Seeking Potty Training Recommedations

I have 4 children and my best advice for you is "wait until the child is ready" I tried everything under the sun to get my oldest child, who is now 12, to use the potty. She wasn't ready and all the accidents were stressing for both of us. I eventually bought her pull ups and when she was ready she let me know. The same was true with the other 3. I never used the potty chairs instead I used the snap on seats that you put right on the regular toilet seat, that way they felt like big boys and girls.

DD is too young for training, but we are doing some elimination communication with her and "catch" about half of her poops when we are home (she's 11 months). We have the Bjorn Little Potty and I really, really like it. (So does she!) Very easy to clean, light, portable, and cheap!

Hi L.,

My daughter was 2 1/2 when we decided to start potty trainig her and I will have to say that the website I have attached below was an absolute Godsend. Lora Jensen's advice in this book worked wonders. I waited until a 3-day weekend (which happened to be this last Columbus Day Weekend) and it really did work. The major key in all of this is that you truly have to devote every minute of those 3 days to that child's needs. Try not to get distracted at all if you can. By Monday we had it down, but I kept her home another day with me just to make sure. The pooping and overnight part took another couple of days but I would say that within a 7-10 days we were completely trained for both pee and poops in the regular sized toilet. I want to say that the cost of downloading the book was between $20-30 bucks and totally well worth it. Anyway, I am sure that you will get plenty of advice, but I know that this method really worked for us and I wish it had come along sooner, as it took me 6 months with my oldest son and almost 8 months with my 5 year-old son.

http://www.3daypottytraining.com/

Good Luck,
C.

check out http://anintentionalparent.com/ her guide on potty training is great and very easy if you can be consistant. worth the $5 or go to her lecture.

If you have any more questions please email me,
J.

The smartest potty chair looks like a miniature real toilet. It is the only kind that makes sense to a little child. Let's face it, not other piece of furniture looks like a toilet yet there are many kinds of potty chairs that look like little chairs.

Trust me when I say that my kids used the "mini toilet" 24 years ago and they both trained in 1 week - day and night, wetting and bowel movements.

The most important thing to know about potty training is the following. The first sign that a child is ready to train is when they start waking up dry from naps and then dry in the morning. You then know their little bodies can hold it. If you try before they start waking up dry, YOU will be the one who is trained, not them.

Good luck and don't be in a hurry. Most kids are really not ready until they are at least 2 1/2 years old.

God bless.

I got really lucky with both my daughters in that they pretty much led the way. My oldest announced no more diapers at 27 months and that was it; my younger daughter, who has Down syndrome, took a little longer but was trained by 3 1/2. I put a pretty generic potty in the bathroom and they just started sitting on it when I used the toilet. Here were a couple other things that I used at the same time to reinforce the whole idea:

1 - we had a tape called "Baby Songs" that had a really cute potty training song about not using diapers anymore and
2 - a book that I understand has a video too - I can't remember the name (!) but it featured a little girl named Prudence whose grandma gave her a potty chair. We read that book over and over and over.
3 - pretty panties (never underestimate the power of fashion)

My oldest freaked out at the blue water on airplanes and at homes where people used the auto toilet bowl cleaners, and wouldn't go outdoors in the grass, so I also had an inflatable little potty that I lined with plastic bags for those away from home times.

I started potty training at 6 months. Since my husband and I didn't want the chore of cleaning out the "potty training" toilets, we bought her a seat.

She likes being a big girl and using her seat. Just keep in mind that if you want to make the potty training work, there needs to be consistancy.

I started by taking her in the morning, before nap time, and after meals. And then it was every 3 - 4 hours.

GOOD LUCK!

I'm sure you will get a LOT of advice on this, everyone has a different method and I believe every child is different. But I'll share what is working for us right now (my daughter is 2.5 yrs old).

The video Potty Power (you can usually rent on Netflix or something) really clicked better than any other book or video for some reason (beware, it's really annoying LOL).

I also wanted to throw in that we bought the Safety First Cushy Comfy potty and I really wish we would have gotten something simpler. I've heard the Ikea ones are great. Ours is a pain to clean.

Good luck!

