✦ How has potty training evolved across generations of parenting? Elizabeth Regin shares little Victoria's potty training adventures!
Victoria’s potty training is a success!
A few weeks ago, her pediatrician complimented her ability to go on her own and not wear diapers during the day. He said she was in advance for her age (she’s 2 years and 4 months) but we could just dream on for night potty. The dream has come true and Victoria wakes up on her own during naps and at night to go to the toilet.
My mother told me that my grandmother used to put me on the potty every morning and waited for something to happen. That’s traditional parenting, I guess. I tried to approach it in a modern parenting way: trusting my baby’s readiness and here’s what I think attributed to Victoria’s potty training success.
Potty Training Success. Yay to Modern Parenting!
👶🏻 Victoria’s personality: We’ve always joked that Victoria is a Boss Baby like the movie, sent from Baby Corp. She’s serious and full of concentration in everything she does. So potty was just another thing she had calculated in her head on how to do it right.
👶🏻 Switching to diaper pants and underwear: Going to potty on her own became easier with Victoria knowing how to put on and take off her pants on her own. Eventually, we dropped the diapers and she stopped wanting to wear them.
👶🏻 Being flexible: Victoria uses the potty or the toilet with the seat depending on her preference.
👶🏻 Being consistent: I think it was monumental that Papa and I were on the same page together and having consistency brought stability to a new situation.
👶🏻 Readiness: Identifying she was ready and when she wasn’t. We didn’t push it.
👶🏻 Setting examples: We believe Victoria gained encouragement by seeing how the older babies use the toilet and potty at her childcare.
👶🏻 Not reacting when there was an accident: We don’t make it a big deal - a “non-event”.
👶🏻 Having fun: When Victoria first started, we used a sticker reward system and decorated the toilet with her paintings. She also has books around the toilet.
👶🏻 Encouraging independence: Victoria enjoys flushing and using toilet paper so we let her do that herself.
👶🏻 Practicing going outside of home as much as possible: We brought the toilet seat where we can and she was comfortable enough to go in different places.
Curious about poo
Victoria exclaims, “I did it!” every time she does potty. We’re very proud of her. We know it’s a big milestone and intimate learning process for children; my husband had mentioned something interesting: in one of his training with a psychologist, they talked about how children are very curious about their poo when they start potty training. They do not yet understand that something coming out from them is not a living thing. Children try to identify it by asking if their poo has eyes. They might need to wave goodbye to it before flushing to reach the realisation that it is just dead waste.
It has certainly been a learning process for us as parents as well. We look forward to potty training our baby boy in the future. We know how completely different our children are so one thing might not work as well on the other.
Parents need support too
While there are many articles and books about this stage of life, the sharing of experiences from other parents helped the most. Great job, parents! We hope potty training with your baby has been rewarding, even though it can also be very tiring!
We’re immensely proud of Victoria. ⭐👏🏻🩷
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This is an excellent article on potty training for infants. I’m sure this will give many young parents an insight into this sometimes daunting aspect of parenting.