In some form or another, I feel like all the stages of parenting involve some form of “waste management.” We’re constantly dealing with the outgrown clothes, papers from school, broken toys, etc. And then there are the diapers.
Potty Training. The title of this episode alone may give some parents anxiety…it’s definitely an area of parenting no one looks forward to, but everyone must soldier through! Truth is, with all the worry, struggle, and frustration we put into it, eventually ALL kids figure it out. Hardly anyone leaves the nest with bed-wetting issues or still hiding behind the chair to poop.
[& there’s the first mention of THAT word…so if you have toddlers/younger kids listening, they’ll probably find this episode hilarious]
Back in 1947, 60% of kids were toilet trained at 18 months. Today the average age is 3 yrs. (Development hasn’t changed; it’s probably more likely the time/inconvenience/consistency factors.)
More than 50 percent of the world’s children are toilet trained by the time they turn 1, according to Contemporary Pediatrics magazine.
One statistic: Given that the typical American child goes through about 6,000 diapers total before being toilet-trained, with just under half occurring in the first year when the changing derby is really on, I’m going to assume that the third year accounts for about 1,000 diaper changes, in the roughly 15-20% range. If each diaper contributes about a quarter pound to a landfill, then we’re talking about roughly 250 pounds of diapers from that third year alone. https://terrapass.com/blog/potty-time
BONNIE: with my first (a girl), when she was almost 2, I found this book about a potty training boot camp method and I was determined to give it a try. Basically, we started off the day wearing real underwear (a big deal), set the potty seat in the middle of the kitchen floor, and proceeded through the weekend giving unlimited juice/liquids and sitting on the potty on & off. Sometimes, she’d go. Sometimes, she wouldn’t. I was pretty sure she understood what the gist was, but she hadn’t bought in. I happened to mention I was doing this to an older woman at church (she was a mom of 7 and grandmother to twice that many) and she laughed and laughed. Brought it up to me every time she’d see me after that—how’d that potty weekend go again?? Hahahaha….
Yeah. It didn’t work. By Monday, we were back in diapers and resigned to try again later. She got the hang of it around 2 years, tho. Son took a little longer because he cared less–he was closer to 2 ½.
RENEE: Emma understood BUT she was so social that she didn’t want to stop playing to go to the potty. The key for her was peer pressure… preschool! The teacher agreed to deal with accidents and said they’d line up all the kids each day to go. With H, I was dreading it b/c it had taken 9 months or so with Emma. Introduced the idea, brought out the big boy underwear and he never had an accident after that.
So, what’s the deal with potty training? If you’re a mom to a child under two, you may not even be thinking about this yet. You’ll just keep on filling that Diaper Genie and shelling out the big bucks for disposables or washing endless loads of cloth alternatives. Diapers can run upwards of $900/yr for ONE child, not counting wipes & other supplies.
(Parents have a financial incentive along with the “ick” factor to potty train.) Or maybe you also want to limit the tonnage that ends up in landfills. Maybe you want to try mother’s day out or a preschool & many such programs require children to be potty trained before attending.
So let’s get into it.
YOU may be ready, but how do you know when your CHILD is ready?
- Are they holding their bladder for 2-3 hrs (dry after a nap)?
- Are they curious and interested in the toilet & bathroom or timid & reluctant?
- Do they notice when their diaper becomes wet?
- Can they dress/undress?
- Do they tell you when they need to go?
- Do they want to be changed right after dirty diaper?
What you DON’T want to do is have weeks & weeks of potty training power struggles & accidents that stress everyone out. So, don’t jump the gun in your eagerness to conquer this.
Usually, toilet training isn’t fast and it isn’t smooth, so parents may have some expectation management ahead of them. (like my disappointment with the 3-day process). Several areas of physical development need to line up. They have to communicate well, be aware of bodily feelings, and understand how much time they need to get there (to potty).
Also, like with EVERYTHING else, it’s not a one size fits all thing. Depends on the child. The ability to stay dry overnight is a developmental and also a genetic issue—so don’t freak out if you start to have success during the daytime and have a much harder time with your child staying dry all night. Pull-ups or “Peejamas” at night work well (& are better than changing sheets every day). Limit liquids before bed; go potty RIGHT before bed. (We’d put kids down at 8, then when WE went to bed around 10ish, we’d put them groggily on the potty again…they’d usually go and end up staying dry all night, with no memory of having done this. This requires them to be sleep trained.)
Other Cultures: China?? (Renee’s observations); whistle cues.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/health/potty-training-parenting-without-borders-explainer/index.html
A CNN article was super interesting in noting the different techniques and ages that various cultures potty train.
If you’re in a third world country and can’t afford or get access to disposable diapers, then you are going to have a higher motivation to potty train.
Dr. Sydney Spiesel points to climate conditions as having an influence on toilet training.
