We just did this here at our house with our youngest son. Rather, my wife did it mostly. It was easy: Under two weeks, no fuss, maybe two accidents, and he's perfectly trained even through the night. We used a cold turkey strategy. There is another strategy that I've seen, which was interesting in that it trained the child from birth (saves on diapers a lot), but I'll save that for another post.
How Old Can The Child Be For Potty Training?
The child needs to be able to sense whether a pee or poo is required. This concept is a bit circular because the act of potty training builds this awareness. You can wait until the child decides that they want to be a big girl or boy and take off their diaper, but this much later than necessary (although it does make potty training trivial). Decide, as the parent, whether the child is ready. Once they can start to tell you their feelings about hunger, being tired, wanting various things then they probably have enough awareness. Around two years, plus or minus, is a good time although it is not the earliest by any means.
Strategy One: Cold Turkey
This strategy takes about two weeks. Don't think of this as two weeks of pee and poo all over the house. There might be zero accidents, but it takes one to two weeks for the training to be internalized by the child. For this system to work, everyone around the child must be committed and understand it, meaning that the child has to be off daycare if they're in daycare. Other than that requirement, it is simple.
The System
Your goal is to associate peeing and pooing with the washroom, and with sitting on the potty or toilet. Consistency is very important. After the start of potty training you want the child to understand that peeing in the washroom is good, peeing in the pants is bad. We will use a training method called "Successive Approximation" where we take the child from nothing to potty trained.
Stage 1: No Pants
If you can reserve a couple of days to hang out at home it would be great because you'll be taking off the diapers and pants, leaving the child naked from the waist down. If he or she pees then you'll see it right away on the floor, as will your child. This is the magic: The feedback will be immediate for everyone. Of course, you don't want pee on the floor so you take the child to the washroom frequently, at least every half hour plus any time the child expresses the tiniest hint of an expression that might be interpreted as wanting to go to the washroom. We are in daytime training only right now so the child still wears a diaper to sleep.
The Washroom Procedure
Say something very consistent each time you bring the child to the washroom, like "Want to go pee? Want to go poo?" or even just "Peepee, poopoo?". Then take the child to the washroom and sit the child on the potty. Stay and explain, "Make a pee or poo" then both of you settle in to read a book or talk or play with toys -- whatever is needed to sit on the potty for a minimum of five minutes or until they child produces something. The washroom should feel like a good place to the child so ensure that there are a few favorite books or toys in there. Remember, often when you take the child into the washroom you are taking the child away from something fun they were doing, therefore you must try to make the washroom fun enough not to be seen as a punishment: You do not want the child to avoid telling you they need to pee for fear of losing fun time. We've had one child try to go just a little too long before telling someone they needed a poo. Neither a good sight nor smell to be found in that.
For the first several days, each time your child deposits a nugget react as though it were made of gold. Call in the whole family to gawk and praise the creation. This is the reward and teaches the child very quickly that peeing and pooing in the washroom is a very good thing.
Once they're done, empty the potty into the toilet and have the child flush -- they love to flush. If the child made a poo then say "we need to wipe your butt". Have the child put his or her hands on the floor and stick the bum up. This is the perfect position to wipe clean with one or two swipes. The child will not be able to wipe the butt effectively without a lot of training so the parent must do it (see my post on butt-wiping to learn how to train the child). In a public washroom where you are concerned about the floor you can have the child put her hands on your feet.
Finally wash their hands very well. It helps to have a step in front of the sink so that the child can stand on their own to reach.
Extinguishing Accidents Outside the Washroom
After the child knows that going in the washroom is a winning choice, which is after the first or second success, you should start extinguishing the accidents. Do this by making it a hassle for the child: Make them help you clean it. If you see an accident happening first thing is to make a huge deal out of it. Rush in saying "No! Don't pee here, go to the washroom! Gross, yuck." Usher them quickly to the washroom and execute the washroom procedure. Once the child finishes you go out to clean the pee WITH THE CHILD. Explain to them that they have to be a big kid, not make a mess on the floor, etc. Basically grumble the whole time you clean up the mess. The child will quickly associate an accident with negativity and the washroom with positivity.
