Frontier Pediatric Partners is on a mission to reimagine Pediatrics! Through our online video series, we provide practical and useful childcare tips for new parents, grandparents, families, and guardians.
In this episode, we will be discussing potty training children! Our expert, Ryan Turner, will provide helpful insights, practical tips, and advice based on his years of experience in the field of childcare.
There are a lot of questions that come up for parents when potty training, like when do I start, how do I make it a good experience, what are signs my child is ready? We hope this video guides and eases you through the process, we are always here to help!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, I’m Dr. Turner from Frontier Pediatrics. And today we’re going to be talking about potty training. Specifically: When do I know if my kid is ready? What kind of signs am I looking for? And tips and tricks about moving forward with good potty training experiences.
“When do I potty train my kid?” is always the biggest question. We see wide varieties of when kids are actually ready, but it usually ranges between 18 months and four years old. Girls tend to lean a little bit closer to the 18 months to two and a half years old, and boys may be a little bit further, two and a half to four years old.
There are some signs that your child might be ready. It takes a maturity and a feeling that they know they’re ready. Things that you can see that might trigger you to say, “Hey, my child is ready to potty train.” Are they noticing when they’re wet? Are they noticing when they feel they have to poop? Do you see them go to other areas and come back with a full diaper?
As children get a little bit older, they might also ask questions like, “Can I wear big kid underwear?” “Where is my potty?” And “Can I do it like my older siblings?” For all of us, potty training can go either way. It can either be an awful experience or one that brings the family closer together.
Some tips and tricks that we’re looking for is: Can we make this a good experience for them when they are going through it? Each kid will be a little bit different, and so we have to tailor it a little bit more to what you’re seeing at the moment. The biggest thing is can we get into a routine? We’re not talking about taking a kid to the bathroom every hour, but can we find times, usually 2 to 3 hour blocks where we can get a kid into the bathroom on the toilet and having a good experience?
One of the biggest things that we see is kids don’t like being on an adult size toilet. Can we find them something that they are comfortable with where they don’t have the anxiety and the scared approach to falling into a big toilet, but being on something that is their own size? Other things that we can do for kids is can we make it a positive experience by reinforcing positive behaviors? Did they do well? Let’s praise them for it and not tear them down for not doing it.
We get lots of questions about do we give rewards to kids? Our recommendation is to steer away from monetary rewards or food rewards and use it more as a praise opportunity to give that child that encouragement to keep doing what they’re doing.
The other thing that we look for is that the body has some natural reflexes. So good times to use the bathroom tend to be after a kid eats. As the stomach fills, it tells the colon to start moving. And that may be an opportunity to use that reflex to have success when your child is trying to poop.
Other things that you may see as we’re moving into potty training, expect accidents. They are going to happen. It’s part of the process. But as we move kids from diapers into big kid underwear, you might see them respond just a little bit better because they don’t want to be messy, they don’t want to be dirty, and they don’t want to ruin that brand new set of underwear.
As we get into the evening time, it becomes a little bit more tricky, as every kid is also a little bit different as they sleep. Some recommendations are pulling back on fluids about an hour or two before bed so that they don’t have a full bladder going to bed. The other one would be, can we make sure that we are voiding everything before we go to bed in an effort to get the bladder as small as possible?
Nighttime accidents are common and they can last up to six or seven years old. If your child is at that age and we are still having lots of problems, that is a reason to come and see us.
