Potty training can be a real nightmare for some people and completely easy for others.
I was lucky…I got to experience both! I thought I’d gather some potty training tips for you just in case you need a little support.
Potty Training Tips
Have a routine – By including sitting on the potty each morning when your child gets up and each night before bed, they can begin to understand the routine and begin to talk about the “proper terminology” for using the potty. I would start this routine around 11 or 12 months and introduce Baby Signs so that your child can begin communicating with you. (Don’t worry if they aren’t actually going yet…that’s not the main thing.) Also be sure to take them to the potty about 20 minutes after they eat or drink something once you’ve established the initial routine and are ready to move on.
Watch for their signals – Can you tell when they’re “going”? If you watch them, you will be able to see their tell and when they are going. That way, you can catch them and get them to the potty.
Find their currency – What will they do anything for? Many people use M&M’s, but for me that didn’t work. My oldest would “go” for a chance to watch a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. My youngest would go “poopies” for a Lego minifigure. Find their currency, motivator, and use that. Then gradually make it harder and harder to get that “thing”. We used a sticker chart and once they started going regularly, then they had to get 3 stickers before they got a reward…then 5, 10…until we could remove the reward.
Be prepared – Gather everything you need before you start…including your patience! I did use Pull-Ups when we went out of the house, but there are a lot of people that feel that Pull-Ups actually prolong the process. You may want to stick with underwear, you can find reinforced underwear here. Keep spare clothes in the car. They even have a thing called a car seat piddle pad to line the car seat during this learning process.
I was, and still am, one of those moms that keeps a potty chair in the car. My oldest would wait until the last minute to tell me he had to go and this saved us quite a few times (on the side of the highway letting him go). But it can be kind of disgusting!
Here’s where ToddleGreen Flushable Potty Liners come in handy. You just pop one of these into the Froggy Potty and it makes clean up a breeze. They are 100% bio-degradable and sewer and septic safe. One ToddleGreen box has 30 liners in it and at $11.95 on Amazon are completely worth my time and my gag reflex.
You can also Click Here to check out a program called Potty Train by Noon. I didn’t use this system, but I’ve seen a quite a few good reviews.
Good luck with your potty training adventures!
Disclosure – I received a complimentary box of ToddleGreen liners. The opinions are 100% my own. There are affiliate links in the is post.