Potty Training - FAIL

[Rachael]

One tip - try and figure out her toilet habits. i.e. if you give her a drink, does she typically pee 20 mins after? Does she poop at a set time every day or does she poop within a certain amount of time following eating?

If she drinks constantly and has water accessible all day, that's going to be trickier to figure out.

In the day care, mine have drinks at set times with their meals. Of course if they need an extra drink they may have one but they have to sit at the table to drink and so it's really clear here when a child is taking in more fluid as they aren't permitted to walk around with water bottles.

This helps at toilet training - although not the reason behind the set drinking times, it's an added bonus. It means that if a pattern is identifiable, I can pre-empt when a child is more likely to need to go, and send them off to the potty.

For shorter children, I do set out a potty when toilet training and it is located just outside my powder room. This means that they never get caught up in the line up if they need to go. Little ones just learning to toilet independently, don't always recognize the signs until it's quite urgent so they need full access without waiting.

If you are able to see a pattern, then placing the child on the potty a couple of mins before they are likely to need to go, means more successful tries. Then it's a matter of making those successes a celebration.

I always try and reward based on the personalities currency. What I mean by that is some children love stickers, some children love being the centre of attention, some children don't like being the centre of attention but prefer one-on-one praise.

I have a reward sticker chart but how I tackle that varies by personality. I reward a pee on the potty with one sticker and a poop with two. Depending on the type of child, we might have a group sing and lots of whooping and loud praise for a successful toilet trip or we might have a quiet 'just between us' congratulations and private sticker choice and placement on the chart.

I avoid pullups, training underwear and diapers completely when toilet training. That way, if there is an accident, it feels different. When a child has an accident in a pull-up, because it feels the same as a diaper and because it's been fine for them to pee in a diaper their whole lives, it can sometimes be confusing as to why we now what them to not do that. A change in expectation is therefore helped when there is a change following the original behaviour (wetting or soiling themselves). If they have an accident in underwear and it immediately feels different than it always has felt, it helps reiterate that change.

Also, don't keep clean fresh clothing in the bathroom to immediately change them if and when an accident has happened. I'm not for one minute suggesting that the child is left in wet/soiled underwear but I am saying give it a minute or so to allow the child to feel the difference of having an accident in their underwear vs in a diaper/pull=up.

Ask the child, with your help, to find their fresh clothing from their room, cubby, book bag in readiness for a change of clothes. Then get them to take off their wet things with your help - not you doing it all for them. It's about the child missing out for a few minutes on the fun things going on and being a little inconvenienced by the accident.

And finally - no negativity. I know as a parent the additional laundry and mess can be tiresome. Sometime especially at the end of a long working day, it's just one more task that we would prefer not to have to deal with. But make sure not to let a little tutt escape or an eye roll to happen. Our children know us inside out. They have observed our every move since the day their were born. They can tell, often before we can, if we are frustrated, and they do and will see those tiny little body language signs that we often don't know we make. Every small child wants their Mommy to be pleased with them, they feel proud knowing they have made us happy and they feel sad if they think we are upset with them. As hard as it is, try and be aware of those little frustration signals we all have because this is one of those times, to really hide them.