The Dreaded Words - Potty Training
- Elly
- Feb 11, 2020
- 3 min read
Emilia has now been daytime potty trained for a few months (since August). Looking back, I was SO nervous about potty training! Jacob was just three months old at the time and while I wasn’t quite ready, the timing just made sense. Wilson was heading back to work after summer holidays, Emilia was starting preschool and had also been showing signs of readiness. It seemed like such a daunting task, and even though it was difficult and intensive for about a week, it was just a week.
I started, as I’m sure many of us do, by ordering a ton of books on Amazon - some for Emilia and some for my husband and I. I wanted to be as prepared as possible and I would definitely recommend educating yourself before you start so that you have as many tools and tips in your back pocket as possible! Here are some of the books we bought:
Parent Books:
Kids Books:
Now, I am NOT a potty training expert by any means, but here are some tips that we learnt along the way that worked/didn’t work for us!
Tips:
🚽Don’t pull out the potty until you are ready to start potty training - Emilia used it as a toy for months prior to us starting.
🚽We found going cold turkey - no diapers (during the day) - worked for us.
🚽Consistency is key! We haven’t used a diaper/pull up for daytime since starting potty training.
🚽Order a to-go potty seat to lessen the stress of outings. Ours linked here: Portable Potty Seat
🚽When you are first doing outings, be mindful of the automatic flush toilets. They can be quite loud and scary. I’ve heard that putting a post-it in front of the sensor helps to stop it from flushing. I haven’t tried it, but I would have in hindsight after a very traumatic experience for Emilia! Lol
🚽If you are increasing your child's fluid intake, use drinks such as water, sparkling water (Bubly), or milk rather than sugary drinks like juice. The added sugar can cause behavioural changes which is not helpful during this already big change!
🚽 If you can potty train before having another baby, DO! I feel so bad for Jacob because there were many times that I had to quickly put him down mid-sleep to get Emilia to the potty on time. Of course this resulted in waking him up = not fun having a naked toddler running around and a cranky baby!
🚽The most important thing I learned was to do what you think is best for your child - you are the ones that know what works best for them. One of the books we read discouraged praising your child after using the potty. So we tried this method at the beginning and after a while, we noticed that it wasn’t working for Emilia. Knowing Emilia, a child who thrives on praise and encouragement, we changed our game plan and did what we thought worked best for her. And every child is different!
Hopefully, these tips can help you feel less anxious about starting to potty train. We have yet to start nighttime potty training and I’m sure we’re in for another big learning curve when we do. But that will come in time!
What are your potty training tips or things you learned along the way? How did you start nighttime potty training?
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