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Keeping Your Cool While Potty Training
Categories: Potty Training
Parenting and self-doubt go hand-in-hand in the best of times -- but the potty training years are especially trying, unleashing a continual loop of anxiety: Are you forcing him into it too soon? Or did you wait too long? Will she learn in time to be accepted to your desired preschool, which has a no-diapers policy? Did you bring extra clothes in case he has an accident while you're out and about (and what if he has two accidents? Then what?) Are you being too hard on her when she doesn't make it to the bathroom in time? Or too easy? And here's the big one, which runs through every parent's mind: "Omigod...what if she never learns and ends up wearing diapers to college?"
I know it's easy for me to say -- having an 8 and 12-year-old who have been wearing underpants for years -- but: Chill. Seriously, no one wears diapers to college (in fact, very few even wear them to the senior prom.)
As with so many things, your kid will take his cues from you. If he sees that potty training makes you tense, the experience will be fraught for him too. Here's some advice for how to keep your cool:
- Ignore your mother, your aunt, their friends and anyone else who insists that in their day, babies were trained by the age of 10 months. Tell them the thinking has changed and that your child would be considered a freak if he could use the potty before he could walk.
- Likewise, try hard not to compare your child's potty progress with that of his peers. Setting a deadline, even in your head, will increase feelings of frustration and stress.
- Stop thinking of potty training as an "event." Your child didn't learn to walk overnight and she won't ditch the diapers in one fell swoop either. It's a process, like learning to read. It's supposed to take time.
- Read your child's cues when determining when to introduce the potty. Does he seem interested? Does he "announce" when he's about to pee or poop in his diaper, indicating that he understands his body's signals? If he's clueless or highly resistant, don't force it.
- Accept that toilet training is a two steps forward, one step back type of deal. Your child might have a week of perfect potty-going and then backslide. This is normal.
- Be prepared. Kids will have accidents. Bring extra underwear and clothes when you're out so that an accident doesn't feel like a disaster.
- Know that the more you try to control, the less you'll have. Toddlers are willful little creatures and will resist cooperating if potty training them seems too important to you.
- Realize that I was joking when I said that about kids wearing diapers to the senior prom. It doesn't happen -- really!
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