Toilet Training Advice for Parents

Dear BAY AREA PARENT – “My child is 17 months old now and I’m wondering if this is the right age to start toilet training and also how do you actually go about training your child to use the toilet?”

Dear Parents- There are several things a child should generally be able to do before you start toilet training. He should be able to: (1) walk well, (2) get on and off the potty seat easily, (3) get most of his clothes on and off, (4) know the family names for urine and bowel movements, (5) be able to hold his urine for several hours, (6) begin· to notice when he has to “go” (7) He or she also has to be interested in toileting, (8) be willing to cooperate with his parents. We have found it easier on everyone to actually wait until a child is 2 1/2 years old. Often children starting younger just take that many more months until they’re trained.

Children starting at 2 1/2 are usually trained in three to four months. You will still hear some people say that they or their children were trained at 3 months or 6 months or a year, but of course, they are referring to times when they took their babies to the potty frequently enough to catch most of the urination and bowel movements as opposed to the child knowing when he had to go and going on his own. A child who is toilet trained is one who notices that he has to go to the toilet, goes by himself, is able to manage most of his clothing at the toilet, can wipe himself, flush the toilet, and wash his hands, all by himself.

The complete process may not be done till about age 4. There are many ways to go about toilet training. From the child’s point of view, he’s always been able to eliminate in his diapers without thinking about it. He has never had to learn to notice those internal signals or to stop what he’s doing and to go to a special place for elimination. Further, most children aren’t bothered by being wet or soiled. What this all comes down to is that we have to do one heck of a job motivating our children and helping them get into a new habit that may not be that important to them.

Toilet training should then include talking with your child about why you’d like him to be trained, reading toileting books to him, (probably the best one is Allison Mack’s Toilet Learning), telling him about the big boy or girl pants he’ll be able to wear, showing him other children, etc., who use the potty, and so on.

Training should also include making sure all the readiness steps are accomplished such as knowing words like pee-pee for urine and poo-poo for bowel movements or whatever your family agrees on; encouraging your child to notice when he has to go by letting him go without clothes and/ or praising him for noticing that he feels like he has to go–even if he doesn’t make it to the toilet. And lastly to help a child really start incorporating this new habit of stopping what he’s doing six to eight times a day to go to the bathroom, it’s useful for the parent to go with him very regularly to the bathroom six till eight times a day for the first week.

Parents often ask children “if they have to go” and most children say no at this early stage of toilet learning.  It’s genera1ly better to just let him know “it’s time to go,” and continue to find creative ways to get him to come with you to the bathroom – just as you have to find ways to motivate your child to cooperate with you in other situations as well.

-Dr. Annye Rothenberg is a child/ parent psychologist and Director of the Child Rearing Program at Children’s Health Council in Palo Alto. In addition to teaching age-divided parenting classes focussing on newborn to five year olds. She and her colleagues provide individual consultation sessions for parents on child rearing and child development issues such as discipline, sleep, toileting, etc.. and consult to day care centers and nursery schools. Dr. Rothenberg also reaches a new course in parenting and behavioral pediatrics to the Pediatric Residents of the Stanford University Medical School.