The truth about Potty Training

I have now successfully potty trained both of my boys after talking to many other moms and reading a handful of potty training how-to's. I found varying opinions on not pushing your child; wait until they are ready and they will train themselves to a strict here's how you train your child to use the toilet in three days.

The truth about potty training is a combination of both extremes- wait until your child is ready so that they will help motivate themselves, but in reality you do need to actually teach them. Their body is designed such that they have muscles to control their bowel and bladder, but they are not born with the knowledge to utilize those muscles for using the toilet. That is where your teaching comes in.

You need to teach them 3 things:
1. Recognize the sensation of needing to use the bathroom.
2. Control of their muscles to hold and release at the appropriate time
3. That it is better, easier, and more rewarding to be toilet trained-even if that means stopping what you are doing to use the bathroom.

Now how you accomplish those three things is entirely up to you and your child depending on needs and personality differences. The most important thing for your child during this process is MOTIVATION. Potty training is work. It is a huge adjustment from how they are used to operating on a daily basis so they need a reason to actually put in all of that effort. Sticker charts and rewards work great for some kids. Other kids just need your praise and encouragement. Some the motivation to wear big kid underwear or be just like an older sibling.

This is something I really struggled with in training my first child. He simply was not motivated to learn. He didn't care to be like his friends using the potty, he didn't care about wearing underwear, he didn't care too much about the stickers or prizes, and he didn't even care to be clean. He could be sitting in a puddle of pee on my floor and just go right on with whatever he was playing without it bothering him a single bit. The motivation for him then was convenience!

After a year and half long attempt of introducing him to the potty and having no luck at sparking his interest, I was done! I finally wrote it on the calendar and showed him 2 weeks in advance saying, "this is your last day of diapers." Once that day came he was not allowed to wear a diaper again. I encouraged him to practice using the potty for when that day came. (Which he didn't really care to do.) The magical day arrived and I took off his diaper in the morning. We did the common drink a lot of juice and spend most of the day on the potty. He had games he could play, pages to color, and books to read while he sat there. He had some successes just be mere probability of spending most of his day sitting on his throne. Anytime he had an accident, I took him from whatever he was playing and set him in the tub. He had to stay there and wait while I cleaned up the mess on the floor and took his clothes to the laundry. I then completely washed him in the tub and took my time to get him dressed again before he could go back to playing. If he had an accident again, we repeated the process again and I would explain to him that it takes a long time to clean up an accident. Going potty right away is so much faster because then you can go right back to what you are playing. This continued for 5 days with almost no success. We did other things too that you read about to encourage him like sticker charts, and timers for sitting on the potty. I even recorded the times he typically went to make sure he was on the toilet during those times. Finally on the morning of the 6 day. He ran into the bathroom on his own and came out saying, "I went potty!" We still had our share of accidents after that, but he was finally trained!

This leads me to the thing that is most important for parents: PATIENCE. Hang in there. Potty training was the worst stretch of time ever! It is for every parent, and the funny thing I realized after talking to other parents and comparing my own experiences is that regardless of how difficult or easy your child is to train, the experience of potty training is still described the same way. It is really hard, just try to stay home during that time, and there will be a lot of accidents- tons in the first few days and even a lot for the first month. And while my second child's potty training was so much easier because he was actually motivated to learn. He loved earning stickers or "scoring points" as we would call it because he is my sports lover and he wanted to wear underwear. It was still a long difficult process with a lot of accidents.

Just remember, accidents are a crucial part of potty training. It is an opportunity for your child to more outwardly recognize the sensation of going to the bathroom, thus enabling them to learn how to have control over those muscles. Hang in there and be creative in how you motivate them to want to learn and teach themselves!