Experts will tell you that potty readiness will happen on
its own, in time. To some degree this is true. But as I discussed in my last post, nature and nurture are a
paradox; one gives rise to the other. I’m a firm believer that if you help your
child become familiar with the ins and outs of pees, poops, and potties before you
ditch the diapers, he or she will have an easier transition once he becomes
physically and cognitively capable.
This list contains ideas for ways to help familiarize your
child with bathroom practices. Some are meant to make potty use fun, and some
are meant to demystify the process. When used correctly, they may help him
reach a ready stage when he is developmentally able instead of being put off by
psychological obstacles. This isn’t
meant to be a comprehensive how-to, but a list of suggestions to put toward a
fun and individualized training method. You should select only the items on
this list that you have reason to believe your child will be receptive to. It
is important to use a gentle and casual approach, and be prepared to abandon any
activity that your child resists.
1. Invest in a potty training Doll. Potty Scotty, Emma, Fisher
Price Ready for Potty Dora, or any other sort of Drink-and-wet doll is an ideal
teaching aid for the child who already loves dolls. Be sure to give a
demonstration and “reward” the doll with invisible treats.
2. Build a Lego potty. Attach a small brown piece to a Lego
man’s bottom. Explain to your child that it’s a poop that needs to go into the
potty because it’s not part of his body.
3. Allow her to rip small pieces of toilet paper up and
place the pieces in the toilet bowl. Flush and watch how they go down.
4. For the child who likes sports, play a game of Potty
Toss. Fill yellow or brown socks with rice to make bean bags, and have your
child toss them into a clean, dry potty bowl. Tell her the socks are like poops
and pees and they need to get right in the bowl.
5. If your child is interested in buildings or factories, make
a stop outside of your local waste processing plant. Explain to your child that
this is where the toilet pipes lead, and inside the building the poop and pee
gets cleaned up.
6. Visit a farm, pet store, or zoo and ask an employee to
show you the creatures who “go” in a special place. Read “Everyone Poops” by
Taro Gomi and talk about how people and animals each have their own special
place, and the boy’s (or girl’s) special place is the potty or toilet.
7. Fill squirt bottles with yellow water and allow your
child to squirt them into the toilet.
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| Potty Humor |
8. Be accepting of potty humor. Humor is what happens when a
person gains such mastery of a subject he or she begins to play around with it.
Potty humor is a sign of understanding, and laughter can take the scariness out
of the experience. You can always teach your child later on where and when the
use of potty humor is appropriate.
9. Use a dry erase board to draw pictures of pees and poops
in a toilet. Use the eraser to “flush” them away.
10. Use brown Play Dough to teach about poops. Have a doll or puppet “deposit” them in a dough potty and praise the toy for doing a
good job.
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| good job! (but gross) |
11. Put some fun books on the back of the toilet or in a
magazine rack. Add a small stool, and allow your child to sit on the toilet as
a reading area, even if fully clothed.
12. Play “Pin the Pee Pee in the Potty” with a picture of a
toilet bowl and some brown and yellow dot stickers.
13. Use a stool and step ladder and allow your child to play
with water and soap in the bathroom sink. Hand washing can be an effective
reward in itself for using the potty.
14. Purchase some potty training books that appeal to your
child’s interests. Look for gender appropriateness, books with your child’s
favourite television characters, and teaching principles that are similar to
the ones you will be using.
15. With your child in your lap, watch You Tube videos about
potty training and talk about them, or learn the potty songs together and sing
them.
16. Take some time to teach your child self-help skills like
unbuttoning and removing pants. Praise her for her autonomy.
17. Let him see his same-gendered adult family members using
the toilet. Have those people provide a commentary.
18. Purposefully teach your child the words your family uses
for the toilet, bodily functions, and body parts. Be consistent in using the
terms you have chosen.
19. Teach your child how to sign “pee” “poop” and “potty.” You can use American Sign Language or you can
make up your own family sign.
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| ASL "Poop" |
20. For the kinesthetic learner, teach your child a simple potty
dance. It can be a victory dance for potty success, or a dance to indicate that
it’s time to go.
21. Allow your child spend time with potty trained
children. Talk about how big kids use the potty, but don’t make comparisons or invite
a contest.
