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Sugaree 01:10 PM 12-15-2014
Okay ladies (and gentlemen), talk to me about potty training. DS is 18 months old (okay, he'll be 18 months old tomorrow). He's been showing interest in the process of using the bathroom and especially flushing the toilet for a couple of weeks now. He's sorta, kinda interested the little plastic potty that his cousin uses. His new daycare teacher has said that they are willing to start potty training at school as soon as we do at home. We probably won't start until after the holidays are over though. What would be your advice to make this as painless as possible given that my kid, unfortunately, spends most of his day in school?
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Cradle2crayons 01:25 PM 12-15-2014
Originally Posted by Sugaree:
Okay ladies (and gentlemen), talk to me about potty training. DS is 18 months old (okay, he'll be 18 months old tomorrow). He's been showing interest in the process of using the bathroom and especially flushing the toilet for a couple of weeks now. He's sorta, kinda interested the little plastic potty that his cousin uses. His new daycare teacher has said that they are willing to start potty training at school as soon as we do at home. We probably won't start until after the holidays are over though. What would be your advice to make this as painless as possible given that my kid, unfortunately, spends most of his day in school?
The most important thing you can do is do NOT start until he is PHYSICALLY ready. He should be able to wake up dry from naps. He should be able to verbalized in some way that he needs to potty BEFORE he soils himself, etc.

I don't allow potty training here until the parents have started and he's remained dry WITHOUT ACCIDENTS in his diaper for TWO WEEKS WHILE AT DAYCARE. he lost has to verbalize heat he needs to potty before he soils himself.
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Sugaree 01:31 PM 12-15-2014
Okay, that's not something I've known to pay attention to at home. I'll start checking his daily sheets from daycare. They change him every two hours, and usually right after naptime, so I should be able to look back through those to see if there's a pattern there.
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Cradle2crayons 02:33 PM 12-15-2014
Originally Posted by Sugaree:
Okay, that's not something I've known to pay attention to at home. I'll start checking his daily sheets from daycare. They change him every two hours, and usually right after naptime, so I should be able to look back through those to see if there's a pattern there.
I wouldn't worry too much about a pattern at daycare. I would just start observing at home. And at his age I wouldn't expect him to be ready. Almost all kids at that age think toilets are neat.
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Unregistered 03:24 PM 12-15-2014
I agree that you shouldn't start until ds shows signs that he is ready (stays dry for at least 2 hours, willingly sits on the potty, and can verbalized his needs to go). I have helped many children (all different ages from 18 months- 3 1/2 yrs old) potty train. The other key ingredient is you- being able to set a weekend to a week of being with your child all day and being consistent. I do not do pull-ups which I believe are just glorified diapers. When I potty train the child is in underwear all day even nap time and diapers only at night since it is a longer sleep period. If after a couple of weeks stays dry at night, then underwear at night also, all children are different. Some people put a diaper back on for nap, but I don't because the child should be able to hold it for at least 2 hours if he/she went right before nap, and you will need to retrain for nap time. Invest in a bed protector. Accidents will happen the first 1-3 days, do not shame your child when they do occur, and do not get discouraged and give up. Do not start until your child is ready, and you are ready to handle the accidents and clean ups.

I had only one of family who were training at home and was doing well, then at daycare did well, and then started to have lots of accidents at home and at daycare. It was because parents started being inconsistent (putting child in diapers/pull-ups when it was more convenient for them and didn't want to deal with cleaning up accidents) and I had to insist child go back into diapers completely until they were completely ready to start again. It took almost a year and a half to get this child fully potty trained because the parents kept being washy-washy about the whole thing. The sad thing is the child was ready and would have succeeded if the parents had been more consistent, but they didn't trust their child. Their excuse was sometimes dck tells them needs to go and nothing, so they wouldn't take dck when dck would say needed to go potty, so dck would have accidents and they would put on diapers/pull-up because got tired of cleaning up the mess.

All my other friends and daycare families who followed my method, and waited until child and they were ready, succeeded in potty training their child within 3 days. They were all surprised that it happened so quickly.
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Leigh 06:53 PM 12-15-2014
Originally Posted by Cradle2crayons:
The most important thing you can do is do NOT start until he is PHYSICALLY ready. He should be able to wake up dry from naps. He should be able to verbalized in some way that he needs to potty BEFORE he soils himself, etc.

I don't allow potty training here until the parents have started and he's remained dry WITHOUT ACCIDENTS in his diaper for TWO WEEKS WHILE AT DAYCARE. he lost has to verbalize heat he needs to potty before he soils himself.


Some kids can be trained at 18 months, but the average age for boys is 3.5. Just because they can pee in the potty chair, doesn't mean that they are ready to train. You can give it a try, but don't expect much. It's a very rare 18 month old boy who can do it.
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Unregistered 07:31 PM 12-15-2014
Originally Posted by Leigh:


Some kids can be trained at 18 months, but the average age for boys is 3.5. Just because they can pee in the potty chair, doesn't mean that they are ready to train. You can give it a try, but don't expect much. It's a very rare 18 month old boy who can do it.
At 18 months my nephew showed signs/interest he was ready to potty train. He was curious from the older kids who would go potty at daycare. My nephew was very verbal since 9/10 months, so he was able to communicate when he needed to go potty. His mom and I set aside a week to start, and by the third day he was completely trained pee and poop, during nap, and within the week overnight. It took a lot of consistency and encouragement on our parts. We kept it low key to not stress him out. We put him in underwear, no diapers (only for overnight until he was staying dry which was the 4th/5th day).

When I worked with 2 year olds in a center, I had to have them potty trained in order to move to the 3 year old class for the next year. A little over half of my class would be completely potty trained by December (school year began in August). It took a lot of work from my assistant, me, and the parents. I noticed the children whose parents were consistent and followed my lead were the ones that caught on real fast. The children with parents that didn't really follow through took the longest. It was usually the parents that were busy and/or had other children to attend to, or had the attitude that it was my job to potty train their child.
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daycarediva 03:37 AM 12-16-2014
Originally Posted by Cradle2crayons:
The most important thing you can do is do NOT start until he is PHYSICALLY ready. He should be able to wake up dry from naps. He should be able to verbalized in some way that he needs to potty BEFORE he soils himself, etc.

I don't allow potty training here until the parents have started and he's remained dry WITHOUT ACCIDENTS in his diaper for TWO WEEKS WHILE AT DAYCARE. he lost has to verbalize heat he needs to potty before he soils himself.


Potty training should NOT take a tremendous effort, either. I don't know a single 18mo boy who can pull pants up/down, hold their bladder without getting distracted AND verbalize the need to go.

I have seen girls PT that young, my girls have all trained around 2-2.5, boys have almost all been later, 2.5-3. Some boys even later---- 4.5 is the latest I have seen.

I am VERY pro potty training younger, but ONLY when the child is ready. There is a big difference between showing interest in something a peer does, and being ready to train.
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Tags:18 month old, potty training
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