Last week, I shared with you how I potty trained Alice, you can read it here…this week I have put together my Top Tips!
Timing
It’s really important to wait until they are ready and this will happen at different times for every child. Try to ignore any pressure you are getting from people around you, or books that you have read, saying to do it by a certain age. You know your child best and look out for signs. I believe getting the timing right, was why Alice cracked it in four days.
Go shopping with the little ones
Take them shopping to buy their ‘big girl knickers’ or ‘big boy pants’, let them choose the ones they want and buy lots. Let them choose their potty, to start with I just brought one online, but then when I decided it would be best to have one upstairs and downstairs. Alice choose the second one and this is when potty training started to go better for us, she wanted to sit on her Peppa Pig pink potty much more than the one I brought, that matched my toilet!!!
Go Shopping to be prepared
I didn’t want to constantly be worrying about Alice having accidents on my sofa, so I brought some disposable bed mats and cheap throws. I placed the bed mats on our sofas and covered them with the throws, so Alice didn’t see them. I didn’t want her to think it was ok to have ‘an accident’ on the sofa because the bed mats were there! These are brilliant, as on day one when she was watching Peppa Pig, she had an accident, because she was relaxed and distracted. But, it was easy not to be cross, because my sofa was dry and I could just throw the bed mat in the bin and the throw in the wash.
Keep your cool
This is the hardest one…there are going to be accidents and normally they happen twenty seconds after you have just asked if they need to go! But, don’t get cross, let them know it’s ok and quickly clean it up. Gently remind them to go on the potty next time.
The dreaded number two
For most toddlers, the thought of having a number two is much scarier than having a wee. To begin with Alice was having a number two during the night (when she had a pull up on). Then I read Alice a book called ‘Princess Polly’s Potty’ (there is also one called ‘Pirate Pete’s Potty). This is a very graphic book, it has pictures of a number two in the potty. This really helped Alice to see that it was ok and because she loves princesses, she wanted to be like Princess Polly!
Rewards
I brought a couple of small toys for Alice, these were from the ‘potty fairy’. When Alice had done a wee in the potty for a couple of days, we gave her one from the ‘potty fairy’, who had heard how amazing Alice had been. She loved this! Then again, when she did a number two, the ‘potty fairy’ sent her another present. Even now, she remembers these came from the ‘potty fairy’.
I also brought some Peppa Pig stickers and made a reward chart, one sticker for a wee and two stickers for a number two. This worked well for the first few days, but then the novelty wore off…which leads me to the next point…
Regression
Alice was doing really well, but then suddenly it was like, she thought ‘What, I have to use the toilet forever’!! So, I had to change the stickers for white chocolate buttons…yep, one for a wee and two for a number two! I didn’t want Alice to regress and this worked well for a couple of days to get over this hurdle and then I stopped the rewards.
Overall it wasn’t too bad and Alice has been dry during the day and night for a year. Good Luck!
