Hello again, Upper West Side neighbors! We’re Carol Zeavin and Rhona Silverbush, co-authors of the Terrific Toddlers book series, back with another column about understanding your toddlers. Today, it’s all about learning to use the POTTY!
By Carol Zeavin and Rhona Silverbush
Illustrated by Jon Davis
Let’s face it, the long and winding road to toileting independence can truly feel like a bridge too far.
Furthermore, that bridge?…Your toddler is the one to build it.“
“But…What? Without us?” Yes, mostly — because everything that makes independent toileting possible happens inside the body. The child builds that independence bridge because no one else can FEEL what needs to be done and then DO it!
So, before we get to the ways you can support your toddler in this life-changing endeavor, let’s take a quick look at how the internal part of that bridge is built, unbeknownst to them, which then enables them to control elimination, so they can do it in the right place, on their own.
First, internal organs and neurology must develop — the bladder, urethra, bowel, and digestive system, plus the internal muscles that control holding in and letting go — so the child can FEEL the sensations from the bladder and bowel. Also, cognition must develop so the child can UNDERSTAND what those sensations mean, and can learn to follow a sequence of instructions.
Emotional and psychological readiness are important, too, because toddlers are developing fears of all kinds during this same phase, and fear can interfere with progress. Typically, toddlers fear toilet water, taking off their diaper, keeping on their diaper, their own poop, how it comes out (“And what else can fall out of me?!”).
To complicate things, most areas of development are non-linear. So, things will progress, and then stop, or go backwards, then leap forward. Just when you think it’s all done, when the child finally pees and poops in the potty — yay! — they turn around and pee on the rug, or in the cat’s water bowl (true story), or otherwise fulfill their explorative nature while demonstrating the fact of non-linear toilet-learning development…
And all this starts to happen between ages 2 1/2 and 3 1/2, at different rates for different children.
While this internal developmental work is happening, you can support your toddler in some important ways:
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Stay calm! We know it’s a tall order, but the more matter-of-fact you are, the less complicated this process is for your toddler. The more we try to control, the more anxious everyone tends to get, and the more difficult it is for toddlers to just…go with the flow, so to speak.
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Establish a regular routine for bringing them to the potty or toilet (every few hours is recommended). Toddlers thrive on routine — and it’s good practice even when nothing comes out.
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Prepare yourself for accidents! You probably already know the drill: wipes, changes of clothes, plastic mattress covers… Accidents will happen! They’re part of the process, and they actually help kids learn how the whole thing works, believe it or not.
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Try to avoid rewards — they tend to make the experience more about the reward than the experience! For toddlers, the accomplishment itself is the best reward.
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Read potty books together! Reading about the complex logistics reinforces your instructions, and the characters in the books reassure your potty learner that they’re part of a community of learners.
So how will you know when their bodies are ready? They’ll show you!
They become obsessed with other’s toileting — yours, their peers’, your neighbors’… They start to gravitate toward squishy, goopy substances when they didn’t before. And, blissfully, they start staying dry longer, even overnight. Plus, they start noticing (and announcing!) their full or wet diapers.
It can definitely feel, frustratingly, like a bridge too far. No amount of pressure or manipulation can get internal organs to develop any faster!
But something important to keep in mind is that from around age 2, children start becoming aware of parental standards and expectations, and really take them to heart. They know what their parents want them to do on the potty, and they feel shame if they can’t live up to expectations.
Fortunately, they really want to do it! Barring a severe disability that prevents it, toddlers do learn to toilet independently — on their own timetable, with a little help from you. Two steps forward, one step back… two steps forward!
Read our other terrific toddlers stories here.
I think that being “matter-of-fact” and making it a part of the normal routine are critical points. I started sitting my daughter on a small potty chair after meals when she was six months old. We just sat and read or talked and if something came out, great, and if it didn’t, that was fine, too. We focused mostly on sitting after breakfast and tried for other times of day as well, but only when we were home (at first). As she got older, she came to like getting her poopy done with in the mornings and I seldom had to change poopy diapers, it was great! Once when when she was around nine months old, we were almost checked out in Target and I saw “poopy face”, so I just casually said something like, “Oh baby, we’re almost home, you can go in the potty soon.” I fully expected to change a poopy diaper when we got home, but there was nothing, so we sat on the potty, and the business got done immediately. I was amazed! She was day-time potty-trained by the time she was two and fully potty-trained at three. It was never a major discussion or “thing” to start and end, we just included it as part of our daily lives as something to learn just like so much else they learn at that age. Every child is different, so experiment and see what works best for you, but most kids could probably start potty “training” much earlier than they do now. It would save a lot of money in diapers and our landfills. Most importantly, enjoy the process and savor the time with your little ones; they grow up SO fast!