Potty Training Tips

The wonderful world of potty training. I know a lot of mom's get stressed about potty training. I never really did unless my young one's would regress because they didn't feel good.

I don't have all the answers, but here's a few tips that worked for us:

Like anything I personally believe that baby's and kid's give us signs when they are ready for something. 

Examples: 

1. When my boy's started throwing their binky's out of their crib, I took it as a sign that they didn't need their binky's any more. 
2. If my boy's would of started climbing out of their crib, I would of moved them to a big boy bed. 
3. When my boy's wouldn't hold still when getting a diaper change, or took their diaper's off; I took it as a sign that they were ready to begin to understand what potty training is all about. 

If I would of gone past this point, I would of felt like I was training them to go in a diaper and not in the toilet.

Argument between disposable and cloth diapers:

I admit that cloth diapers are better then disposable ones. They are an alert to being wet. Disposable diapers hold the wet in. I didn't take my own advice, and used disposable ones. Much of it was knowledge for me. I didn't know what I do now. Cloth diapers are expensive, but you save in the long run because you are reusing them. My sister used cloth, and her youngest son felt when he was wet long before my youngest son did. 

There is the whole environmental argument that disposables take up landfills and don't decompose. There are disposable environment diapers, but they are expensive. It takes just as much water to make a disposable diaper as it does to clean a cloth one. 

Infertility rates, cancer and diaper rash went up when people started using more disposable diapers. You can read about that here.

Naked is best!

I trained both of my kids earlier then most. They responded in a positive fashion. For us it's easiest to let them run around naked. They HATE peeing on themselves!

Both of our boy's learned to pee standing up fairly early. They do not aim. They just get up on a stool, hold onto the open lid, lean over and pee. Since they are naked on the bottom half they both went on their own at 2 years old.

Types of potty's:

We have a padded seat that fits onto a toilet. It took our 4 year old forever to wean from this padded seat. Then we used it for our youngest. Bad idea! Try and just use the actual toilet. They get addicted to what's comfortable, and won't go in public (unless they have their seat).

My sister told me to put my kid's on the toilet sideways for number 2. This is narrow, so they don't feel like they are going to fall in. They'll also go in public this way. Plus if you have a boy, their penis points down if they're on sideways.

If you are on the go have an empty ice cream bucket with a lid in the trunk, and a padded seat. This is when a padded seat is useful. Just put the padded seat on the bucket. When they are done going out in the middle of no where, you can cover up their stool or pee with the lid to the ice cream bucket.

Treats, rewards, stickers or just praise?

We gave our oldest stickers and praise. We gave our youngest just praise. They get excited when you get excited. To me praising is the BEST! Tell them how proud you are of them, give them high 5's, clap and give hugs. Then they aren't let down when the stickers or prizes stop coming.

To read more about early on potty training go here!

I love the mom's view at this site. Everything she says I understand. Again, I wish I would of read this her site earlier on!

Is there such a thing as training too early? It does take longer. It's a process. Not every kid trains in a day or two. I can say this: Back in the day when more mom's stayed at home, and nothing but cloth diapers were used kids trained earlier and were successful. There is something to that.