Adventures in Potty Training - Part II - My Preferred Method

Warning: Before reading this, please note that I will be using mommy potty terminology like ‘pee’ and ‘poop’. If you don’t mind then read on! :)

Okay, so here are the signs of potty training readiness that I went by to ensure that JJ and now Jayla were ready for the potty training adventure. These are from the book On Becoming Toddler Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam:

Primary signs of readiness emerge when your toddler:
-Stays dry for 2 or more hours at a time
-Has regular bowel movements
-Wakes up from his/her naps dry
-Stops an activity while urinating or messing in his/her diaper
-Stands a certain way and holds on to his/her diaper as he/she eliminates
-Is interested in “big girl/big boy” underwear
-Wants to imitate parents or older siblings using the toilet
-Is able to understand and follow simple directions

Secondary signs of readiness emerge when your toddler:
-Can sit and play quietly for about 5 minutes
-Can put toys and other possessions where they belong on his/her own
-Can dress and undress himself/herself
-Has a name for urine and bowel movements

According to these signs, I determined JJ’s readiness at 2 years and 3 months, and I was right on. Jayla will be 2 years old next month. The book does note that all of these signs do not necessarily need to be there in order to begin the adventure, but the more signs your child is exhibiting, the better and easier it will be for you to teach them.

Now, for the details on my ‘Jen deBruin potty training method’. Well, for starters, Jen is my good friend and is a fellow mom. Her oldest is 7 months older than JJ, so she has been my perfect go-to person for advice since she is experiencing all the ‘big things’ right before me. Luckily I’ve been able to watch her go through all the munchkin transitions first, and then borrow her ideas of what did and didn’t work with her son, and try them on JJ. She’s given me thoughts and ideas for everything from labor and delivery options to infant feeding/sleeping routines to transitioning to table foods and a ‘big kid bed’ to discipline to potty training. Not that I haven’t done my own research and read books on my own, I have done that too, but Jen is always there to give me the practical side of things 7 months ahead of the time when I will need to start with JJ. It’s been great. And, here was her main advice to me regarding potty training….SKIP THE PULL-UPS!!!!!!!!!!!! So, that is the theme of this method. And now, here are the details that I have taken from her and I have also used a few more ideas from that book listed above:

Start on a date when you can have the calendar cleared for a few days. Plan on staying home for at least 2 days so that you can really focus in and get it done without other interruptions, errands to run, reasons to leave the house, etc. The night before the start date prep your munchkin on the upcoming adventure. The main goal is to get them excited!!!! Show them the potty seat or chair, the big boy/big girl underwear (which is what you will be using instead of pull-ups) and then explain to them what will take place tomorrow. Make it simple and explain everything in the bathroom so you can point to the potty. I’ve said something like this, “Tomorrow you are going to start using the potty. When you wake up in the morning you are going to wear underwear. And, mommy is going to have you sit on the potty a lot tomorrow so that you can learn how to pee and poop in the potty. Remember how sometimes in the bathtub you stand up and toot? Well, that is what you will do in the potty. You will sit on the potty and push out your pee and poop. After you sit on the potty and pee or poop in the potty you will get to have a _____”. For JJ the reward was m & m’s, for Jayla it is a sticker for pee and a popsicle for poop. Then make sure you set the reward somewhere near the potty (if possible). That’s all for the prep night. (If you think your child needs more than a day’s notice about what is going to go on, you could also try doing a countdown to the big day about a week out. …explaining everything a little at a time each day, trying to get them really excited for the big start day.) One side note is that we decided to use a potty seat that goes right over the big potty because of all our traveling on the weekends. I needed them to be able to go to the bathroom in a public restroom right away, so I just trained them on the big potty so that they weren’t afraid of it and were used to it for traveling.

