Potty Training: The Steps
Whether you are booking a week’s annual leave and implementing a set routine or going about it in a slower, more relaxed way; we have some tips for you to help you and your family keep their sanity whilst teaching your child something that you don’t remember learning.
One of the hardest parts of potty training is knowing when to start. We have a post with lots of the signs you should be looking for that your child is ready to start their potty training journey which you can find here. If you think you and your child are ready to start, there are a few things you can do in terms of preparation that will make potty training a bit easier for both parent and child.
Preparation
If you are planning on buying a potty we would suggest buying this only once you think your child is ready (or if it’s a hand-me-down, hide it away until it’s time to start using it). It’s also a great idea to involve your child in the purchase of a potty, allowing them to pick one in their favourite colour, or in the case of second hand or hand-me-down potties, letting the child choose some stickers to stick on it can help them feel like it's something exciting just for them. Bringing it out when it’s time to start training and letting them personalise it will help your child have a sense of novelty about the potty, so it doesn’t just blend in with the furniture before they’ve had a chance to use it!
It’s a great idea to get your child involved in the routine of going to the toilet and the easiest way to teach them this is to show them by bringing them along when you go to the toilet yourself. Talk about what you’re doing as you’re doing it and invite them to sit on the toilet after you have been. This will also get them used to the new sounds of the bathroom, such as the toilet flush and the extractor fan, which some children can find unnerving.
Step One
The first step we take in any potty training journey, after we’ve done all the prep above, is very simple. Any time you have a few minutes where you’re staying in one place or waiting for something, for example, you’re running a bath or brushing your teeth, use that as an opportunity for your child to sit and ‘practice’ on the potty. There is no pressure here, pee or no pee, it’s great that they sat on the potty for 2-5 minutes and you should let them know that. If they do happen to pee or poo during this time, up the praise even more with lots of clapping, cheering, or even dancing, make it fun!
As they get more comfortable sitting on the potty, start to add in this practice at any point where they might be getting changed anyway, so before they sleep, when they wake up from their nap, or when you’re getting ready to leave the house. It’s also a good idea to put your child on the toilet or potty whenever they usually do a poo, if they are as regular as that! Continue this routine for up to two weeks, or until it feels like your child has grasped the idea of sitting on the toilet or potty and waiting, whether or not something happens.
Step Two
If your child is in child care during the week, we would suggest beginning this next step during a weekend or time off. The reason we suggest this is during the first couple of days of training, we like to set a timer for every 15 or so minutes where you will encourage your child to sit on the potty. This may seem excessive but realistically at this stage there is a lot of lucky timing involved in your child successfully doing a pee or poo in the potty. Therefore, the more opportunities they have to sit on the potty, the higher the odds of them using the potty successfully are; allowing for the positive reinforcement of praise to take place.
When an inevitable accident does happen, don’t make a big deal of it, simply say, ‘next time let’s try and make it to the potty, that’s where we do pees and poos’. Cater this phrase to your child’s age or developmental stage, as long as the message is that you’re not angry or disappointed, whilst steering them in the right direction for next time.
It’s a good idea to keep track of how many accidents vs. potty pees/poos your child does during this step, this way you can know whether your child might be starting to catch on to the routine or if it might be time to take a step back.
Step Three
Once your child has had multiple successes over a day or two, you can start to increase the time between reminders to use the potty, and eventually, you can place the responsibility with them; asking if they need to go instead of reminding them that it’s time to go.
It’s at this point that you can start to venture out a little more. If your child is in childcare, you can ask the childcarer to follow a routine of sitting them on the potty at regular intervals, but depending on the setting they may limited time or resources to spend doing this with each child, so you may find it takes a little longer in these cases, as they will often have more accidents at nursery if they are not reminded.
Before you leave the house, encourage your child to sit on the potty or toilet and try to do a pee before you leave. There doesn’t have to be any pressure here, in fact, this can make your child tense, making it very hard to go to the toilet. We have found that distracting your child with a story or nursery rhyme is a great way to get them to relax. Blowing bubbles is also a great way to lessen any tension they may be holding.
In this step, when out and about, try to stick close to home so you don’t have to spend too long travelling between locations without access to a toilet. When you do eventually venture out, it’s important to keep up the questions to your child, asking if they need the toilet, as there are many more distractions around outside to take their mind away from the fact they need a pee, leading to more accidents. We like to keep a carry potty or foldable toilet trainer seat with us, but it’s good to get children used to using ‘big toilets’, even if this means being held over one by yourself, so embrace this if you go out without any kind of travel potty.
Step Four
Once you’ve reached this step, you’ll hopefully be feeling like you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. If your child has been solely using the potty over the toilet, this is a good time to introduce the ‘big toilet’, without placing pressure on it. Think about what you did with the potty in step one and implement that with the toilet. Continue your routine with the potty but whenever your child is near the toilet, for a bath for example, encourage them to practice sitting on the toilet.
This step is also a good time to lessen the reminders for your child to use to potty or toilet even more, to prevent them from feeling pressured or nagged. Of course, if you notice it has been a while since your child when to the loo, because they’re distracted or just forgot, definitely take the opportunity to remind them where they can go if they need the loo, either the potty or the toilet.
If you find that your child is forgetting or getting distracted often, it might be a good idea to introduce a reward chart at this step. The reward part is up to you but we recommend starting small, so giving the reward after a day of success (whether success is no accidents or just sitting on the toilet and trying is up to you, you can always work your way up!) rather than a week.
Potty training is often harder than it is cracked up to be, mainly because of the pressure we place on ourselves and that is placed on us by fellow parents and childcarers, but it doesn’t have to be! If you feel that you may have started potty training at a time when your child is not ready, it’s more than okay to take a step back, put the nappy back on and start looking out for those signs again.
