I feel my 20 month old daughter is showing signs of being ready to be potty trained. I try to make it a point to make her sit on her potty every morning after breakfast (when she used has her BM). But when she sits (about 15-20mins) there she seems too tensed. I read her a story and she even has her little bear with her but she just doesnt seem to relax and wants to get out of it. She has her BM as soon as she gets out.
Oh also, i heard about this book called Potty training in a day, i was wondering if someone has read and tried this and if it really works.
I'm not sure if that's the right way to start training, so I was hoping to get some advice on this issue and if there's a better way to get this going.
Hello Everyone,
Thank you all very much for your help/advice. Well so from what almost everyone said is its to early to start training her seriously, so i've decided to put it off for little more time. Right now is no pressure. She just wear panties during the day and likes to run to the potty and says pee pee. But we dont pressure her or make a fuss when he misses. So its all good. THank you once again!
Hi,
I believe that you should not push a child into potty training too soon. If you do it will only be frustrating for everyone. When she is truly ready it will be much easier to potty train. I think 20 months is young and that you have plenty of time. Even a few months in age can make a huge difference. I potty trained my son when he was 2 1/2 and he was trained in about 3 days with no accidents and at night. Best of luck
I let my daughter run around with no diaper on and she was trained in about 2 days. Just make sure that your daughter understands to pee and poop on the pot. Take her in the bathroom and and tell her. Good luck
We put the potty in the bathroom a couple of weeks before we "introduced" it to our son, then made him sit on it before he got in the bath in the evening. At first my son would barely let his hind end touch the seat, then would say he was done. But before long he was comfortable sitting on it -- especially if I "sat" on the potty too. And I always brought him with me when I went to the potty so he could see that that's what we do. And when he did start to go to the potty to do his business, there was lots of praise (of course!) and a piece of candy for a reward. We never fussed if there was an accident, just said things like "oh no. let's not potty in your pants, that feels yucky!" and within a month he was completely trained!
Good luck!
The books I'm using are Keys To Toilet Training by Meg Zweiback, a Pediatric nurse practitioner and Potty Training the Brazelton way by T.Berry Brazelton, a Pediatrician. I got them on amazon. They are both very helpful. Keep in mind that what works for one does not always work for another. It's a big responsibility for the child and they have to want to do it. My son is 3.5 and just now starting to get it. We started off putting him on the potty just before bath time everynight. No pressure to go just letting him get use to it. Then increasing it gradually. He has never been afraid to do either business. It's a process.
My personal opinion is that the quickest way to potty train a child is to let them go completely naked in the house and use sticker charts for motivation. I potty trained both of my kids this way at 2.5 years old and they potty trained (daytime) in about a week. Meaning we didn't use another diaper or pullup for daytime purposes since then. However they were not ready at night time until they were a little past 3 y.o.
There are plenty of other ways to do it, I just think this is the quickest. This method requires you to be totally focused on your child and the potty training process for that week they're going naked. And you have to stay home. So it would be hard to work or grocery shop or anything while you're doing it. Frankly, I think any potty training process is hard and takes alot of focused attention right at the beginning. If you don't give it that kind of effort at the beginning regardless of the method, then I think you could be training for 6 months or more, especially at her age. It will take over your life for a while especially if she is fighting it at all.
If you really think she's physically ready for this, I would wait until she turns 2 and then pick a week that you can focus only on potty training. And until then, I would buy a video or book and a potty chair and just start introducing the concept with no pressure. Then when the time gets closer to potty training week, tell her that next week we're going potty and we're not wearing diapers any more, like she doesn't have a choice. My kids always had a choice. If it had been too much for them when I tried this I would have stopped, but they didn't know that.
Whatever you do, if you start trying and she starts really fighting it or starts crying over it or showing any kind of emotional stress over it, I would quit trying and reintroduce it a few months later. The only time I would be hard core and relentless about potty training is if they were older than 3 and I was absolutely certain it was just a battle of wills. Just my opinion. Good luck with whatever you decide.
My son started potty training at about 20 mnoths, but very casually. Most kids aren't ready at this age. We just had him run aruond with no clothes so that he got really in touch with how his body works, let him sit on the potty for fun, etc. There was never a "you must sit on the potty at this time" type of routine. By the time he was 2 he was mostly potty trained. I had also heard about having kids sit on the toilet first thing in the morning but that didn't work for us. My son was VERY resistant to that, but not at other times in the day. I think he's a little slow to wake up in the morning and it just wasn't a good time for him.
Good luck!
I have taken child development and keep children in my home, so I have lots of experience with this. Children can show signs of being physically ready, yet be emotionally unready. 20 months is awfully early even for the most advanced child. I would just keep up the routine of letting her sit on the potty (as long as she wants to) and leave it at that for now. If she seems tense, don't make her do it. It will make her hate the potty. There will come a time where she wants to do it and will be excited about it. But in my personal experience of 20 years working with kids, I have never personally met a child who was potty trained before two. A more realistic age for girls is 2 1/2 for urine training and 3-4 for BM training. For boys 3 is a realistic age for urine training and 3-4 for BM training.
Just keep in mind that the age your child potty trains has nothing to do with her intelligence level. It's almost opposite in my experience. Sometimes, the smarter ones use potty training as a method of control just b/c they can.
Anyway, sorry for writing a whole book on this. Good luck to you!!
I read the potty training in less than a day book and it's not really that quick of a process. It's more of a beginning. The idea in the book is that you clear your schedule for a day, stock up on juice and drinks of all kinds, put your kid in underwear and let 'em drink and drink and drink so that they'll pee and pee and pee. Always be positive, offer rewards for staying dry as well as rewards for going in the potty. (We used M&Ms with my daughter -- one M&M if she was dry when I asked her about it, 3 M&Ms for going on the potty).
You should also look up the signs of potty-training readiness to be sure she is ready. You can find them online at babycenter.com or pampers.com or just about any parenting site. The whole process doesn't really "click" for most kids until they're 2 1/2. We started our daughter at 22 months and she didn't get the hang of ALL the steps (undressing and dressing herself, using toilet paper, etc.) until she was 2 1/2. I have to wonder if I would have saved myself 6 months of trouble if I'd waited!
You should probably focus on peeing in the potty before you work on BMs. Most kids are reluctant to do that on the potty for a while -- some as late as age 3 or 4. Also, night time dryness may not come for several months as well.
Good luck!
