Potty training questions

Parenting and Education (Other) General Parenting
1

Hi,

My 2 year old DD suddenly wanted to use the potty and she is successful peeing on it for the first attempt without any training .Though I’m surprised, i am worried that i don’t know how to proceed further. So, for now i let her bare bottomed and put her on the potty now and then. When it is nap time i will put the diapers back and remove it when she wakes up.

Now my questions are

  1. How often should i put her in the potty?

  2. How do i manage if we are outside of the home?

  3. How to manage when she is sleeping? Do i need to use pull ups?

  4. Is there any other product available instead of pull ups?
    ( I dont want to use pull ups as they are similar to a diaper)

  5. Is it OK to wake up and let her in the potty at night?

  6. She uses potty only to pee, how do i let her know that she should use the potty for poopy also?

  7. I have triplets(BGG) and i want to train other two as well. Is it OK to use the same potty ? or use seperate for all 3 babies?

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

2

Hi sunmoonstar

What a momentous thing for you (particularly since you’ve been diapering 3 babies). We’ve just gone through potty training with my 3rd child so I can understand.

In answer to your questions -

1. How often should i put her in the potty?

How often does she normally go? I’ve found the easiest thing to do is to put the potty next to the toilet I use and see if my daughters have wanted to go when I do. Also just keep doing what you’re doing and leave the potty where she can hop on when she wants and have her bare bottomed. Also look out for signs she needs to go like holding her vagina or being really restless.

2. How do i manage if we are outside of the home?

I just take wipes and a few changes of clothes and plastic bags for soiled clothes. Usually I try to have things that are easy to get off in a hurry too. Before we go I pop her on the potty and if we pass a toilet I see if she needs to go.

3. How to manage when she is sleeping? Do i need to use pull ups?

Honestly I use a normal nappy when she is sleeping because there is very little difference between pull ups and regular nappies other than they are easier to get off. If she;s sleeping it’s for back up anyway. When she is potty trained during the day and has a few days of dry nights I swap to regular underpants and use a mattress protector and regular sheets.

4. Is there any other product available instead of pull ups?
( I dont want to use pull ups as they are similar to a diaper)

You can get cloth training pants but I’ve always found regular underpants to be the best. I think kids need to have a few accidents in regular underwear before they can really understand the signs that they need to go to the toilet and I think pullups and similar products just delay this. I think they are perhaps a gimmick to get us to keep buying disposable products when we would otherwise have moved on from diapers altogether.

5. Is it OK to wake up and let her in the potty at night?

I think this depends on your child. We have done this around midnight or when we’re going to bed for one of our children but not the others because she seemed to always have problems lasting the night. She still does so I think it’s really individual. I don’t think it hurts though.

6. She uses potty only to pee, how do i let her know that she should use the potty for poopy also?

For us it has always taken a lot more practice to get it right for poo but again I think unfortunately there’s no easy way except to have to clean up some messes in the meantime. I have always explained it by getting them to sit on their potty with me when I go and talk about it. Then it eventually registers.

7. I have triplets(BGG) and i want to train other two as well. Is it OK to use the same potty ? or use seperate for all 3 babies?

There’s no reason why you can’t use the same potty, after all we share toilets all the time. I have always washed out the potty after each use anyway. The only thing is if more than one want to use it at the same time it might be easier to have another but I think either way is fine.

It sounds like such a lot of work but I have found that it usually only takes a couple of weeks to fully toilet train a child once they are ready. You might find that your children are ready at different times and this is normal too.

Good luck!

3

I agree with Marmee!
The easiest way to learn how often she needs to go is to do exactly what you’re already doing, let her go nakey and keep track of when she goes. I have a 20 month old and he usually goes upon waking, once an hour, and about 20 minutes after drinking. Going potty is usually easiest when you’re out of the home since Little Ones love to pee in new pottys. You can purchase a foldable seat reducer online like this one http://www.amazon.com/Primo-Folding-Potty-Seat-Handles/dp/B002NQNFT2 so she feels safe and always has a sanitized seat. For naptime, I usually let mine sleep nakey and give him a “pottytunity” when he wakes up. You can lay a wool blanket or other waterproof mat under her in case of an accident. For nighttime its important to explain that if she needs to wake up to pee, you’ll have to take her. Mine sleeps on a mattress on the floor and I keep the potty next to the mattress so if he needs to get up and go he can. Or I can take him in arms if he’s too sleepy. As for poop, again you’ll have to learn her schedule, watch for her cues, and talk talk talk about it. You can definitly use the same potty for all 3 of your children, but its always good to have extra pottys in other rooms, different pottys to pull out when they get bored of the same, and new pottys for different places (i.e. in the car). In my opinion potty training can be super easy or super frustrating depending on the kid. If you find yourself getting frustrated check out the Yahoo group called Elimination Communication. There are lots of smart mommies with all kinds of creative ideas.
Enjoy the journey!

