Fun with Potty Training

I’m currently working on getting my 3-year-old toilet trained, and so far it’s going really well; she’s definitely ready and is taking to it like a duck to water, so to speak. I had a bit of a challenge in that department with my son, who’s now 5. Maybe I should have started sooner, but he didn’t really show much interest in the whole process. He was perfectly capable of using the toilet—he proved that to us, but seemed perfectly happy in diapers.

Finally, at 3-1/2 years old and a barely a week before preschool started, he was officially potty-trained. After my daughter was born, I decided that I would start the potty training process earlier than with my son. When my daughter turned 2, we introduced her to the potty. She actually sat on it a few times and peed in the toilet, but, like her brother, she didn’t show much interest and therefore it didn’t last very long. Within a few weeks, she didn’t want anything to do with toilet training. She, too was perfectly happy with her diaper, and my pediatrician told me not to push it so I let it be.

One technique by which I finally motivated my son was bribery, AKA the prize bowl. A fellow mom had recommended it to me. I filled up a bowl of inexpensive little toys—small plastic animals, cars, and so forth—and every time he used the potty for number one, he earned a toy. Now of course the major achievement of toilet training is a successful poop in the big kids’ potty. If he pooped on the toilet, he could choose a special toy that we picked out and agreed upon in advance. With this as inspiration, he was fully trained within about two weeks, and never looked back.

I’ve been told that when your child is ready, it can happen pretty quickly. I think overall that’s been the situation with my children. With both my son (prize bowl notwithstanding) and daughter there seemed to be a point in their development where they really took the suggestion to use the toilet seriously, and seemed pretty determined to keep up. In fact with my daughter, the issue of bribery or gifts or whatever doesn’t even seem to be an issue. We tried on a few occasions to just get her to sit on the toilet regularly, about every 30 minutes or so. I think the 30 minute reminder helps her to avoid little mishaps.

Parents magazine had some great tips and ideas to motivate kids when potty training. Some of the ideas include mini M&M’s as a reward and a piggy bank in the bathroom with pennies to add for each toilet use. For more ideas, check out 20 Best-Ever Potty Training Tips at Parents magazine.