And here we are! Third child to potty train and quite possibly the fastest and easiest!
Some of the main things we did … .
POTTY .. We’ve had the potty in the downstairs toilet for the past few months so she’s very used to looking at it, lifting it, sitting on it, etc. She even used it one day a few months back while I was chatting to my friend on the phone! Being very familiar with it definitely helped.
BOOKS .. We’ve a few Potty book from the older two and our youngest really enjoys them so she’s been listening to them and looking at the pictures for a long time. The books discuss potty, toilet, knickers / underpants, toilet paper, hand washing, accidents, etc so she’s been hearing the narrative for quite some time. With our other two kid
we would have brought them to a book shop to pick out a new potty book but obviously that’s not an option right now. Plus we own quite a few anyway so it’s not necessary!!
KNICKERS .. we had lots of knickers for her that we knew she would love .. Frozen, Peppa, stripy and rainbow ones! This has definitely been an incentive for all ours when potty training. The excitement for our little girl to put on her Frozen knickers!! She couldn’t get the nappy off fast enough!
RECORD .. we didn’t do a chart or reward poster for her. It was all very relaxed and easygoing. But what I do like to do, for myself, for the first day or two, is keep a track of when she sits on the potty, wee, poo, accident, etc. It helps to give you an idea as to when to expect what! You’d be surprised what you forget!
FREQUENCY .. at the start I encouraged her to sit on the potty every 15 (ish) minutes! This lengthened our as the first day went on and she got more used to it. I could see by the end of the day that she was aware herself when she needed to use the potty so I didn’t need to check as often.
PRAISE .. plenty of praise is given for every effort and plenty of cuddles to let her know that accidents don’t matter at all. We didn’t go stickers / treats as a reward .. hugs, whoops and high fives were plenty!
NAP / NIGHT TIME .. Once we start toilet training, we don’t use any nappies. For nap and bed time we’ve used Pull Ups and called them sleepy knickers / nighttime knickers. This has worked very well for us, as they’ve all felt that they’ve moved on to the next stage of knickers / underpants and sleep time hasn’t changed or undermined this.
We’ve never made a big deal about toilet training for night. We’ve used pull ups until they wake up dry and then move to the stage of not using them. There’s no set time frame or pressure around it, and it’s worked for our two eldest, so hopefully it will for our third as well. She has woken up dry from her naps each day since we started, so far so good!
Hopefully there are some ideas there that might help. Remembering that it’s different for every child and every family is important. What may work for one child, may not work for another .. and that’s perfectly ok.
All in their own good time.
*Image our own
