A child’s chair used for toilet training. It is usually a miniature version of a toilet and may be placed in the bathroom or, for convenience, just about anywhere.
It is important that children be ready to take over their own toileting. This is a big step in independence and they will need lots of positive reinforcement. Read on Next Day Potty for more information.
Children generally start showing signs of potty readiness around 18 months, although some are ready at a much younger age. If your child has a strong desire to wear underwear and is able to follow multi-step directions, he may be ready to ditch the diapers. Children must be able to communicate their bladder and bowel needs, either through words or with unique facial expressions. They should also be able to sit for several minutes at a time on the toilet, and have well-established gross motor skills, like sitting and standing.
The most obvious sign that your child is ready is a change in their diaper, which can be a signal to you or they may simply ask for a fresh one. You can help them learn to recognize the feeling of needing to go by having them put on their underwear or a pull-up and then sitting on the potty chair for a few minutes a couple of times a day.
Some children will need a bit more encouragement to get on the potty, so you can try reading them a book or playing a game of 20 Questions. If you’re having trouble getting your child to sit on the potty, consider trying to make it a routine by seating them on the potty after each meal and every drink.
While it can be frustrating when your child isn’t getting on the potty quickly, if you keep up with the training and remain consistent, you will eventually see results. However, if you find that your child has been resistant to toilet training for more than a few days and is not showing any measurable improvement, it may be time to give up on the process for now.
If there are other significant life changes going on, such as a move, the arrival of a baby sibling or a big birthday, now might be a good time to take a break from the potty training and revisit it at a later date. Children need to be emotionally and physically ready to meet the challenges of learning new things, and adding potty training into a major family transition can be too much for some children.
Rewards
A potty training reward system can be a great way to get your child excited about using the potty. It can also help you motivate them to keep going when they might otherwise give up or have an accident. Rewards can be edible (like a candy treat) or non-edible (like a playtime activity). They can also be long term or short term.
For example, some parents have found it useful to create a potty reward chart and let their children put a sticker on the chart each time they use the potty successfully. Others prefer to make a tower out of Legos and allow their child to add a block with each successful trip to the potty, with the goal of reaching the top of the tower at some point in the future. These types of visual rewards can be a good motivational tool for many children.
Rewards can be anything from a small toy, a special snack or a trip to the park to having their favorite TV show after dinner. It’s important that the reward is something that your child wants and will be excited about. It should be offered immediately after the potty success for the best effect. And then slowly, over time, you can start to increase the requirement for receiving the reward – from every day to each successful potty week and then to each successful potty month.
However, it’s important to remember that a reward is not the same as a bribe. “Rewards are something that you do because your child does a good job, whereas a bribe is something that you do to force your child to do what you want them to do,” says Francyne Zeltser, PsyD Opens in new window, a child psychologist and clinical director of Manhattan Psychology Group.
Having said that, if your child is ready to start potty training and you find a reward system that works for them, go for it! It may not work for all kids, but it’s always worth a try. Just be sure to remove the reward if it’s no longer being used as the motivating factor.
Punishments
While some potty training parents have made the news for their extreme methods — a Utah mom famously propped her naked twin daughters on tiny plastic potties at a crowded restaurant, for instance — most experts agree that punishing a child for having an accident isn’t helpful and often backfires. Punishment can make kids feel stressed and fearful of having to use the toilet, which can actually slow or even stop their potty training progress.
Punishment can also make kids think that they are bad, which can lead them to hide their accidents from you in the future. Rather than punishing your child for having an accident, encourage them to pay attention to when they need to go and try not to have any more accidents.
Typically, kids have accidents because they don’t realize that they need to go or they are too busy to run to the potty in time. Spanking a kid when they have an accident won’t help them learn to better connect the feeling of needing to use the toilet with pulling down their pants and getting on it.
If you’re worried about your kid having an accident, try putting a potty watch on their wrist or having them wear a pull-up. Then remind them to go when the watch goes off. This will give them an independent reminder (although it won’t prevent all accidents). You can also ask your child to help clean up after an accident and make sure they take a bathroom break before going out, before meals, before bedtime and after they drink something.
Ultimately, rewarding your child for successfully using the potty and avoiding accidents is a much more effective approach than punishment. If your child is having a lot of accidents, talk to your pediatrician about whether they are still ready to start potty training or if there’s another issue at play. Also, be patient and remind yourself that potty training is hard for everyone. It’s not uncommon for kids to have a few setbacks along the way, but they will eventually get it!