How Parents Can Help
- Teach the child words needed to talk about elimination.
- Provide a potty chair for training. Providing a step stool to use the toilet may be helpful too.
- Use praise (hand clapping, positive phrases) and incentives (stickers, books to read while sitting, “playing potty” with a doll) without allowing them to be too distracting.
- Begin toilet learning only when the child seems interested and willing.
- Ask the child gently several times throughout the day and evening if he or she needs to go to the bathroom.
- Establish a regular pattern of toileting: upon rising, before and after meals, before bed.
- Begin a routine of hand washing after each visit to the toilet.
- Monitor fluid intake, particularly at bedtime.
- Postpone toilet learning if the child does not seem to catch on or does not seem interested.
- Remain calm and patient.
- Expect accidents. Do not punish children for accidents, rather explain firmly what is expected. “Next time, just call for help” or “Go ahead and wash out your pants in the sink.”
- Do not blame, threaten, or demoralize the child.
- Do not insist that a child remain on the potty seat longer than 5 to 7 minutes. The child may build up an association of unpleasantness with the bathroom or potty seat.
- Follow the child’s cue. If he or she seems more interested in the large toilet than the small potty chair; let the child use the large toilet.
- Let the child observe the same-sex parent using the toilet when possible.
- Remain calm if the child has an accident. Say, “Sometimes accidents happen.” Let the child take part in the cleanup by placing soiled clothing in the sink, wiping the floor with a towel, or wiping with a washcloth.
- Try turning on the water faucet in the bathroom as a stimulus to urinate during early toilet learning.
- Store clean underwear near the toilet.
- Dress children in easy-to-remove clothing. Try giving children colorful underwear, which may make them feel more grown up.