty and making a mess in our underwear. Setsuna especially did not enjoy being gross and started taking himself to the potty.
I also read about potty watches, and some of my friends had great success with theirs. I didn’t pursue one for us but definitely check them out if you think that idea sounds appealing to you.
Being in Public
Only you will know when your child is ready to wear their big kid underwear in public. Ilyanna does now, and she consistently will ask to go potty on her own. Setsuna is still in pull ups. He does also ask, but is more prone to accidents and I feel like he isn’t quite ready for that next step. He’s younger, but he’ll get there. I still ask them frequently if they want to go to the potty, and still lavish them with praise for going and even just trying. Knock on wood, we haven’t had a bunch of accidents in public. We are still in pull ups for nap time and bedtime. The pediatrician advised that until they are waking up dry consistently, to not worry about pushing for those overnights. We do cut liquids off after dinner, just to help in that area but we aren’t there yet.
I can tell you that the hardest part of having a boy is AIM. Setsuna will sit on the potty, but not far enough back so when he pees, it goes straight forward. Or if we are out in the public and I sit him on the potty, his penis isn’t pointing down enough and he gets the back of his pants wet. This has been a learning curve both for him and for me. I bought another small potty that will clip to the front of the regular sized toiled so that eventually I can teach him how to pee standing up. But we aren’t there yet.
So that’s the ins and outs of what I have learned so far. I’m sure in the next few weeks I’ll be able to do a Level 2 post about those things we haven’t gotten to yet so stay tuned! We’ve got this!