All about POTTY TRAINING : Part 1
THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START POTTY TRAINING
Is your child ready for POTTY TRAINING? meaning is your child ready to use the potty or toilet. Remember it is not the parent who decides, it is the child who decides.
“Learning to use the toilet is a natural process that begins when the child’s desire to be grown up and his neurological development have reached the point where he can control his bladder and bowels. We don’t train children to use the toilet, we support them when they are ready.” — By Tim Seldin
(How to raise an Amazing Child The Montessori way)
Now the question comes in :
How do you know when the child is ready for potty training?
Some of the signs of readiness that you can observe in a child are:
- Going to a private space or squatting or standing still when they want to poop
- Telling us that they want to change their diapers when they have pooped or peed
- Showing interest in flushing the toilet
- When the child can pull down his/her pants
- Child asking curious questions about toileting when we use the toilet
When you observe some readiness in the child you can talk to the child about it, let the child know that everyone uses the toilet, and why?? in simple language, say to get rid of the unwanted food waste in our body.
It is important for the child to feel the wetness or the dryness, only then they will know, when they get uncomfortable with the wetness, they might start to tell you. So, while training the child make sure the child uses underwear or training pants.
How do you prepare the environment when the child is ready?
- Give the child some independence – set the bathroom for the child to manage on their own – have a potty or a toilet seat on the toilet- a stool for the child to step onto and rest their feet if using toilet, place to keep their underwear (clean and soiled ones separately), access to water to clean themselves/to wash hands. There will be a lot of mess initially, slowly they will do a lot better.
- The potty: It has to be at one particular place, don’t keep moving it around the house. When kept at one place it is easy for the child to find it. This is very important.
There should absolutely be NO PRESSURE, NO REWARD and NO PUNISHMENT.
Incorporate toileting into the child’s routine. For example: after waking up from sleep, before going outside (anywhere), after coming back, before sleeping, a few minutes or an hour later after have any liquid intake etc…
Initially when your starting to train, offer the child to use the potty/toilet regularly. After a few days or weeks, they get to become more aware of their body.
Sometimes the child might refuse to use the potty, try and understand the reason, because the child will definitely not refuse without a reason. Some of the possible reasons can be: the child may be scared of being laughed at, or to avoid a reaction made by someone while the child poops, or the child might have been hurt a little once when pooping.
Also don’t interrupt too much, give the child some time to understand and handle it. Just make sure that you are there when they need you.
And here is, “OUR JOURNEY IN POTTY TRAINING”.
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