The No-cry Potty Training Solution (4 page)

When to Start

You can
begin
toilet training a child at any age: you can even sit a newborn baby on the potty. However, the more important question is when will training be finished? A child will
complete
toilet training when his biology, skills, and development have matured to a point that he is capable and willing to take over complete control of his toileting. Only then can he recognize the need to go, stop his play, go to the toilet, handle the entire process, and return to his play.

The amount of time it takes for your child to master toilet training is closely related to the span between the

16

The No-Cry Potty Training Solution

Elliot-Rose, ten months old

age when you start training and the age that he is physically and emotionally able to take responsibility. A number of studies show that no matter the age that toilet training
begins
, the majority of children are only physically capable of independent toileting after age two, and mastery usually happens between ages two and a half and four.

What About Starting Early—Before Readiness?

A child can be put on the toilet even as an infant, and in some cultures this is routinely done. A small percentage of American and Canadian parents have

adopted this practice, called elimination communication (EC). Before you sign up thinking your life just got
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a whole lot easier, you need to know that EC is
not
potty training. It is a long-lasting, gentle, gradual system that is used instead of diapers to manage a child’s waste. It replaces hourly diaper changes with hourly visits to the potty.

With this method, parents read their baby’s body language and sound cues and put her on a pot when they think it is time for her to eliminate. The parent manages the child’s elimination process until the child is physically capable of total independent toileting—

which usually happens at that magical age span we talked of earlier: from two and a half to four.

If the idea of replacing diapers with a program of watching your child’s signals and placing her on a potty to eliminate appeals to you, then look up one of the many books on the topic of elimination communication, also called infant potty training. In
The No-Cry
Potty Training Solution
, we’ll approach toilet training from the more common toddler-readiness approach.

Can You Do It in a Day?

For the majority of families who consider toilet training a toddler event, some will look for a fast-fix solution. However, even those appealing books or programs that promise one-day results have a major stipulation: they recommend using the ideas
only
when a child shows all the signs of readiness
and
is at a starting age of about two years. They also warn that accidents may occur for months afterward and the parent must be dili-gent to continue taking the child to the bathroom on a frequent basis.

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The No-Cry Potty Training Solution

Father-Speak

“We tried the ‘get a doll that wets and potty train in a day’

routine. Unfortunately, Hadley was more interested in eating the chips, drinking the juice, and playing with the doll than learning anything at all about potty training. The ritualistic sits on the potty quickly became full-blown tantrums, after which she’d pee on the floor. Now she hates her potty chair, and we’re going to buy a new one and try a more gradual process.”

—Mark, father of twenty-eight-month-old Hadley

Also, most children don’t respond to one-day training with total success at day’s end. Instead, it acts as a catalyst for the months of training that follow.

Can This Be a Child-Led Decision?

When deciding when to start potty training, you will certainly want to consider your child’s readiness and interest. However, if you wait until that magic day when your child approaches you with a formal request to begin toilet training, you may be waiting a long, long,
long
time. A child simply doesn’t understand the value of moving out of diapers to toilet independence. A child doesn’t have the experience, knowledge, references, or wisdom to make this kind of decision on his own.

Think about it. Do you let your child decide his own bedtime? Do you let him take the lead on when he’ll
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dress himself (be prepared to be his valet until he reaches second grade!). Will you allow him to decide when he’s ready to begin kindergarten?

Your child counts on you to make many decisions for him. Even though he’d like to go to bed at 10 p.m., you decide that when he’s tired and yawning at 7 p.m. that’s a much better choice. And while he may want to get on the school bus with his older brother, you know that he’s nowhere near ready for school.

One of your important roles as a parent is to make decisions for your child until she is ready to make them on her own. When it comes to toilet training, she needs you to watch her for readiness cues and then for you to introduce this novel concept to her when you feel she’s ready to embrace it. And you are very qualified to make this decision, because you probably know your child better than she knows herself.

Potty Training Is Really Potty Learning

The terms
potty training
and
toilet training
have been around forever and are the terms that most people use to describe the process. However, it’s not really about training at all—it is about teaching and learning. So a more accurate label for the process would be
potty learning
or
toilet teaching
. With this in mind, I polled more than three hundred parents about their choice of terms.

While all of them agreed it is really about
learning
, 94

percent felt much more comfortable with the tradi-tional names and said that if they were looking for a book on the topic, they would search the common phrases. So throughout this book, I’ll stick with the 20

The No-Cry Potty Training Solution

time-honored terms
potty training
and
toilet training
—but as you and I both know, it’s a teaching/learning process.

How Long Will It Take a Toddler to

Learn?

When toilet training begins at about age two, it can take anywhere from three to twelve months from the start of potty training to daytime toilet independence.

As a rule, the younger the child is and the fewer readiness skills she possesses, the more a parent must be involved and the longer the training process will take.

No matter what your approach to potty training, 98

percent of children are completely daytime independent by age four. (Nighttime dryness is a separate issue, based on physiology, and can take much longer.) It’s Not All or Nothing, You Know!

Toilet training isn’t necessarily an all-or-nothing decision. Many parents begin the process early with their child because they would rather assist, remind, and clean up a few accidents than continue to change diapers. Some decide to start slowly and watch their child’s signs to progress to each new level. Others focus intently on training with hopes they can move things along quickly.

Any path you choose for your little one can work, as long as you are positive and patient. No matter your plan, it does take time to go from diapers to total inde-Potty Training: What’s It All About?

21

pendence. For many parents, halfway in between isn’t a bad place to be, even if they spend six months at that midpoint.

Parenting is filled with choices, and the final decisions are very different for every family. There isn’t just one right way to potty train a child—the variations, approaches, and methods are many. The right approach for you is the one that feels right to you and works for you and your child. Ultimately, you’ll need to evaluate what your family goals are and then set a plan that works best for you.

How Much Will Potty Training Cost?

There is an enormous market for potty training para-phernalia, such as expensive dolls that drink and wet, specially made potty chairs, tot-sized urinals, fancy charts, posters, prizes, and awards. While all of these can certainly make for a fun experience, it’s not at all necessary to purchase an array of products for such a simple, natural process.