A Potty Training Tale

As parents, one of our biggest milestones is successfully transitioning our little ones from diapers to baby underwear. This shift takes planning, and consistency and is all about timing! You start too early and the process can be unnecessarily tedious for both you and your baby, leave it for too long and it feels like the transition will never happen! But fret not, here are a few tips from us to you on how to go about potty training.

Here’s the best advice my son’s pediatrician gave me. At 6 months, when his little neck was strong and sturdy, she told me to put him on the baby potty after his morning meal. While plonked on this little throne, we sang songs, read books, giggled, and gurgled until everything that needed to come out, well come out! As parents, we became acquainted quite quickly with “The Face”. You know, THE FACE they make when they need to go, so it didn’t take long for us to figure out when he needed the pot and within weeks, we were in a daily routine of using the pot every morning. I’ll say it again, hands-down the best advice we got because at 6 months, we said bye-bye to poop-soiled diapers.

Getting him potty trained for the tricky “Number 1” was a little more challenging. We started by ditching the day diaper after he turned 1 and taking him to the loo every 20 - 30 mins. We dealt with tantrums, a lot of “Nos!” and then accidents right after but in a few months, he started using hand signals and eventually words to at least have a few victories in a day. 

Then came the time to say bye-bye to diapers in the night! This happened between 1.6 to 2 years and well let’s just say be prepped for disturbed nights. After insisting he use the loo before he turns in for the night, I would take him in his sleep around midnight to try and get him to pee then. This backfired drastically with massive tantrums and screaming. So I shifted tactics, for 2 weeks, I just let him be, most days he would wet the bed but then he would have a little whine and a wriggle that would warn us he needed to go, and that eventually led to him waking up and letting us know he needed to go. 

Mind you all these phases take months. You celebrate the wins and you stay patient during the lows and at no point (no matter how sleepy/ annoyed you are) should you reprimand them for messing up their pants. What helped me stay patient for the nighttime potty training? Potty Training Pants. 

These padded potty training pants come with a special absorbent material that holds up to 1 pee. Perfect for the nights. They give your child a semi-security similar to a diaper but alert them when they’ve had an accident, triggering them to tell you that they need to go.

What helps is that these Toilet Training Pants come in fun prints making it exciting for your little one to pick up what they want to wear. Also, mind you, I used them just for the night but these are god-sent even for when you're doing your day training.

Most importantly keep in mind that you have a big role to play in the potty training process and it is not that the potty pants will magically give your child the ability to be able to handle everything on their own. While these nappy training pants are important, as a parent you have to ensure that you do your bit. Understand your child’s needs and also understand what makes them comfortable during the process. 

Potty training is most definitely a challenge. But what got me through it is the constant reminder that I’ve yet to meet a fully functional 10-year-old who still waddles around in diapers!