Guest post brought to you by Jasmine Roberts at Potty HQ.
Potty training should not be a burden to the parties involved; the parent as well as the toddler. However, if the initial approach is wrong, it might take a considerable amount of time before kids get it right.
Time being what most parents don’t have, they tend to push children beyond their limit during this phase of their development. It’s been proven by American Association Of Paediatrics that children experience more abuse during the process of potty training than any other developmental stage.
Parents that have successfully potty trained their child within record time suggest the following five tips:
Readiness Assessment
The first recipe to failing at potty training is starting when the child is not physically and mentally equipped to commence training.
Starting without assessing the child’s readiness is synonymous to setting them up for failure. For a successful potty training, you want to ask yourself if the child is ready.
For a start, toddler must be able to understand basic instruction either through verbal words or gesture. If you can’t communicate with them effectively, it becomes very difficult to train them effectively. Instructions such as sit, come should be understandable to them.
As far as physical growth is concerned, their bladder must be strong enough to hold its content for few hours. You want to pay attention to how frequent they wet their diapers. If they can hold up for couple of hours, it shows their bladder is matured enough to hold up its content. Babies wet their diapers quite often because they have weak bladders.
As the bladder develops, so does the brain. Since the brain is responsible for initiating the reflex action that results into urinating and defecating.
Discomfort in wet diapers is another indicator of readiness for potty training. This is very easy to catch. When the toddler start showing signs of discomfort frequently, immediately after they wet their diapers, it’s an indicator that they’re ready to commence potty training.
Other signs of readiness include learning by imitation. If they toddler has an elder brother or sister that uses a potty, they might willingly sit on it when they need to use the toilet as well. This occurs when they age gap between siblings isn’t too wide.
Check this quiz to see if they’re read to commence potty training.
Would you rather wait for the appropriate time and get it done properly, or start before the right time and fail?
Timing
As with other significant things in life. Timing is very important. Potty training should be scheduled to when both parents have enough time for the child. It’s very easy for them to learn the skill when they’re being taught by a familiar face rather than being taught by different people over the cause of time.
If you’re using a care giver, then do so without interrupting the process. If you’re doing the training yourself, it should be scheduled to a period when you would have enough time to keep an eye on them to ensure the training is done perfectly.
From parents that has successfully completed potty training for their kids in record time, it’s been shown that holiday is the best period of the year to learn potty training.
Although some parents have been successful using the three days potty training method, the condition attached to the success of the training is that, kids are almost of school age before the commencement of the training program, which means they are old enough to master the skill within record time.
If your child is old enough to master the skill within three days, the best period would be during the weekend; from Friday to Sunday.
Appropriate Training Materials
To be successful at potty training means having the necessary materials at your disposal. You might want to deliberate on the use of potty chair or potty seat.
Potty chairs are stand-alone potty, while potty seats are seat reducer that you can place over the adult toilet seat to make it usable for the kids.
Your choice largely depends on how old your kids are, and their gender. If you’re confused on what you should get for your child, read this guide on choosing potty seats.
Getting other potty training materials such as training books, reward items, potty training videos as well as training pants has proved valuable over the years. They’re relatively cheap and would make the entire potty training process easier and fun for both parties.
You can get them a potty seat with their favourite cartoon character. Another bright idea is getting a training pant that matches the colour of their potty.
Positive Reinforcement
Potty training is a big deal for the child. It’s the first skill they’re learning intentionally, and it will be valuable to them for the rest of their life.
Several mistakes will happen during the process, and the only way to keep them motivated is through positive reinforcement.
Encourage them even when they don’t seem to be doing it appropriately. Correct them without sounding frustrated. Using positive words would go a long way in improving their rate of learning, as well as their willingness to yield to correction when mistakes happens.
Celebrate every success and make it a big deal to them. You can create a reward system where they get a sticker or their favourite candy when they do it properly.
Don’t raise your voice against them when accident happens. Remember, it’s their first time of learning something deliberately.
Patience
I personally don’t like the idea of potty training kids in three days because a lot can go wrong in the process. Parents with success stories of how they potty trained their child laid emphasis on the importance of patience.
They’re kids, not adult, and it is very important that you remember that all through the process. Parents should refrain from comparing their kids to others, each child would master the skill at his or her own pace.
In conclusion, always remember that it takes time to master things, but once you do, it becomes part of you.
Good luck potty training your child.
Author Bio – I am a stay-at-home mother of two, Raising my boys has been one of my greatest achievement in life. I work as a freelancer from our home in Memphis, and I recently started working for PottyHQ.
Disclaimer: This is a collaborative post.
Related Posts:
Survival Strategies For Potty Training
Hello Laura,
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to pass the message across through this platform. I hope readers will enjoy reading the post as much as I enjoyed writing it.
It was extraordinarily instructive and valuable