Question About What to Expect During First Few Days of Potty Training.

it depends a lot on the kid - some kids pick it up easier than others. I have twin girls and one of them caught on to knowing when she had to go pretty quickly but couldn't hold it long, the other seemed to be able to hold it for hours but didn't seem to figure out how to let it out unless she was about to burst! My mantra was what their preschool teacher told me (her 20+ years of preschool teaching and raising 3 kids of her own gave her plenty of personal experience): "They *all* get it when they're ready"...in my girls' case they were about 3.5YO.

The 'bare bottom' technique worked well with one of my girls - I'm a bit squeamish about accident clean up so we started out by letting her play in the kitchen after dinner w/just her shirt on and her potty chair nearby. I've heard other parents say they've let their kids do this in the backyard in warm weather.

My other potty training motto is "every child is different, and there's no correlation between the age at which a child potty trains and either the trainer or trainee's IQ" :-) (I know kids who were reading before age 3 and didn't potty train until around age 3.5). Feel free to go at the speed that seems right for you and your child and feel free to ease up on training if either you or your child is getting stressed out about it. I tell people it's sort of like different approaches to climbing a mountain - some brave and determined folks will take the quickest straight-up-with-rock-climbing-gear approach and others will prefer the longer winding trail that isn't as steep or intimidating-looking.

Best of luck to you - someday when our kids are teenagers we'll look back nostalgically and think "remember when our biggest worries were things like whether they'd make it to the potty in time?"

Hi N.,

I too have just started the potty training of my 15 month old daughter, Kayli. I have 5 children total, ages 20, 15, 11, 4 and 2. It seems as though she wants to potty, but for some reason her body doesn't. I encourage both of us to do our best and God will do the rest!

K.

Good advice there from Dusty! Also I will add that what seemed to make the whole thing "click" for my daughters was having them run around without diaper, underwear, or pants on. Somehow if they feel something around their little bottoms, they forget that they aren't just supposed to pee/poop there. By having all that fresh air, it helped remind them that if they didn't make it to the potty, there would be pee-pee on their feet! Also I think toddlers just really need to SEE things in order to get it. Sounds strange, but how would they really know what going pee-pee feels like unless they see themselves going pee-pee... so, probably your son will need to actually see himself going potty before he will be able to really make the connection on what it feels like and where he should do this. Yes, it's messy for the first couple of days, not having them in any kind of diaper or underwear, but it was very effective for both of my kids!

Good luck!!

Hi N., to answer your question what to expect during the first few days, I would say...lot's and accidents! Now I have heard that boys are easier but I wouldn't know because I have a daughter. For her the first few days were very tough. I actually wasn't able to get her potty trained until she was 3, she just wasn't ready yet. Also, remember that at the age of 2 their bladders are still really small and their muscles haven't developed enough to hold a lot of pee in their bladders. So when you set him on the toilet and it's only a little splash, thats because their bladder doesn't hold much! They pee a little several times in an hour.

About the stage fright thing, what I did was bring my daughter into the bathroom with me so she could see me using the big girl toilet, then I let her take a turn and she felt good cause she was doing what mommy did. That worked great for us. Since you have a son though is might work, maybe not. It is all trial and error. Take them to the toilet every 20-30 minutes for a few weeks, they will learn to use those muscles and hold it, then change it to every 30-45 minutes and so on. He will probably go in the potty here any day now. The best advice I have is to not push really hard. Kids do things in their own comfort zone. Good luck, I hope this helps.