I am not a childhood expert on potty training. But I have had 5 kids–3 of whom have been potty trained within the last 4 years and 2 of whom we are currently potty training. My oldest three each took about 4-7 days to train.
Two things have prompted this series of blogs. First I’ve had several requests from you on how to start potty training. The second is that we are working on potty training our twins who are now 19 months old. I’m not an expert. . .but I have learned a few things.
So before I give you a glimpse into what it’s like to potty train twenty month old twins, I thought I would lay down the rules on which we are operating.
Rule #1: There are no right answers!
Out of three successfully potty trained children no one single method was the ‘right’ way that worked. In fact, we are training the twins differently than we did any of the other three. I would say that the more you pay attention to your child and his/her cues the better off you are.
Rule #2: Potty training is natural!
You’re probably sitting there thinking, “Duh?!” But what I mean is that each child has their own natural pace. The more you take advantage of your child’s natural learning style and pace, the less frustrated you and he will be.
Rule #3: There is no golden badge of good parenting!
You will not earn a gold star for potty training early. Conversely you will not earn a demerit for training late.
Rule #4: Major life transitions and potty training do not mix well.
So many parents think that they’ll try and speed up potty training before the new baby comes or before such and such happens. If this works, it’s because your child was really ready. However, more often than not I have seen it backfire and the parents are sitting around bewildered wondering why their child regressed. For us, the major life event was a new baby and we chose to wait until the baby was born. If you start before a major transition you should expect some regression. It’s not that uncommon.
Rule #5: Potty at night is an issue of hormones and maturity.
Teaching children to go potty during the day and getting them “trained” at night are two different things. In fact, I’m not convinced you can train a child at night without detriment but that’s a subject for another blog. Just know this: night time wetting can be an issue of a bladder that isn’t grown enough to hold 8 -12 hours of urine, it can be a system that is not mature enough to produce the hormone that keeps you from urinating at night or it could be that your child is a deep sleeper. No amount of cajoling, bribing, begging or punishment will make dry nights happen consistently
Rule #6: Unrelated bribes almost always backfire.
I had a friend that offered her child candy to go potty. (Dumb, dumb, dumb!) So her child, not being so dumb, would tinkle and then hold it. . .and then tinkle and hold it. . .so that she could get as much candy as humanly possible out of a bladder full of urine. The result? A horrible urinary tract infection.
I will talk more about what our family does for rewards for going potty but just generally let’s say that offering a bribe for a natural process makes as much sense as offering a bribe for a baby to sit up. They’ll do it when they’re ready.
Rule #7: Consistency, consistency, consistency.
It is much better to start out by putting your child on the potty once a day and do it for months on end if need be, than it is to start out by letting your child run around naked and then decide that that’s too hard and switch plans. It’s easier to start out slowly and build speed than it is to start out full speed and back off.
Rule #8: Potty training has to be age appropriate.
I mentioned in rule #1 that we are training the twins differently than we did our first three. This is mostly due to the fact that they are much younger than the other three were. Likewise, if you start at 18 months or so, you should expect that it might take longer than it would if you started at 2 and a half.
Look soon for more tales from the potty!
Related Articles:
Potty Training: Is Your Child Ready?
“My Big Boy Potty” by Joanna Cole