I’ve heard and read of different stories of how old and new moms potty trained their toddlers. Some had it easy and some swore that it was the most difficult task to teach a toddler.
Introducing the potty to a toddler
We’ve been trying to potty train Una for quite sometime now. On and off, depending on my mood and hers.We started trying when she turned 2 last year. She can dress herself by then and was quite independent and stubborn for such a little person. Let’s just say that introducing the potty to a toddler was a huge pain!
At first, I showed her the potty, she was curious and even touched it. And when I asked her to sit on it, she said “NO!” like I did something terrible to her favorite toy. She even refused to look inside and made it a point to step on it to keep it closed.
Finally, after a few months of trying, Una finally accepted the role of the potty in her life. She sat on it for a few times, with her diapers on and then told her that next time, she should pee there just like what Mommy did in the toilet. I think it helps that we are both girls and I can actually demonstrate it t her.
Controlling her potty time and cleaning herself
Once we finally established that the potty is a comfort zone to her, we removed her diapers during day time. It took a bit of convincing because she is comfortable wearing her diapers. But for the past weeks, she has used up twice as much diapers as she usually did because she’s been changing it as soon as she peed. Una hates anything dirty and wet — we have her load of laundry as proof — ironically, it was her fault why her clothes were dirty and wet in the first place. We hoped that we can use that to convince her to not wear the diapers and to pee in the potty.
I think it started when I was so frustrated one time when she asked me to change her diapers, again. So I told her to use the potty because there were no more diapers left (I hid them, that’s why!). There were lots of accidents but I told her that it’s okay (even if it’s frustrating) and reminded her again to use the potty next time.
What I learned: Parents need lots of patience to potty train their kids. Do not make them feel like a loser for having accidents. Believe me they are doing their best.
Una: Mommy, weewee Una.
Me: Okay, let’s open the lid and sit on your potty.
When some of her urine spilled outside the potty…
Una: Ooops, sorry Mommy.
Me: It’s okay, Mommy will wipe it later. (then I told her good job for using the potty)
Una: Thank you!
The next time, she tried peeing without spilling. Or if she spilled, she would wipe it herself. I am seeing a perfectionist in my toddler’s personality.
The problems we are encountering now is how frequent she is peeing. There are times that she would sit on it but only pee just a few drops. I somethings think that she is forcing herself to pee, just so she can use the toilet paper to wipe herself. It looks like we are saving a lot on diapers because she only uses it at night or if we are going out of the house but wasting lots of toilet paper in the process.
Our nightly routine:
me: Una, mag-diaper ka na so we can go to sleep.
Una: Diaper? I love diaper!
Then she would hug it like it’s her long lost friend then hug me and thank me for allowing her to wear it again, hahaha! Sometimes I feel like stopping the potty training (I’m such a softy sometimes) but after all we’ve been through, I feel like I can’t do it all over again. Plus we are planning on enrolling her to school this June. She needs to be potty trained by then.
As for pooping, she would tell us when she wants to poopoo and we would bring her to the toilet. She doesn’t want to poop in her potty. That story deserves another blog post because that is quite a challenge too!
Did you have a hard time potty training your toddlers? Please share your stories, I’d love to hear how you did it.
good job Una! I have to train din si zoe soon…
Thank GOD I’m already done with the potty training days..
we introduced the potty to our 3year old when he was almost 2…and he didn’t like it. lol. these days he only wears diapers during night time or sometimes when he takes naps.
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