Potty Training Tips

My daughter recently started using the toilet and I thought I would share a few things that helped us with the process.

A few months ago I bought a second hand potty on shpock (trying to reduce our plastic consumption along with everyone else) and I kept it out but my daughter showed little interest in it so I ordered the Bing Bunny All Aboard The Toilet Train book (she loves that guy!) but weirdly she showed no interest in that either so I left it. Then out of no where she wanted to use the potty so for about a week she sat on the potty when she woke up (with her milk and watched an episode of Bing) and then she did the same in the evening.

I had planned a week in July when we were going to do potty training (I had put it on the calendar!). I thought the weather would be hot and my husband was going to be off work so I thought it would be easier. But then because she started to show an interest and her nursery said that she was ready; we went for it! My husband was working 5 long days so he wouldn’t be around and we were going on holiday to Greece the next week so it really wasn’t great timing! But she was AMAZING and got it within a few days and with minimal accidents.

Top Tips that Helped Us

1. Only started when she was ready.

2. Always taking her to the toilet when she asked to go (even if she had just been) and being really enthusiastic about taking her.

3. Having a reward (we used stickers) and praise.

4. Using a timer in the early days . This was really good as it stopped me asking all the time if she needed the toilet and stopped me forgetting! We set it for every 50 minutes for the first 3 days and then increased the time.

5. Going out everyday but only locally, mostly to Grovelands park or super kid friendly cafes like chichis and Raphi and Flow

6. Getting her to go to the toilet before we left the house and once we reached our destination. This helped Ivy get use to a range of toilets and she has never been bothered about where she goes. She even did a poo on the aeroplane a week after being potty trained (I hate this term, is there a better one ?!).

7. We used nappies at nap time, for long car journeys/travelling but encouraged her to use the toilet whenever we got the opportunity.

8. I wanted to get Ivy using the toilet quickly as I find potties pretty gross so I tried to make our toilets fun places to go (book box, stickers on the wall).