The idea is that the farther from the equator a family lives, the slower children are to potty train, said Spiesel, a pediatrician in Woodbridge, Connecticut, and clinical professor of pediatrics at Yale University’s School of Medicine.
“This is something that has never actually been studied, but it’s something that I clearly have noticed over many years,” Spiesel said.
“The average age of toilet training around the world seems to be directly proportional to the latitude,” he said. “It seems bizarre and a crazy notion, but the reality is, the further you go from the equator, the colder things are, and I think that that’s the central issue.”
In other words, tiny tots living closer to the equator might potty train at younger ages than those farther from the equator, based on Spiesel’s idea.
China
Potty training in parts of China includes split-crotch pants and diaper-free babies.
“One of the tricks they use there is, they have these little pants that are split down the middle,” Spiesel said. These open-crotch or split-crotch pants allow children to urinate or defecate without having to lower the pants. (Even on city streets, which would explain why they take their shoes off before walking into the house/apartment.)
“All they have to do is sort of squat, and they can poop without making a mess,” he said. Also, children are toilet trained fairly early.
“Kids of that same age or that same degree of toilet training would be in diapers here” in the United States, Spiesel said.
Kenya
In traditional Digo communities in Msambweni, Kenya, an interesting example of potty training was described in a paper in the journal Pediatrics in 1977.
If a mother suspected that her baby had to pee, she would sit with her legs straight out in front of her and place the baby between her legs, near her knees, with the baby facing away from the mother. The mother would make a “shuus” or hissing noise as the infant urinated. The infant was then rewarded for peeing during the sound. The child was expected to urinate in position and on command at least by 4 to 5 months, according to the paper.
In general, for most parents, “once you get to know your kid pretty well, you’ll know that dance where the kid is getting ready to pee or poop,” said Spiesel, who has not researched the Digo practice but was aware of it as described in the 1977 paper.
“If they’re detecting that the kid is going to pee, they’ll kind of spread their legs, put the kid in their lap, seat their kid facing outward. They face them inward if they think their kid is going to poop,” he said.
In that case, the mother would sit in the same way but position the baby facing her, with the infant’s knees over her ankles, as if the infant were straddling a potty. The mother would hold the infant in that position and would not make noises for the bowel movement. The child then would be rewarded for pooping.
Vietnam
A paper published in the Journal of Pediatric Urology in 2012 included interviews with 47 mothers in Vietnam who said they rarely used diapers while toilet training their kids.
Rather, the moms said that when their children were newborns, they tried to pay attention to the kicking or crying or facial expressions their children would make when they had to urinate or poop.
“From birth, parents start to look for signs for their baby’s needs of emptying bladder and bowel. They also observe intervals between,” Anna-Lena Hellström, a professor emerita at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a co-author of the study, wrote in an email.
Then, when the mothers noticed those signs, they would hold their babies over a potty and make a whistling sound while the baby peed.
By around 9 months, the mothers planned for their children to urinate at certain times. If they wanted their baby to pee after feeding or napping, they used that whistling sound to initiate and sort of cue peeing or pooping.
The mothers reported that they kept practicing this whistling method until they no longer had to remind their children to use the bathroom. All of their children were toilet trained by 24 months, according to the paper.
United Kingdom
Not surprisingly, their methods are similar to ours:
A study of 8,334 children in southwest England found that 2.1% of their parents reported initiating toilet training before 6 months; 13.8% initiated toilet training between 6 and 15 months; 50.4% initiated toilet training between 15 and 24 months; 33.7% had not initiated toilet training by their child’s second birthday.
The study was published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics in 2009.
In the UK, the National Health Service suggests using potty training pants or “pull-ups” when toilet training children, calling them a step toward normal pants.
The NHS also suggests encouraging kids to sit on the potty after meals during toilet training, encouraging them to use the toilet, not making a fuss when they have an accident, praising them when they succeed and putting them in clothes that are easy to change.
POTTY TRAINING TRICKS
- Whatever you do at home, you need to do elsewhere. If you always read a book, make sure grandma/grandpa, babysitters, etc. have that book. Daycare may be too busy to customize with each child, so ask them how they can help success—come up with a compromise that might work.
- If it’s hard for them to REMEMBER to go on their own (they typically get busy playing or engrossed in something and just forget), you might try a Potty Watch. It’s a programmable watch that plays songs & lights up every 30 min or an hour & then starts the countdown all over again.
- Bathtime—running water is a good stimulus. Around 18 months, you can put child on potty while you’re running bath. They start to recognize the feeling of having to go. Slowly add more trips during the day. (little boys—that warm water is a trigger to pee somehow)
- Rewards: M&Ms. Each time they go, they get 2-3. If they learn to wipe, then that ups the ante. Reward for success: work towards a goal when the stickers/pennies add up.
- Special underwear with characters.
