Potty training

Potty training is made out to be a big hurdle in the minds of many parents and providers. I have successfully trained most children within months of starting the process. If the child has developmental delays, it may take more time. There are many important steps to potty train your child and I am outlining them below:

Team effort: Both parents have to be involved – shouldn’t be mom or dad thing. Also, if your child is enrolled at daycare, the key is that parents need to discuss and follow the same procedures at home that are done at the daycare - at the same time. It is undeniably a team effort. I have seen time and again that the parents neglect to follow the steps at home assuming that the children will be potty trained at daycare. These children get mixed signals that it’s okay to go in the diaper at home but need to go potty at school. It creates confusion, delays and there is chance that they may regress at daycare as well. Don’t wait till the child is ready to tell you to go potty as that may delay the start of the process based on the language skills of the child.

Potty seat on toilet: The ideal age to start is 18-20 months. The first step is to put them on the toilet – with a potty seat. Make it a fun process of shopping for the potty seat with them and then showing them how you (parent or sibling or peer) sit on the toilet. Let them sit for a few seconds to a few minutes the first time but the key is that they need to get off the moment they get uncomfortable or they say they want to get off. Do praise them, show them what they did and give them rewards in terms of stickers, smiley faces etc. These should be reserved only for potty and the children should have no access to these otherwise.

Maintain a schedule: Next is when you train yourself to the child’s times. Children of age 20+ months typically have established times of when they have bowel movements. It’s a good idea to give them potty time during these times. It is also a good idea to sit them down on the toilet after meals and snacks. I suggest to the parents to decorate the bathroom with their favorite character on the walls or posters, etc to entice the children to get comfortable in the bathroom.

Letting them know what should be done: You can give your child underwear time for a couple of hours for a few days – outside or in an easy to clean area inside your home – so they know what is happening. Be ready to clean up messes if you do so. This might upset some of the children, so prepare them before hand and do not scold them if they had an accident. Just treat it as a matter of fact incident. There will the one time, the first time – usually by accident that will go poop or pee in the toilet. That’s awesome, go for the rewards.

Watch for signs: Since it takes more time to get bladder control, it is usually easier to train children to have a BM in the toilet. Do watch for signs that the children may exhibit such as squatting to go poop, or change in facial expressions or sitting awkwardly, etc and do talk to the children about this so they know what they are doing. Lead them to the potty right away.

Easy to remove outfits: Do dress children that are being potty trained in easy to remove clothing – soft elastics pants, shorter than longer shirts without strings, frocks, skirts or tights, long shirts, no buttoned up jeans or pants, definitely no onesies. A big part of potty training is to teach the children to dress and undress themselves. Of course, a pull up is just awesome. The children learn to pull up & down their pull ups as well as their pants.

Stay clean, super clean: The next step is teaching the children to clean themselves. They need to be off the potty seat for this. Learning how to clean well takes time and the children need to be taught. Make sure to do the checks to avoid rashes, etc. Do teach the children the proper hand washing technique as well.

Success all the way through: Soon, the children will master the entire process of going potty all by themselves. The accidents will become less and finally no more. Do shop for underwear with them and start with a couple of hours of underwear time and gradually increase the duration to eventually only underwear. Do remember that nap times and night time may be a little bit harder for some children.

Good luck and happy potty training!

Art of free play

Free play

In this day in age, many parents tend to over -structure a child’s day – planned activities like swimming, piano, learning of Math and numbers, soccer and basketball practices seem to be dominating their lives with the hope that the children will have all opportunities and an advantage over other children. Parents are notably starting off their children in these structured lives earlier and earlier – sometimes as early as two!

While it is very important to give children the opportunities that this competitive world has to offer, I would advise parents to slow down or even sometimes just stop. Let children be children and let them have plenty of time for ‘Free play.’

Free play is play time for the children that is not directed by adults. Do provide a bright room with at least 5-8 choices of toys and change the toys often. It should be supervised but made such that children make choices, friendships, communicate, play with toys of their choice, etc. Free play is very important for social, cognitive, emotional development of children.

Cognitively, when young children are given ample opportunities of free play, they tend to explore their environment on their own, test out their learning. The children get an opportunity to try out things they already know or don’t know. Socially and emotionally, it is a fantastic time for children to learn to play and talk to their peers or share their thoughts with adults. When interacting with peers, they learn what might work or not work, how to share, how to play, how to talk and communicate.  

A very important thing that all teachers and parents should remember is to provide this time – an hour or two every day for children up to the age of 5 years with little interruption and direction. When children are facing a challenge like a manipulative toy or solving a puzzle, help by asking questions rather than solving the problem for them. This will help them in the long run solve issues they might face.

Have a great free play time with your little one! Just let them be!!