Potty training

When does potty training officially start?

When toddler first does a wee on potty or toilet?

When parent is ready and states they’re starting their child potty training?

I’m not planning to start officially potty training N until this summer.  My theory is:

• He’ll be 2 ½, plenty old enough to hopefully be naturally ready to start
• It’ll be summer, hopefully warm enough for easy to pull up shorts and pants and not a lot else for running around the garden in at weekends.
• He might have learnt himself by then from all the older children he’s in his nursery room with who’re already potty trained or going through it…I like the idea of tandem potty training with all the potties lined up!

I did buy a couple of potties in readiness, and we’ve also got a couple of toddler seats for the toilet.  He quite likes sitting on the toilet although we need to get better steps up as the one he has is too low for him to actually get onto the toilet seat himself.  And he’ll sit on the potty for a bit (usually the wrong way round on the Pourty potty we have, although he prefers the toilet to the Ikea one downstairs).

We’ve only been asking him if he wants to go for a wee before going in the bath – in the past he’d sit on the potty, say finished and get up only to then wee on the toilet floor.  But a couple of months ago we had a wee in the potty on Saturday before his bath, and a couple of mornings before having a new nappy put on.  I was quite surprised about that, as his morning nappy is usually so full I’m sure he’s usually awake too late to need another wee as he’s already done it before I get him out of the cot.  The funniest bit was after the first time I was obviously so enthusiastic with clapping and looking at the tiny amount of pee he’d done that the second time, he stood up and started clapping. I hadn’t even thought he’d done anything that time round.

I also arrived back from a work day in London, to the OH telling me that N had done a poo on the potty before his bath.  I was astounded.  Again, far from being worried about seeing it in there, he stood up and clapped.  Sounds like the OH coped better with a dirty potty than a dirty nappy.

He sometimes tells me he wants to poo (he really means wee I think) and takes me to the toilet, but then he doesn’t actually need to go when he’s there, so I don’t want to go straight to pants and train properly as I can see there being way too many accidents (we’ve got too much carpet in the house for that).  The alternative is he runs off, closes the bathroom door behind himself, pulls his trousers down, says potty.  Then I look and he’s already pooed.  Bit late!

I’ve bought him several packs (ok, a lot of packs) of pants in readiness.  A couple of weekends ago, one pack he’d chosen was in the spare bed in his room, having not been put away.  So he wakes up, sees them, and decides he wants a pair of pants on.  Uh oh, I think.

So tell him he has to wee first in the potty.  Of he goes…no wee.

Decide that he can have the pants on while he’s chilling before we get up.  All safe in bed with me.

Then he just wanders off to the bathroom, pulls them down and wees in the potty.  Result, I think.  He’s got it.

Of course it was a day we had to go out, I’m just humouring him with the pants until we get dressed properly and get up.  But no, he refuses to put a nappy on under his clothes.  Hmm.

Ok, so let’s go with the pants and see how it goes until we need to go out.

All ok, occasional trips to the potty (prompted). Nothing.  There’s me thinking, he usually poos in the morning.  Nothing.

Until I’m on the loo.

Yep, he comes in, announced ‘potty’, then instead of sitting next to me on the potty, he goes off and crouches.   Then comes back in (he’s got pants, t shirt and sandals on by this point) for me to see dribble down his leg.  I go to mop him up only to realise that’s not only what he’d done.

Marvellous.

So we’re definitely not ready for proper potty training yet – just wish he didn’t like having a dirty or wet nappy and then we might get somewhere.  Plus he needs to start telling me ahead of time, as most of the time he tells me he’s doing something when he’s not, or afterwards.

I think for the time being we’ll make sure he’s going on the popping him on the toilet or potty first thing and in the evening.  Hopefully then he’ll start recognising that he needs to think about when he’s going to pee.  I did ask nursery to keep a watch out and ask him throughout the day if he needs to go, although they said they’d not seen any particular signs he was ready.

I’ve stocked up on pants, stickers and reward charts so we’re ready when he is.

What worked for your children?