Potty Training

There are a lot of points to consider when you think it is time for your child to start potty training.  Here are a few tips I have picked up via the net and from friends/family who have been through the training process:

When is the right time to start Potty Training?

This is different for all children and the "right age" can range from 8 months to up to three years.  Remember that age is only one factor in deciding to start the transition from nappies to the toilet. 

You could start very early with Elimination Communication (EC) also called "Natural Infant Hygiene" which teaches even extremely young babies to perform their business with specified sounds/actions. The process involves observing one's baby's signs and signals, providing cue sounds and elimination-place associations, and can be done with or without any diaper use.  More details at Diaperfreebaby.org   This approach has a number of benefits such as potentially huge savings on diaper costs, no diaper rash on your child, builds a stronger bond with your baby and its more environmentally friendly in terms of less land-fill from those hard to break-down modern diapers (though your "environment" in the house may not smell too friendly during the early stages!),

If you decide not to go down the EC route and instead wait for you child to get a bit older then some useful "check questions" which you could ask yourself are:

1. Is you child able to communicate "when" he/she needs to go to the toilet?  The parent cry of "Why didn't you tell me!?" when you child forgets to say "I need to go now" can be a negative experience for your child.  Try to teach your child the correlation between doing their business and the toilet.
2. Is there some kind of schedule to your child's liquid intake... if meal-times or specific period of the day?  If yes then this will help your potty training, but if your child is still carrying around a bottle or drinking cup pretty constantly then its perhaps a bit early to potty train.
3. Do you think your child understands enough about "wet and day", "cause and effect", multiple step instructions to be able to comprehend the training process?  This is a judgement call and may only be learnt through a couple of tries to talk through the plans with your child.

Some other checks which could be helpful... does your child...?

1. communicate when he/she needs to go (or has gone)
2. show an interest in the potty
3. imitate family members
4. raise and lower his/her own pants
5. stay dry in daipers for about 2 hours at a time
6. have fairly predictable bowel activity :)

Not all of these checks are necessary but they help build the picture of whether or not it is time to start training.

Now on to the training itself.  There are a number of tricks and techniques to make potty training easier and more fun for your children.  Some involve buying products, others are more low-cost and just require time and effort.  Here is a list of ideas:

1. Consider buying a "Drink and Wet" doll such as Emma or Paul from Corolle and have your child teach the doll to use the potty - this can be very effective to help understanding.  Positive reinforcement is critical - when the doll manages to use the potty properly then have a mini-celebration and really "spoil" the doll so that your child realises it is good to use the potty properly and that positive results can come out of it.
2. Another popular trick is to teach that "Blue and Yellow make Green" - place a few drops of blue food colouring into your toilet bowl/potty water then get your child to add their own addition of yellow colour so that the water goes an exciting green - don't forget to farewell the green with a flush ;)
3. Arrange some kind of schedule for the training - for example when first learning you might set two times a day which will be dedicated to potty training - the first might be about an hour after the first meal of the day and the second flexible depending on the signs you child may give you.  Then have them sit on the potty and listen to music or read a book until they go.  Make it fun to be there and make sure there is plenty of positive re-inforcement of any success.
4. You may want to consider "toilet targets" - either home made or purchased to encourage your boy to aim straight and make toilet use fun
5. Positive rewards - another idea is to have a stock of little fun presents (such as stickers or items of low cost but fun for the child) and reward for performance in stages - start by giving a reward for simply sitting on the potty (at least remembering to); then only give the reward for successful use of the potty, then give a bigger prize for several days of accident free performance.  Children can respond wonderfully to positive and low cost stimuli like this.  One great reward (which is pretty much free) is to tee up a call from a friend posing as a super-hero who is ringing to congratulate your child on their potty performance! :)
6. There are books, DVDs and musical potty's which play a tune when your child does a tinkle but I am not such a fan of this type of commercialism so shall end my advice here.

Good luck and may your missed potty moments be rare and easy to wipe up !