I’m just going to come straight out and say it – potty training sucks. If you’re a parent you already know this, and if not, let me just give you a glimpse into our nightmare. It can be extremely difficult, your house constantly smells like pee, you’re constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY, doing laundry. I have yet to meet a mom who actually enjoys the potty-training stage. Luckily, I found a way to get through it once and hopefully I can do it a second time. Here are a few tips and tricks to get you though potty-training.
This one may seem over the top so bear with me! I was beyond tired of having to steam clean my carpet every time Savannah had an accident, but if I didn’t do it, the entire house would smell like pee. So, I decided to put down pee pads! You’re probably thinking that I’m crazy but hear me out. I didn’t have them everywhere, just in a path from the bathroom to where Savannah’s toys were. This way if she had an accident while playing, which was very common, I didn’t have to deep clean every time. It was also helpful when she was trying to get to the bathroom and didn’t make it in time! I would switch out whatever ones got dirty during the day and would replace all of them in the morning. Like I said, it may seem a little over the top, but it made my life so much easier.
Always keep your child in underwear at home! Obviously, this means that accidents are going to go every where, but that’s the joy of potty-training. Having them in underwear all the time means they actually have to pull them all the way down to be able to go to the bathroom. Now, you’re probably thinking that they can learn that in a pull-up too. The only problem with that is aside from the fact that a pull-up can be pulled up and down, it feels just like a diaper. Kids are used to the feeling of sitting in their diaper after going to the bathroom, so it doesn’t really prompt them to try the potty, or to tell you that they have gone. However, when wearing underwear, the wetness will go every where and down their leg, and with it being a new feeling, most kids won’t like it, and will try to avoid the feeling so they tend to try and use the potty more. But, when we went out places with Savannah, we would put her in a pull=up to avoid accidents while out in public but would still ask and encourage using the bathroom.
When we were at home and she was in her underwear, we would ask if she had to go pee every twenty minutes or so. Even if she said no, we tried to have her on the potty once every half hour. Even when we were out somewhere and she was in a pull-up, we would still ask every twenty minutes and if we were able to, we would sit her on the toilet so she could try to go. Having consistency is one of the most important things in potty-training, and I think that’s one of the things that is forgotten most times.
Doing this for awhile, will help them be fully day trained. Night training is a little different and more difficult since most kids are heavy sleepers, like Savannah. We made sure she had a waterproof cover on her mattress incase she had any accidents. We tried to make sure that she didn’t have anything to drink for about an hour before bedtime to try and reduce the urge of peeing in her sleep. Even though she didn’t have anything to drink, we would still put her in a pull-up for bedtime. We found an awesome approach which helped her wake up dry! Because we had just had Elle around the time potty-training started, every time she woke up for a bottle, we would wake Savannah up and have her to on the potty. You can still do this even if you don’t have another child, because I’m sure most people are like me and wake up at least once to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
After doing this for a few nights and having her always wake up dry, we started trying to put her to bed in underwear. After two nights in a row in underwear and having accidents, we put her back in a pull-up for bed, thinking that she wasn’t ready yet. When she woke up dry for a week straight, we tried underwear again. Since that day, she hasn’t had any accidents in her sleep! She is 100% dry all the time! Because Elle stuck very closely to her routine, she would wake up around the same time every night. Which means we always woke Savannah up at around the same time every night. It eventually got to the point where we could hear Savannah wake up and go to the bathroom over the baby monitor as Elle was having her bottle. Now, she always gets up on her own at night and it fully potty trained!
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