Stage 2: Pants
After a couple or three days your child should be going very reliably in the washroom only. Since you frequently take them they don't have to try hard at all to avoid accidents, so you can dress them in pants and undies to go out on the town. Everything else stays the same: Visit the washroom a lot and be sure to punish the accidents by making "blech" noises and grumble that the child should have told you. Really the accidents will be self-punishing because your child will recognize their own mistake and have to endure a change of clothes and a wipe-down.
Stage 3: Sleep Training
After a week or so the child should be almost perfect during the day and the night diaper should usually be dry too. It's night training time.
Set up the bed by putting a layer of garbage bags under the sheet to protect the mattress and use an easily washable blanket. Take a washroom trip right before bedtime. Respond to any noise from the child's bedroom by taking the child to the washroom. If you're lucky then you will never have a nighttime accident.
Other Tips
Use the toilet when possible: The potty is ok, but I prefer to put the child on the toilet simply to avoid the cleanup. After awhile, once the child is going by themselves, they will need the potty because the toilet is too high. If I'm around though, and always in public places, I use the toilet. Just make sure they go well back to keep all the solids and liquids produced in the toilet. See the picture: My boy is back as far as he can be. They won't fall in -- although the young grasshoppers might be a little concerned the first time. Some toilet seats are designed such that the little kids have to spread out their legs more, in which case take one leg out of the pants to afford the room.
Boys and urinals: Urinals are even more convenient than toilets. Pull down the pants, lift up the child by the armpits and touch the toes to the front of the unrinal. The child will be able to pee without touching anything gross with their hands or body. The first time the child may be confused at first but they will realize how it works, especially if they've seen Dad use one before. Just tell them to "Go pee now".
Hygiene: Kids will often touch the seat with their hands. Tell them "blech, don't touch" and put their hands on their own thighs (look at the picture at the top). I have terrible visions of kids touching toilets then putting their hands in their mouths or eyes or ears. Avoid it!
Monkey see monkey do: Invite the child to hang out in the washroom with the other family members who are doing washroom business. The child will see that it's more normal to pee and poo in the toilet than the diaper.
Set up the reinforcement right: You want the washroom success to be awesome and accidents to be bad, but naturally bad. Above all, don't do anything to make the washroom unfun. Stay in there as long as the child wants, reading whatever book the child wants and never leaving the child alone -- ignore the phone and doorbell if they ring while you're with the child during those first few days. As well, no need to add any extra punishment other than the cleanup and grumbling for an accident.
Commit, Commit, Commit:It isn't hard, but you do need to commit to being near your child for up to two weeks. If you let young grasshopper poop the pants a few too many times or switch back to diapers for convenience in the middle of the process then you definitely cause confusion and delay. Just go cold turkey and you'll have no problems.
Comments
This is the strategy that my
This is the strategy that my parents used with me and (from what they told me) it worked like a charm! It might sound hard at first, but once it's over at least the worry about "accidents" is all over!!
~Rosie
I don't think it's that hard.
I don't think it's that hard. Easier than changing diapers. The child is also proud of themselves. Maybe most parents already know this, but on the other hand I do see a lot of kids still in diapers that I think could probably be out of them. Thanks for commenting Rosie! By the way, your website is very good looking!
Great strategy!
Great strategy!
For my kids - it's always a matter of them being ready. I have very stuburn kids with strong personalities. We're currently potty training our youngest and she's doing really good now...in fact, I'd say she's done with the process because she's completely off od diapers and doesn't wet the beg.
Still an interesting post here and one I'll share with others as I hear they are going through this possibly frusterating stage!
But what is there to be
But what is there to be stubborn or strong about with potty training? For the child it's a source of pride. The main bits of stubborn-ness we got was that he sometimes needed to go to the washroom but wanted to play, so sometimes it was a hassle for him. Simply power through those moments, suffer one or two accidents and it's done. We had no real struggles. Thanks for the comment JK! If your child is off diapers and doesn't wet the bed I'd say she's done too. Congratulations!
