What’s the first step?
Make sure everyone involved in your child’s care uses the same consistent approach to toilet training.
A good first step is to buy a potty, put it in the bathroom and tell your child what it is for. Suggest your child sits on it to see what it’s like. Be prepared to demonstrate this yourself!
Then make sitting on the potty part of your child’s routine, perhaps when dressing in the morning and before an evening bath. Don’t expect your child to sit there for more than a few minutes at the most and, at first, your child may only stay there for a very short time.
Start encouraging your child to let you know when passing urine or a bowel motion. Awareness that it has happened is important, and comes before awareness of the need to go.
If your child has a regular time for bowel opening, say after breakfast, try to ‘catch it’ by sitting your child on the potty. If and when you do ‘catch’ something show your pleasure and approval.
If things seem to be going well, try increasing the number of times your child needs to pass urine by stepping up fluid intake. If things seem to be going well, try increasing the number of times your child needs to pass urine by stepping up fluid intake. Six to eight drinks spread out across the day is the recommended number of drinks.
When do you introduce pants?
At some point you will have to abandon the use of nappies during waking periods. There will be a risk of soiled pants and puddles but if everything goes well these may be fewer than you think. Some people use trainer pants at this stage, or you could put your child in ordinary pants.
Tell your child in advance you feel sure he or she will be able to wear pants instead of nappies and choose a pair together if you can.
Put the potty in an accessible place and tell your child where it is. Ideally your child will be able to get it and use it without asking but this will probably happen later. Resist the temptation to issue reminders about using the potty every ten minutes as it is irritating for both of you. Your child might need reminding at times, for instance if half an hour after having a drink your child hasn’t yet asked for the potty.
