I’m not going to lie, I despise diapers. When I was pregnant I knew my main goal would be to get her out of diapers as fast as I could. I have read so many blogs, articles, and books about potty training. But there is no tried and true method, it is all based on the kid and the parent to which method will work. So when you read Potty Train in 3 Days! don’t be fooled into thinking it will work as it’s just another method. I going to update this since we are still not fully potty trained as we go along but I do hope it helps you in your adventures in potty training.
Birth to 12 Months
I have always made going to the bathroom a topic of conversation. When I change her diapers I say “oh you went pee, or poo” I’ve brought her in the bathroom with me “I’m going to go pee or poo” so that way she would be aware that potty is a thing, a lot of what I read said that kids get accustom to going in their diapers without even noticing. It becomes a habit and a reflex to just go. So I wanted her to be aware that something is happening. I don’t know if this helped to us have an easier time in the following steps but it’s worth the try for anyone with a new baby.
12 Months to 17 Months
Once she turned 12 months, (she has been walking since 10 months) I bought her a potty. I let her sit on it with clothes on, I put her on it after naps, before bath time and when ever else it was convenient. Just to get her used to the idea of using it in the future. I also started asking her what she was doing. If she came to me with a dirty diaper I would ask “Did you go poo? or Did you go pee?” In the beginning she didn’t answer so when I would lay her down I would say “Yes (shaking my head yes) you went poo (or pee)” Eventually she caught on and started shaking her head to answer the question, and then saying yes or no. At this point I also started showing her, when I went to the potty, “Look I am peeing in the potty” so she would correlate the act with the words.
17 Months to 19 Months (Current)
We started letting her be naked from the waist down during the day. We would move the potty to whatever room she was in, and throughout the day ask her if she needed to go. At first we went with the 3 day method and placed her on the potty every 20 minutes for a whole day but that seemed to make her more scared of the potty and fight us by the end of the day. So we decided that wasn’t going to work for us, which is ok because there are a million other ways to do it! lol In the beginning she seemed to be afraid to pee outside her diaper. She would hold it when her diaper was off, and do a funny potty dance when she had to go. When we saw this dance we would place her on the potty and tell her to just let it out. Some times we would show her how to grunt and push it out lol! But it just has to click in their head, which takes time for some. This was a very messy stage, when she would start to go on the floor we would run over put her on the potty and tell her pee or poo goes in the potty, then clean up the mess. One thing I’d like to add is we never associate the act of pottying in the potty with being a “big girl,” when she goes in the potty we say thank you! One day she just sat on the potty and went, with no asking from me. She brought me her chair bowl with pee in it and we took it to the bathroom and she dumped in the big potty. We cheered and clapped! She loves saying yaaay! and woohoo! and clapping so she got a kick out of that. Then every time after that we would cheer and say thank you. At this point she wouldn’t keep a diaper on to save her life, so at night she would throw it off and I would go in after she was asleep to put it back on. Finally I let her sleep without it one night and placed her potty in her room, sure enough she woke up the next morning and went and sat on her potty, peed, then called for me to come clean it up. So exciting! Potty training does have regressions, so be prepared and don’t get upset or worried when it happens, just reinstall the training you’ve already done.
We are now moving on to working on pulling down panties, and in the car/public training so I will update again when I have how we accomplished that. Good luck potty training your child! I hope this helped.