On start day, I would recommend starting everything after breakfast. Give the basket of diapers a send off, and then put the big kid underwear on and explain everything again. Then, depending on how much they drink, have them sit on the potty about every 20-30 minutes and ask them to ‘go’. When I did this with JJ when he was training, he at first would not pee during the designated potty trips, but shortly after he would pee his pants. However, this was a huge learning advantage of not wearing pull-ups (and the whole point of this method) because having just underwear on the pee would completely soak him and get all over his pants and the floor. It would run down his leg and make a huge splat sound as it hit the floor (now you know why you want to clear the calendar and make sure you will be at home when this happens!). As much as it was a mess to clean up, it was great because he would completely freak out and I could use that moment to remind him that the pee needs to go in the potty. I kept saying “The next time you feel like you have to pee, tell mommy or run to the potty”. This pattern of having them sit on the potty about every 20-30 minutes continues on, and eventually, they will have a successful trip when they go in the potty and you can take the opportunity to act like a crazy, excited person. Cheering, dancing, running around, high fives, lots of smiles, – or whatever flips their switch – but most of all, making it a big deal that they get their reward. The hope is that after they taste their success (and feel the uncomfortable mess of their failures) that something will click and they will make the connection of when they need to get to the potty. For JJ, this took until evening time on Day 1. We’d had a few successful trips but numerous accidents, but by evening time he started telling me when he had to go by saying “Oh pee” and holding himself. It’s taken Jayla until Day 2 to tell me when she has to go. She bends over and says “Mommy, go potty!” Once they started doing this, I gave them the freedom of telling me when they needed to go. I did away with the designated potty trips every 20-30 minutes because they were staying dry in between the times of when they said they had to go. With Jayla I’ve found that she just doesn’t have to pee as much as JJ did. I was taking her about every 30 minutes on Day 1 and she would sit there for 10 minutes and not go. Then about 15 minutes after the potty trip she would have an accident, so it showed me that I was taking her too soon and making her sit there and get frustrated (and she would get really mad!). On Day 2 when she started telling me that she had to go it was perfect b/c she really liked that feeling of independence and me not making her sit on the potty (I could tell b/c her attitude was completely different when she initiated the trip instead of me). However, if it had been almost an hour since the last trip I would keep a really close watch on her, and remind her, and sometimes initiate a potty trip especially if she’d had a cup of milk over the past hour. When they start telling you that they have to go, it is important to praise them for staying dry in between the potty trips as well as praising them for telling you that they have to go, and of course encouraging them with the rewards once they do go. Yesterday was Day 3 with Jayla, and she had NO pee accidents. YAY!

As for the pooping part this is definitely a little harder. When JJ was in diapers and had to do his business, he would run and hide to a certain place and poop. So, when training him, the key was catching him in his hiding place right before he was about to go, and then plopping him on the potty and asking him to poop there. With JJ it took one time of doing this and he went poop in the potty every time thereafter. He was just too easy. Jayla on the other hand has been a different story (and she did the hiding thing too when she was in diapers). So far, she is very afraid to poop in the potty. She just refuses. Days 1 & 2 she refused to poop at all and got really constipated. Day 3 she went in her pants 2 times….the first was right when she woke up, the second was when I was taking a shower. So, both times I wasn’t there to catch her mid-poop and put her on the potty. I am hoping that once I am able to do that she will get on board, but time will tell.

As for naptime and nighttime I limit fluid intake to nothing at least 45 minutes to an hour prior, and I continued to have them stay in their big boy/big girl underwear for sleep time (and right before sleep time take a potty trip). Both JJ and Jayla stayed dry through naps from Day 1 so no problems there. For nighttime with JJ on Day 1 he woke up wet in the morning. Day 2 before bedtime I limited his liquids even earlier….about an hour and a half out, and he stayed dry all night, and most nights thereafter. With Jayla I’ve been putting her to bed around 8:45pm and then checking her around 11:30pm. The past 3 nights she’s been dry when I’ve checked at 11:30pm, but then she wakes up wet at 7am. So, I’ve been having to wash the sheets every morning (she has a waterproof mattress cover). If this continues, I may resort to a nighttime training pant. I really want to avoid that if possible, but I also realize that her bladder might not yet be mature enough to store urine for the extended nighttime period like JJ's was.

So, that’s the scoop. This was a little longer than I wanted it to be all written out, but I’m not one for omitting details. Here’s a quick recap:

1) Make sure you see multiple signs of readiness before starting

2) Specify a start day. Prep up until start day (explain underwear, sitting on potty, reward, etc.)

3) For start day, skip the pull-ups. Have them wear underwear so that they feel wetness and so they will feel uncomfortable if they go in their pants (some of my friends have also had their kids go bare- bottom so that they could really tell when they went and have quicker reaction time to get them to the potty). Be mentally prepared to be cleaning up pee and poop for a few hours.

4) Have them sit on potty every 20-30 minutes to start. You can also have them drink lots of liquids so they will need to pee a lot and have many opportunities to use the potty.

5) Have a reward in visible sight next to the potty.

6) Use lots of praise, encouragement and excitement when they have a successful trip to the potty; but also let them know that it is not okay when they pee/poop their pants....next time it needs to go into the potty.

7) Reward for successes, and maintain an encouraging attitude through the failures. They will take their cues from your attitude, so try to stay encouraging, even as you are cleaning pee off the floor. :)

Again, I know this method is not for every family….and it’s certainly not the most cleanly option. It’s just what has worked for us, and just wanted to share it in case it floats your boat!