Potty training - how?!

[Fangtasticks]

I work four days a week and DD is at nursery. EOWE and all holidays we have my delightful but chaotic SC. When should I aim to do potty training?!

We’ve booked a week in early August and are ditching the nappies then. Exciting times! :D Daughter will be 2 and 2 months. She could probably crack it now but we want to do it the same way we did with our son and make sure we’ve got the time and space to focus on it rather than cramming it into a weekend and stressing about whether she’ll be ok for the childminder on the Monday.

A week should be fine. You just have to be determined and stick with it and not go out. It’s your responsibility to help your child make this transition.

Another recommendation for Oh Crap! Potty Training book. It’s brilliant. A long weekend would be great if you can manage it. We’re also mostly carpeted in our house but don’t let it put you off. Have some pee neutralising spray or something handy. We als had a potty in the bathroom which we put our on every morning and evening before bed which seemed to help. Good luck 🙏

Why do people suggest this. Are you expecting your child to use the garden to pee and poop? It should make no difference summer or winter.

The Oh crap method gets another vote!! We did it at 2ys 1 month. We did take a week off work & glad we did, it took 4 days for it to click but we had a really connected hectic slightly stressful but joyfully funny 4 days.

Once he got it & if you read the book you’ll understand. He never looked back! Only had 3 daytime accidents in the next few months & was dry at night without any input from us 2 months later!

Well worth the annual leave!

A week off in nice warm weather - no nappies/pull ups/any lower body clothing, except perhaps big boy/girl pants, potty always there, eagle eyes, masses of praise for performing, 🤞.

DS1 cracked it over a bank holiday weekend at 2 years 3 months. DS2 hated it - a few tries were total failures. I’d planned to try again at Easter when he would have been just over 3, but he beat me to it just days after he turned 3, saying he wanted to wear big boy pants and just got on with it. Not one single accident.

We did it over Christmas at 2yr 3months. Started in Xmas eve, he was pretty good by 26th. 27th we did a 40min car ride and managed 4 hours at a family member’s carpeted house, 40mins home. 28th a lunch meal out and 29th he was back in nursery. Had a few accidents there because they can’t watch them quite a closely, but they were happy enough with his progress and we haven’t looked back from there. I’d say a bank holiday from the Friday afternoon is long enough to get a sense of if they will pick it up - don’t expect perfection.
As for carpets - get some anti-urine spray people use for pets. It gets rid of the odours. Expect poos to be more challenging than wees.

chocolate buttons are your friend!

I struggle with the idea that people book a week off work to do this!

Start Friday evening and let nursery continue on Monday or use the bank holiday weekend coming up for an extra day?

*Nappies only for bedtime (no going back and forth or popping one on for an outing)

• pants and easy up trousers, crocs or waterproof sandals on feet, (bare bum means another transition back to being covered, which I’ve seen a lot struggle with) *tell them (not ask) it’s time to try for a wee every half an hour or so, *loads of praise when they get it in the toilet (or potty if you really must) a small reward can be a great incentive *accidents dealt with no fuss (oh let’s get it in the toilet next time) *if they don’t get it (mostly) in a few days, they’re not ready.

It wasn’t so much about offloading the responsibility, but asking for their support. You’re talking about booking time off to stay at home to do it. What I meant is, you can do it in a regular week. They will support your DD with it, so no need to worry about having time off to do it.

My childminder won’t accept children who are in the middle of potty training. They need to be pretty reliable before they come back to her, hence our need for a week off.

Also when I say I booked a week off work- it wasn't only for the sole purpose of potty training. It was half term so I was going to book it off anyway as I also have a school aged child and rubbish school holiday childcare options here 😂 i just meant it gave us a dedicated extended chunk of time to just focus on cracking it as I wanted it done and knew dc was ready.

Interesting approach from your childminder! I’ve always been of the mind set that it is part of looking after children🤷🏻‍♀️

Yep we thought it was odd too when she told us about it with our son a few years ago. I even made a post about it here and was told it was normal.

Oh really? In my 20+ years in early years I’ve never gone across a child minder/nursery that won’t help with toilet training! Seems so odd to me, surely our job is to support children learning new skills!

I work full time. DD woke up on a Saturday morning when she was two years and a quarter, announced she wanted to wear pants, so we just got on with it. Kept at it over the weekend, she got the idea, childminder carried on, on the Monday, and she cracked it pretty quickly. No time off necessary.

I trained DD as she turned two as I'm a teacher and it was the six weeks holidays. I didn't look for signs of readiness as summer and me having time off work was a good time to do it! It took about five days I think before I dared take her out anywhere. When she first went to nursery I sent her with every pair of trousers that she owned and got loads back sopping wet 😂. They didn't mind though and were happy to support.

She's 2.5 now and we have the odd 'bad day' where for whatever reason she doesn't want to use the toilet but generally she does really well and if she does have an accident it's a little dribble in her pants. I'm so glad we did it and no longer have to deal with dirty nappies!

Leave it until she is really ready and it won’t take as long. I first tried with DS at aged three but every time he wet himself he would get really upset and it was the middle of winter. We went back to nappies for a few months and tried again the following spring when he was 3.5 and it clicked immediately. I think boys aren’t ready as soon as girls though. I used to pick him up from nursery and his boy peers would be handed over to parents with multiple pairs of wet pants because they were trying to stick to an arbitrary age of 2 being the ‘right’ time to start.

It only took us a weekend with minimal accidents after that OP. I used pull ups in the car for the first few weeks but dropped them after that. I wouldn't do it on holiday unless you're staying in your own villa. And even then the change in routine and tiredness may make it more challenging.

My youngest, who's now 18, told me she was ready at just shy of two and a half by whipping off her nappy in soft play and refusing to have it put back on. This was at the beginning of a soggy wet half term. She never had a single accident, unusual I know. Her sister who is older did it a more standard way at the same age with only minor hiccups. It's my least favourite part of parenting.

Oh I don't know, could it possibly be that people are suggesting it because dealing with an accident out in the garden is a lot less of a pain than cleaning up puddles from a carpet? Did you honestly think people were suggesting that children should intentionally pee and poo in the garden?

This is what I thought but she says it’s not fair on the other children 🤷🏻‍♀️

A long weekend take a Friday off she should be ok by Monday at nursery

Oh she’s so young I’d wait until summer and take a lond weekend
fhe book no crap potty training is good!

I would have zero confidence in a childminder who couldn't cope with potty training a child while looking after others!