I like this strategy! My mom
I like this strategy! My mom used a similar strategy on us, and then when my younger brother was training (I was 19), I got to join in on the family praise for producing the goods. He was so proud!
The best is when we can
The best is when we can remember back to our own childhood and understand what worked and what didn't, what we felt back then. Thank you for the comment Christa!
Oh, this is very timely for
Oh, this is very timely for us. We just sent our youngest to preschool, and he had to be potty trained. We went with no pants a lot, which worked really well, but once the pants go back on, all bets are off. I thought about sending him to school with no pants. :)
He is also much more on top of it with my husband than with me, which I'm sure is a power struggle thing, so I try to let it go and not worry about it too much. :)
I'd say we're using kind of a warm turkey approach. :) It's working decently well, but I'm thinking maybe i need to be a little bit stricter about it...
Thanks for the tips!
Amy's Back! Just make the
Amy's Back! Just make the little guy clean up his own accidents then he'll see where his power struggle leads. What do you care as long as you don't have to wipe a puddle or do extra laundry :) "Pee all you want on the floor buddy, the paper towels and Lysol are in the kitchen."
How does no pants works with
How does no pants works with carpeting? Sounds like it's going to be messy. We'll try to toilet train the little guy early, around 9m. I'll have to go read up about it though. I read somewhere that in other cultures, kids toilet train much earlier than 2 yrs old.
I think you're asking because
I think you're asking because you have a suspicion that accidents on the carpet are worse than accidents on tile. So, I was going to write about strategy number 2, which I used to train my dogs to pee on command and was then very surprised to see a variant used on an infant. The technique is to create an association between the potty, a command, and the peeing, almost from birth. Although the control in the child is not there from birth, the control will presumably come "as soon as possible" if you do this. It's a bit more of a hassle because you would be training for most of the 9 months (if 9 months is the date it happens) but it has the beneficial trade-off of fewer diapers, since you won't be changing the child as much even as an infant. I am having a new baby in a few weeks and I intend to try this method with him. Thanks for the question, and let me know what you dig up on early potty training.
My mom told me that she
My mom told me that she started potty training me when I was just under a year old (I come from a different culture... the Polish Culture - plus diapers back then had to be hand washed, so my mom wanted to get rid of diapers ASAP). She told me that she would take me to the potty as soon as I knew how to sit, and she would whisper shshshshshsh... On the other hand, she told me that when I was older, already walking, I would go hide in a corner and poo in my pants (pretty regularly). I don't know how much control children have over their bodies (especially the pooing part) before a certain age. I read somewhere that at 18 months is really the earliest kids can "feel" they need to go to the washroom. With diapers so easily accessible and easily disposable, I think there is little incentive to start too early, if it doesn't mean it's going to be fully accomplished and self-driven.
Funny about the hiding and
Funny about the hiding and pooping. Others have that issue too :)
Have you seen those
Have you seen those interlocking foam tiles that child care businesses often use to cover their floors? You can put them on top of the carpet to protect it. I bought a pack of those when my little one was learning to walk. His playroom has carpet but our living room floor is hard tiles. I didn't want him bumping his head when he fell in the living room so I got enough to cover the living room floor. I figured I'd keep them for the next baby so I never got rid of them. We're potty training now for a loooong time so yesterday I decided to to try the naked below the waist method (which is going better than anything else we've tried). I put the tiles down over the carpet in his playroom and let him drink all the water and lemonade he wants. His potty chair is also in the playroom. Yesterday he had lots of accidents; the tiles protected the carpet nicely. Today he has had only a couple of accidents which were easy to clean up off the tiles. I'll still leave the tiles there a few more days and let him run around half naked, until I'm confident that he consistently senses when he needs to go potty. If you go to amazon.com and type in "foam tiles", you'll see several examples of what I'm talking about.
Cool, I've seen the tiles,
Cool, I've seen the tiles, but never bought any. Do they intelock tightly enough to keep the accident fully on top? That's a great idea for carpets!