22. Obtain a toy potty and pretend your child’s favourite toys
are using it.
23. Fill a train or dump truck with brown pompoms, and have
your child transport and deposit the poopies to the “potty depot.” When your child eventually uses the toilet,
you can “vroom” the potty toward the big toilet and make train or truck sound
effects as you empty it. For extra effect, add truck stickers to the side of
the potty.
24. Play a game where participants try to walk with a ball
wedged between their knees or thighs and drop it into a toy potty.
25. Show your child a diagram or a model of the human body
and talk about how food passes through the body.
26. Let your child have plenty of choices each day and trust
him with fun responsibilities (not related to potty training.) A child who feels
he has some degree of control over his life will be less likely to
over-exercise control over his bladder and bowels.
27. If your child has a dollhouse with a bathroom, play
dolls with her and occasionally have your doll drop whatever she is doing and
zoom up the stairs to the bathroom to go pee pee.
28. Don’t forget the boys! If he doesn’t play with a
dollhouse, give Superman a can for his fortress of solitude.
29. Make a snow potty for a snowman. Put snowballs in it, or
colour the snow with a squeeze bottle containing yellow water.
30. When changing your child’s diaper, talk about how soon
she will be able to use the potty and she won’t have to be stuck on the boring
old change table anymore.
31. Allow your child to see you unload some poop from the
diaper into the toilet. Cheer, “that’s where poopy goes. Hooray!”
32. Use a hand puppet with a hole in its mouth to
demonstrate how something that gets eaten comes out the hole in the bottom.
33. Watch DVD’s about potty training with your child. Often
they are available from the public library.
34. Print out a digital photo of your toilet bowl and have
your child “add” to it with yellow and brown markers, paints, or stickers. Talk
about getting poops and pees in the right place.
35. Decorate the potty together with stickers of your child’s
favourite things.
36. Play pretend or dress up with your child and incorporate
a clean potty chair. Pretend it is a princess throne or a robot charger. This
will help your child become comfortable sitting on it.
37. If you are creative, make up a simple song about going
to the potty and sing it every time YOU use the potty. A perceptive child will link
bathroom use with singing and it will become a positive association.
38. Before you make a potty reward chart for your child,
make one for yourself. Praise yourself out loud whenever you go to the potty
and put a sticker on the chart. Your
child might want to get in on the game without being prompted.
39. Build a ball run out of plumbing supplies. Show your
child the pipes in your house if they are visible and tell her that the toilet works
the same way.
40. Visit the bathroom section of a hardware store and let
your child explore the display toilets, (being careful that he doesn’t try to
use them!) Children are inherently more interested in things when they appear
in multiples, toilets included.
41. Teach your child to wipe up spills, and once in a while
have her use toilet paper. This will teach the general concept of wiping.
42. Teach your child about his own anatomy and how it works.
You can use proper terms like “urethra” and “anus”, or you can simply say bum
bum and pee pee or whatever you are comfortable using. Either way, it will help
your child communicate any difficulties he may encounter.
43. Give your child baby dolls with removable diapers. Talk
about how little babies like to go in their diapers because they are too little
for the potty.
44. Decorate the bathroom together with removable wall
decals or other crafts. This will make the bathroom into a fun, familiar place
where your child feels welcome.
45. If your child suffers from chronic diarrhea or
constipation, keep a journal of her food intake and make an appointment with a
health professional. Potty training is
much easier when children are having regular bowel movements.
46. Just for fun, have your child put a sticker on a chart when
your cat uses the litter box. Have a picture of a litter box on the cat’s chart
and a picture of a potty on your child’s chart. Talk about how everyone gets a
treat when they learn to go pee and poop in their own correct place.
47. Use paint on a plastic doll or action figure to
demonstrate wiping. Let your child
practice wiping them clean. Show him how to look for the piece of toilet paper
that comes up white and signals the end of the wiping process.
48. If approve of such things, try a potty training
video game or an app for your mobile device.
49. Play a game with your child that involves racing to the
bathroom. You can pretend to hop, fly or
swim. Or you can tape paper footprints to the floor that your child needs to
step on. Have a sort of drill where you holler “pee pee!” and the race is on.
50. Make up a
personalized bedtime story about a little boy or girl who goes on an adventure
to potty land.
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