4

Thanks Marmee and Tammtamm21 for your valuable inputs and karmas to you.

Tammtamm21,
I like the idea of using foldable seat reducer, but wont they be afraid of the potty’s height? My friend was potty training her daughter and she allowed her in adult potty for poop, but then she got scared and she doesn’t poop in her own potty now. She now ask to put on diaper for poop.

I currently use this potty http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3161933&CAWELAID=209796289 and my son isnt comfortable sitting in this. Do we need to use seperate one for boys?

I understand that you are potty training your DS.I have heard that potty training boys is difficult than girls. Is it true? What’s your experience?

Thanks.

5

hi sunmoonstart23,

As I you have to manage 2 kids don’t bother about potty training much. But I have seen that my daughters like to do
what I am doing. So when going to loo they are also coming and pee.

Also for poop they show some signs, my one daughter will be quit and will stare at me continuously another will
make sound of “wyak” or “sheee” which I should understand :wink: .

I am also looking for some tips if I get on this thread !

– Kreena

6

That’s so true Kreena about the signs children make when they need to do poo. I had totally forgotten that :laugh:

My DD#3 used to get very angry when she was about to do a poo so I knew that if for no apparent reason she started yelling or stomping her feet or fighting with her sisters it was time to go.

7

They say that boys potty train slower than girls, but my boy had potty trained himself (at least for the night) by the time he was about a year) He never peed the bed. He does still need help getting clean after a bm, but I think it helped that I didn’t have him in disposable diapers. He wore cloth during the night and during the day he either wore regular pants and undies or just the undies at home. Yeah, i had to clean up after him more, but I think that he didn’t like being wet so he just quit wetting himself.

8

also, I bought a really cool blue fishy toilet seat from the Home Depot and that made him want to go on the potty more. :smiley:

9

My 4 year old still wont potty by himself. I have to go with him every time. he will tell me when he has to go, but i have to go with him. He is also afraid of the noise the toilet makes when he flushes it. how do you get around that?

10

I think it all just depends on the kids, My son just started using the toilet one day and he has been using it ever since. he still has an accident at night sometimes, but usually he’s ok.

11

I’m not Tammtamm21, but just want to share. I put my DD on the big toilet seat when she was 20 months and she loved it (we tried it when she was younger but she got scared) because I was tired to carry her potty around when we went for a visit. She is 22 months now and she doesn’t want to go on her little potty, she tells me “big potty” and goes straight to the big toilet . I have to hold her though because she cannot reach and I haven’t bought any training seat either. We started potty training at 13 months old.

12

I take my 2 year old to the potty in the middle of the night sometimes or just after he falls asleep so that he doesn’t pee the bed. he sleeps through it and wakes up dry! I also try to have him not drink anything within an hour of going to bed, then he has to go after brushing his teeth. Accidents still happen, but we haven’t had a bed wetting incident in about a week.

13

http://www.peterpotty.com/

14

My oldest one was afraid of the toilet until she was 2. she would pee in the potty seat, she would pee in the port-a-potty, she would pee outside, but never in her pants or on the toilet. She said she thought it was going to eat her. I took her in the bathroom and showed her the inside of the tank, then we flushed cheerios down so she could see how it worked.

2 days later she flushed my phone down the toilet and we haven’t had a problem since!

15

Yay! I am so happy to say that i successfully potty trained my youngest one for both pee and poop. Though she is not trained for nighttime, i am so happy that she made it. Hope my other two kids will learn from her soon.

Thank you all for sharing your experience and ideas about potty training.