Potty Training Tips and Tricks :)

Consistency and pennies...LOL Keep putting her on several times a day. I offered my son pennies each time he went. 1 penny for #1, 2 pennies for #2 and 3 pennies for going both. =) He loved it. It was a great motivator.

Well I have only potty trained one kid so far but my second daughter will be 2 next month so she will be doing it again soon. My first daughter I trained right at 2 actually 1 month before turning 2. So although I'm no expert I will tell you my thoughts. When you and your daughter are ready it's all or nothing. Not just once in awhile put her on the potty or sometimes in undies and other times in diapers. The problem people run into with this is then the excitement wears off and your child gets mixed signals....like "I only have to pee in the potty once in a while but other times I can still go in my pants cause mommy puts me back in a diaper." You know what I mean? So once your ready it's all the way. Like the day we started it was undies all day everyday. And whenever she peed in them I would put new ones on never back in a diaper. I did get pullups for night time cause that can take kids longer to master. And she also would put on pullups for long car rides (we traveled a lot) but other than that is was just undies. I also did the whole m&m's every time she went. The thing is my daughter really wanted to go. She would go on her own and tell me when she had to go and didn't like being left in wet undies so i knew she was ready.

Check out this website:

http://www.betterkidcare.psu.edu/AngelUnits/OneHour/Toile...

If you have seen my other posts on this site, you will have seen this website listed. As someone who's worked forever with kids, I love the information this site gives, as it's written for early childhood educators and not for parents wanting quick-fix solutions (and those, very often, offer very limited, short-term success). It will give you, as a parent, questions for assessing your child's readiness as well as helping you to understand the benefits of a child-led learning philosophy. I have used many methods over the years and have found this one to be the easiest for both parent and child.

Lastly, and I can't say this enough-- if you can avoid using Pull-Ups, do. I have seen this product significantly prolong the toilet learning process, as well as confuse children about the differences between underpants and diapers. For my son, we offered cloth diapers or cloth underpants. I waited until I could see he was completely ready, and we have had literally NO problems in his using the toilet.

Some great advice here. I do agree with Andrea on going all the way when you are ready to start potty training, I think that consistency is so key. And definately no pull-ups! I used the Three Day Potty Training method with my son http://www.3daypottytraining.com and it was amazing! We started on 10/10/10 when he was just over 2 years old (he was 2 in August). We had been talking about it for weeks, marked it on the calendar, and when he woke up that morning he threw all his diapers in the trash and put on big boy underpants and away we went. It was a LONG morning, and I think we went through 14 pairs of underwear before his nap. But he woke up from his nap yelling "Mumma I need to pee" and he never looked back. He is even night trained, something I never expected to happen at this age. Obviously every kid is different, but I know several other moms who have had a lot of success with this method too, it is definately labor intensive for the 3 days, but it is so worth it!

Good luck!

I don't know much about early training (before 2 yr seems early to me), but our daughter went through a couple phases of interest and disinterest (~18-26 months) in the potty before she actually trained (at 28 months). When she did, it was quick (2 days!) for pee pee, and she trained for poops too, but later regressed and we re-trained several months later (panties during the day, but put on a diaper to poop).

Good for you for encouraging it, just don't push it if she becomes disinterested--she will come around again. I did a lot of talk about feeling the pee/poop in my body and let he watch me in the bathroom all the time. We read some books about potty too. My kids love to flush and wave "bye bye" so it became a fun thing.

If she is in control of letting then that is a sign that she's getting ready for it, also if you can predict when poops will be or if she tells you before pooping (in diaper) that she is going to, then that is a huge sign for you to start training for real.

We spent a day or two in the house with the little training potty in the living room and towels all over the carpet and couches. I put leg warmers on her and let her run around in her naked bum so there was nothing to slow her down when she felt the urge. Her rewards were Capri Sun and stickers (she earned 20+ stickers the first day--that juice keeps her needing to pee so she got lots of practice being successful in one day!)

I love Jaimee K's response, I wish I would have thought of that. All I can say is keep the bathroom a positive place. My son was very difficult to train, but I found that if all was kept positive in the bathroom, that helped him to succeed. My daughter was much easier, we had a stack of books that we kept in the bathroom. We only read those books while trying to go potty. My DD also loved to just have me sit in the bathroom with her and sing songs while she "tried". My DD loved to receive one M&M if she did #1 and 2 M&M's if she did #2, that was what kept her going. My son did not appreciate a reward of any kind, just a low profile high five and move on. You will figure out what works for her :)