I, too, used the cold turkey
I, too, used the cold turkey strategy with my twin girls. It worked, and very quickly. I actually trained with two portable, toddler-sized potties (I lugged those suckers everywhere!) and did a large portion of the training outside in the warm weather. No pants of any kind (except pull ups at night), a sticker chart and a crazy potty song did the trick for us! Nice post.
Sweet. Here I wrote this
Sweet. Here I wrote this because I thought some people had trouble potty training, but everyone seems to have it down! Love the outside bit, makes accidents even easier to ... ignore :) Thanks for the comment Melinda.
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Here's our strategy. We started with nights, which is the opposite of what most people do; maybe our child is just weird, but it's worth considering.
Your hygiene concerns seem a little skewed to me. You think the floor of a public restroom is dirtier than your SHOES?? The floor gets mopped at least once a day with germ-killing cleanser. How often do you clean your shoes? Where have you been walking?
What I told my child, and my parents told me, about hygiene is that poo is full of germs the body has thrown out, and these germs get on your hands when you use the restroom and get onto other surfaces in the restroom. So you don't touch your face in a restroom until you have washed your hands, and then you don't touch any other surface in the restroom with your washed hands. My son came to understand this very quickly. It was less a matter of, "Blech, don't touch," than of, "Now that you've touched that, you know your hands are dirty until you wash them." I haven't taught him any special cautions for public restrooms; we need to be careful of sanitation at home, too.
Your wiping procedure seems odd to me, too, in that my goal was to teach my child toileting procedures he would use on his own with minimal adaptation--so I had him wipe himself while seated, and then if he was on the big toilet I'd wipe him while he was seated. (A potty chair doesn't provide enough space for that!) All wiping was completed and pants pulled up before disposal of the poo. Maybe it's not what you meant, but with the order in which your explanation is written, it sounds like you had the kid get up and run around helping to empty the potty and flush before you even mentioned wiping, which seems weird--don't you then need an extra flush to dispose of the toilet paper?
Hey Becca. Thanks for the
Hey Becca. Thanks for the comment! I'm going to check out the Earthling Handbook ... awesome title :)
As for your questions and suggestions:
#1 Yes I think the bathroom floor is dirty, as in disgusting. The floor definitely has the pee drips (clean but yech), splashed feces from the flushes (e coli, salmonella, hepatitis, diarrhea, etc), coughing (many colds), nose picking flicks (staph -- which my son had, you don't want it) for hundreds of people. Not to mention the BOTTOMs of everyone's shoes walked all over that floor while he touches the TOPs of my shoes. The tops of my chose may be dusty but they have a better chance of being ok than all the rest of that stuff. You're right that my home bathroom floor is also bad, but it only has a family trundling through it, without shoes on, and unlike the general public, we try to keep everying in the bowl. Maybe you are used to the women's restroom, which I understand people can eat from. Men are comparatively disgusting slobs.
Second is the wiping procedure. I don't actually know the "official" wiping procedure, just how I wipe. You are right not to do an extra flush, I did read it and it seems like we might, but we do empty the potty last. I'll change the post to make it obvious!
Thanks for the great comment -- let me know if I have anything else wrong (or right maybe?!?!?) I'm going to check out your site.
I don't think women's
I don't think women's restrooms are especially clean. I expect men's have more pee on the floor, but you're probably less likely to encounter blood in a men's room. I read an article several years ago about research on the germiness of various parts of restrooms, which ranked the floor about midway; the dirtiest places were toilet handles and sink drains, and in women's restrooms the germiest place of all was the lid of the wastebasket in the stall! Presumably this is because it gets both toilet spray and women handling it in the middle of their toilet procedures. I also don't want my child poking around in there because the trash is likely soaked with blood (I'm kind of dumbstruck that, more than two decades after the outbreak of HIV, there's been no change in pad/tampon disposal rules!) so I just made a rule from the time he was an infant that he wasn't allowed to touch that wastebasket, and I don't either.
