Potty Training-Is it Really As Hard As It Seems?

Your child is reaching all  the milestones, making you feel amazed at what all your little one has learnt in this past one or two years. Now you feel it is the time to potty train your baby but it feels like a very big task and you feel confused at when to start and how to start. There are many available articles on this already but they make you feel overwhelmed instead of prepared. There is no right way or guide to anything when it comes to parenting. I am just sharing some tips that helped me potty train my child at 1.2 years.

• Start from Teaching to Use the Washroom: I started making my child wear underwear instead of diapers at the age of 1 during the day time. I took him to washroom at an interval of 1 hour regularly to make him urinate in the washroom. He resisted initially going to washroom so I did not force him to go immediately. I let him finish the current task he was doing and then take him gently to the washroom. But accidents happened initially so whenever he urinated anywhere else I just patiently told him to use the washroom next time. I advised him to tell him whenever he needs to use the washroom. In the beginning he just told me by signs. Each time I taught him how to express his need in words. It took 4-5 days to train him to urinate in the washroom. It may take less or longer depending on your child.
• Observe the Signs: Each child has a tell tale sign of when he/she is about to do potty. My son hid in the corners of the room or behind the curtains whenever he felt like doing potty. As soon as he hid, I took him the washroom and made him sit on the toilet seat.
• Make it Fun Time :When I made him sit he was bored initially and didn’t want to sit on the seat at all, so I decided to make it a fun time. I sang him poems or gave him small toys to play with while sitting. We interacted and enjoyed so that he feels comfortable sitting. As children are restless and do not like to it idle.
• Consistency : The most important point is consistency on your part. It may seem like a big task to take him to loo after each hour or to observe the tell tale signs but the regularity is important for your child to understand that this is the only right way to urinate or to do potty.
• Be Patient : This is a go to mantra for teaching your child anything. It took atleast 2-3 days for my child to do potty on the seat as initially even when he sat he refused to relieve himself. But each time I advised him gently to use the toilet. It was a task for me to observe him and whenever he went missing for few minutes I searched for him and took him to the loo. It took atleast 15-20 days when he started informing me that he wanted to go ”potty”. And my son was officially potty trained.

There are many methods to potty train the child quickly within 3 days or a week but to fully potty train my child it took approx. 1 month. But it was not a struggle and all of this time was fun for both of us. It make take your child only 1 week to go off the diapers but please ensure to have fun all this time and avoid frustrations on both of your part. And as I always say you are the best mom your child could have and all the decisions and choices of parenting you make are perfect. You know your child the most so whatever you think is right is best for him/her. Lots of love and power to you.

Apoorva Yadav Kamboj