- Praise, love & affection. Excitement! (“race” to the potty)
- Boys—something to aim for. You can buy special rings that float in the potty, but cheerios are just as effective and a lot cheaper. Let them watch/copy Dad. Encouragement/coaching from Dads can be a big motivator with boys!
- **Start early with boys with the aiming thing… If they miss, have Clorox wipes nearby for them to wipe up around the bowl. It’s not a punishment, just part of the potty program, not to mention courteous to Mom & sisters who may live in the house!
- SEATS—you can get a kiddie lid that sits on top of your own toilet. Usually will have to have a step/stool also so they can get up there. It’s common for kids to be afraid of falling in—because that’s a big opening for their little kiesters. Think about it from their perspective: you’re asking them to recognize the urgency, get to the bathroom, pull down their pants, climb on a stool, balance atop that seat—and go. WHEW! After birthing two children, half the time *I* couldn’t make it with all that going on!!
- Location, Location, Location. Instead, you could use their own seat that sits on the ground. If it doesn’t gross you out, you don’t have to start with it in the bathroom—it can be wherever the child is most of the time (living room/kitchen even). Maybe next to their bed so it’s fast for first-thing in the morning or after a nap. Goal is to move it closer to bathroom & end up in there, but to start you can make it front & center. You may need to have one upstairs AND downstairs. AND in the car.
- It takes so long! Resign yourself to spending more time in your bathrooms than you ever have. You may want to move your own stool/seat in there. Read books. Sing songs. https://youtu.be/aqm0MZP4Xbo You may go thru the rest of the day with the “poo poo” song in your head, but think of the GOAL, here.
Singing songs & reading books & running water have a common effect: calming the body. If you’re startled or nervous, your body literally shuts down and won’t LET you pee. You have to be ready to run from that lion!
Little kids are learning that the toilet and all the activities that surround it is not scary or stress-inducing. Even if your words are saying so & their brains are hearing it, it might take a few minutes to remind their bodies of that.
If they get the message that the potty is a stressful thing or is going to come with admonishment or punishment, kids can sabotage themselves by trying to hold their bladders for too long (making UTIs) or becoming constipated—which can be painful, creating a cycle of more fear/stress.
ACCIDENTS HAPPEN
There’s no shaming or punishment. It’s just an “oops, let’s go to the bathroom first and then we can clean up.” Kids are not having accidents to make YOU frustrated, disappointed, inconvenienced. Up your reminders/potty trips in the future.
Remember, just like when they learned to walk, how many times did they fall down? You didn’t freak out over them stumbling or falling down. The reason we freak out during potty training has to do with the MESS and inconvenience to US. Try to get in the mindset of them learning to walk.
AGAIN?!
Speaking of inconvenience…. You’re in the middle of potty training but you still need to run errands, keep appointments, get on a work call, etc…. You can’t tell them to wait (example of airplane with Ben & PO with Savannah).
NEWSFLASH: we didn’t have kids because we knew they’d be super convenient.
Yep. Every time you go into the grocery store or Target, you’re probably going to have to go to the public restroom with them. (I know kids who were triggered to poop by the fluorescent lighting in Target every time!) Is spending inordinate amounts of time in public restrooms your favorite thing? I’m guessing probably no. Sorry about that.
Every church service may now be an excuse to get up and leave to go potty. You may have to pull over to the side of the road in the middle of town to get the car potty out.
You’re teaching them to recognize their body signs, so you can’t THEN ask them to ignore those signs.
[Sometimes they get a little heady with the control of it. All they have to do is whisper, “I gotta go!” and you’re at their service. ]
Usually you see success with peeing first. It takes a little longer for them to learn to poop. For some reason, it’s more intimidating. They want to hide to do it. It’s more “secretive.”
After a while, having to clean up soiled undies and the ordeal of the mess of it (not to mention better bodily control/awareness), they will get the hang of this, too.
[Penny’s son who always had to honk the truck horn…]
Have to relax. Tricks here include “blowing out the candles,” “blowing a balloon,” “blowing bubbles”. When you blow, it tightens & pushes down on your diaphragm, helping that pushing urge.
If your child is high strung over the potty, you might think about lots of hydration and stool-softening foods if you think constipation could be (or has been) an issue.
Lots of kids get constipated. 3-5% of pediatrician visits are related to this issue. How would you know? Here are some signs you might notice in your child:
- Hard stools difficult to pass
- Tummy pain/cramping
- Gassiness
- Several days without pooping]
- Soiling (small amounts in underwear)
- Low appetite
- Finicky eating
- Cranky
- Tries to go but can’t
Natural stool softeners (2-3/day) to try if your child has constipation issues:
- Sweet potato
- Pears
- Green peas
- Whole wheat bread
- Raspberries
- Baked potato with peel
- Prunes/dates/figs
- Apples with skin (slice thin)
- Raw banana or orange