We got the Fisher Price Royal Stepstool Potty from Target ($20). I was torn between getting my 21mo son a potty of his own vs the seat to go on the big potty, and this potty gave us both options. You can pull the seat off to put on the big potty or use it as a child potty. You can also use it as a stepstool, and we really liked the 3-in-1 option since our bathroom isn't very large.

With my son only being 21mo, I don't have any tips other than don't force it on your child. You sound like you have the right idea... the same idea I did about introducing the potty to your daughter while still understanding that she's more than likely not ready yet. I read in an article that the average age these days is 33 months for girls and 36 months for boys. A short 40 years ago, the average age was 18 months!!!!!!!! Anyway, I'm just staying patient with my son and if he goes, he goes.

Oh, I also had a parent tell me once that kids are usually ready to start serious potty training when they can walk down stairs by themselves. I guess it has something to do with the coordination of the muscles. Not sure if it's true, but it was an interesting - and thought-provoking - idea.

Hi L.,
All I did with my daughter was get a little potty and put it in the bathroom and she would go into the bathroom and just sit on it (without taking pants down or anything)whenever I would use the restroom. Then when I felt that she was ready to really try to go potty, I got a small jar and filled it with m&m's or jelly beans and left the jar on the bathroom counter. Everytime she even tried to go potty (took her pants down even if she didn't actually go potty) I would give her 3 or 4 m&ms. After a while of doing this, I would hold out on the m&ms until she actually went potty, then give them to her. It was a process, but it was painless. I just followed her lead and everything went very smoothly. Good luck! Hope this helps!
E.

Check this one out, the 4 in 1 potty by Primo baby.
http://www.primobaby.com/toilet_09.htm.
We bought a few others and this turned out to be the best one over all. Our daughter loves it and was completely trained in 2 days, at 21 months old. Also check out 3 day potty training website, that's what worked for us as well.

Good Luck :)
J.

Hi L.,
I bought the ring that is placed on top of the toilet. By the time potty training came along, I was tired of cleaning up poop so I opted to skip the little potty.

There's a list of readiness signs in the book What to Expect The Toddler Years.

As another mom suggested, we focused first on the poop. Mainly this was because we could tell when our kids needed to go.

Take your daughter with you when you need to use the potty so she can see what you do. Finally, have a routine. For example, every time we get ready to leave the house, we all go potty.

Good luck!

P.S. Avoid public restrooms until she's trained. Some of them are so loud! One automatic flusher scared my son. He was afraid of every toilet for a while after that.

I prefer the simple one from Ikea. It is a little higher in front to keep everything in the potty. Also there is no lid. I found that the lid would only slow us down when we had to run to the potty. Also my girls would use the one with the lid as a step stool and carry it all over the house. We have a really great book call "I Want MY Potty" by Tony Ross. My daughter loves the book and the ikea potty is a perfect match to the princess's potty in the book.

Hi L.,

I have only two recommendations. First, be consistant. Once you start, you need to always follow the same routine. Second, try not to get stressed/frustrated, and if you do, do not let your daughter see it. If you keep it positive and low key, she will respond quicker. If you get frustrated at an accident, she will sense it and have more accidents.

I waited until my twin girls were 18 months before I bought the kids potties. They just sat in the bathroom and the girls like to go sit on them, especially while I was in the bathroom. Now at 26 months, one of my girls is occasionally letting me know when she has to poop and she runs to her potty. She gets lots of praise when she does. We will eventually take a more active role in potty training, but we decided it was not worth stressing out over and making everyone unhappy.

Good luck!

Hello,

We bought the Boon Potty Bench for our son. We haven't started potty training yet either. Daycare prefers to wait until kids are 2 (our son is 22 months). But Lucas likes pretending to pee (he sits on the potty bench). Also, he uses it to be able to reach high enough to brush his teeth and spit in the bathroom sink. I love that it's dual purpose and I use it as a step stool as well.
Best of luck to you.

You don't say how old your daughter is, so it's hard to really give good advice... but you can start your child when you're ready and it can take 6 months or a year, or you can wait until they are ready and it can take a week. That's the pediatric advice my mom lived by and passed on to my sister and me.

That being said... you need to figure out whether your child is a potty chair child or a regular toilet child. We bought the potty chair for my son only to find he was a toilet kid (which makes going anywhere so much easier!)

You can try a timer more to remind you of when to take her, but every child is different and you'll have to adjust your expectations until you come to the right interval.