Anyway, I appreciate that you're willing to take your kids into men's rooms despite your hygienic concerns. I know many families in which Dad won't take the kids anywhere on the excuse that he can't take them to the bathroom. My dad used to take me into men's rooms; it was no problem. Some women seem to think men lurk in restrooms waiting to expose themselves to children, but in my experience--even though I was curious whether all men looked like my dad--I couldn't see a thing because the men would gasp, "There's a girl in here!!!" and squinch up against the urinals. :-D Anyway, I doubt that a predator would attempt anything on a child who's accompanied by his/her father.
I didn't mean to say you were violating some "official" wiping procedure! It's just that I avoid teaching my kid to do something that I won't want him to do in the long run--in this case, bend over with hands on the floor--unless it is impossible to get through the teaching phase without it. I figure it's easier to learn to do things the way you're going to be doing them for the rest of your life, than to learn it one way and then switch. That was one of my reasons for speaking standard English to him instead of baby talk, for instance.
I forgot about the blood!!
I forgot about the blood!! Now my vision of a women's restroom changed from a shiny, pleasant smelling sanctuary with flowers and couches to a slaughterhouse (I used to work in one so I know EXACTLY how they look :)
I think washrooms are generally pretty dirty even if they seem clean. There was some article I read once that tested toothbrushes on the sink and found that they have fecal coliforms from the flushing. Those high volumes toilets really kick up a lot of spray, and the ones in the public restrooms are sometimes pressurized.
That said, I'm not too concerned about hygeine. I'm one of those guys who figures that kids should catch everything to build up their immune system. I'm fine with the five second rule for dropped food, wearing the same clothes until they're visibly dirty, playing in dirty, running around barefoot, that kind of thing. I don't like them sharing drinks or straws though because that pretty much guarantees passing on whatever human transmittable diseases others have -- some of which are permanent like herpes, or purposely trying to touch poop or pee. One of my kids once tried to pick up the urinal breath-mint (a little air-freshener puck that sits in the bottom of the urinal) ... yech. I didn't even want him to touch my shoes after that :)
I truly never thought of wiping while sitting down. The bum up is half way to standing and wiping himself so for me it wasn't anything that had to be untaught. Reason for bum up is that it makes for quick access and easy visual inspection. I don't wipe sitting down, but maybe I'm the only one in the world ... I truly just assumed that people do it that way!
Ah, the things you learn on
Ah, the things you learn on the Internet! Way back in the days of Netnews discussion boards, a board that was supposed to be about sex got overwhelmed by the thread, "How do you wipe your butt?" with people from all over the world arguing quite vehemently about the proper method! Seems to me, the important thing here is that your strategy is working for you and your boys.
That's why I missed it, I
That's why I missed it, I didn't troll around those dirty boards back then :) Did you save a copy of the thread LOL.?
Oh, my link came out weird.
Oh, my link came out weird. It is
http://articles.earthlingshandbook.org/2009/05/13/toilet-training-tips/
Another helpful thing to try
Another helpful thing to try when attempting the nighttime stage is the dream wee... At about 10pm or so, get your kid out of bed and sit them on the potty or toilet. This can help avoid accidents at night until they are capable of taking themselves to the loo at night.
Another point... if you think you are "failing" at toilet training, it may not be the case. We were having all sorts of issues with our daughter not being able to make it to the toilet in time (in addition to sleep and behavioural problems). We eventually identified that she has several food intolerances, and if her diet is not particularly good, she has problems identifying when she needs to go to the bathroom. This is not alegies, and it is not food that you would think is bad for you (although things like preservitives and coloring cause issues) - corn and bananas were two things she had an almost instant reaction to. Anyway, something to keep in mind if things aren't going well, despite conventional wisdom.
Great tips Grant. Our kids
Great tips Grant. Our kids have no allergies we know of, so good to know that diet can cause problems. Our youngest toddler gets up during the night probably every three days or so and makes it to the washroom. At the beginning especially, we made sure the kids went to the washroom before going to bed, but probably waking them up again before the parents go to bed is a good idea. Sometimes our kids wake up and they're totally confused like they just got jolted out of a dream and don't remember where they are. Pretty easy for them to have an accident on the floor then :) Thanks for the comment Grant! Come back again,.
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