No More Diapers:
The Stages of Toilet Training

By Lindsday Dunckel, First 5 Nevada County

Printed in the Family Post: Summer Issue 2007

You’ve probably heard it said too many times: no one ever went to college in diapers. And then you’ve heard the calculation about how many diapers you will change in a child’s lifetime and you’re thinking you’re nearing your limit. So how do you know when you should toilet train your child? The answer varies tremendously from child to child and family to family. Children are ready to stay dry somewhere between 18 months and 3 years. The longer you wait, the faster the process (generally) and your child will be able to take over control sooner. A very young child who is out of diapers usually has a parent who is “toilet trained:” that is, the parent puts the child on the toilet at regular intervals and the child stays dry in between. It could still be up to a year before the child knows when he needs to use the toilet. Some parents of infants are starting a new movement called “diaper-free baby.” These parents watch their infants for subtle signals that they need to pee or poop and find that they can put their babies on the potty, thereby using no diapers at all. But most parents wait until toddlerhood to forgo the diapers.

Watch for when your child shows interest in the potty (there’s usually more than one period of this) and read your own willingness to deal with the process: it takes a commitment from the parents and a little extra energy to toilet train most children. If you’re seeing no interest, you can create some by buying a potty, placing it prominently in the main play area, having dolls and stuffed animals use it, and buying or borrowing several books about the subject. Children who stay dry for long periods of time and then pee a lot at once are ready for toilet training (there won’t be so many accidents and they’ve already learned to “hold it”). If your child is pushing 3 and showing no interest in the potty, or needs to be toilet trained for school, you can go through the initial warm-up stages and see if it generates some interest.

In general, girls take to using the potty earlier and faster; children who are obvious about pooping (squatting, grunting as they begin) will be more successful with that sooner because it’s easy to have them go poop in the potty; and it is easier to toilet train in the summer when kids are wearing fewer clothes. There are a few “crash course” books on the market that promise to have your child toilet trained in a week or weekend or even a day; these are not very realistic. It’s more respectful of your child to give them time to learn the new skill. After all, you’d never just put them on a two-wheeler and expect them to ride without first learning to pedal a tricycle, then practicing with training wheels, then having you hold the bike and run along beside. . .

Try not to time toilet training for a period when the two of you are having lots of struggles (this is inevitable at some point in this 18-month to 3-year period). If your child is big into “NO” it’s best to wait a bit before engaging in an activity that could provide so many opportunities for “NO.” Toilet training is most often a long and messy thing, with lots of laundry and mopping up involved: there is no way to escape this fact, so time it for a period when you have the mental and physical resources to deal with it. It is also a gradual process, where at first your child stays dry because you prompt her to use the potty and eventually she responds to her body’s messages and uses the potty herself. Control over the process passes from you to her, which is always tricky—remember frustrations when your child was learning to feed herself? The passing of control from parent to child is always a slippery slope.

TOILET TRAINING IS A MANY-STAGE PROCESS.

For some kids (and some parents), these stages are spread out over months, for some they are condensed into a few weeks. Here they are, in brief:

1) INTEREST IN THE POTTY:

Buy books about potties and pooping, buy a potty that is low and stable (buy two if you have two floors in your home, so there’s always one nearby). Let the child play with the potty. Let her sit on it with her clothes on if she wants to. And of course, let her sit on it and try to pee if she wants to! Note that for boys, it’s generally easier to start toilet training by having them sit down to pee; they can learn to stand up and pee later in the game.

2) SPENDING TIME NAKED IN THE PROXIMITY OF THE POTTY:

This is the real secret to toilet training. If the weather’s warm and you can let your child run around outside naked all day, hurray! Your child will ‘get it’ even faster. The child’s task in toilet training is to begin to distinguish the feeling of needing to pee and poop. It’s so hard to do this when you have clothes creating all kinds of sensations in the same general area. Also, to see it happening—look, I’m peeing!—is a great learning experience. So let your child spend some time naked in the same room as the potty. Don’t banish the potty to the bathroom, but put it where the action is. The kitchen is a good bet, because the floor is easy to clean. It’s great to do naked time

when you know your child may need to pee, like after breakfast or when she first wakes up from the night or from nap. Try to offer a big cup of some liquid just before naked time. Yes, your child is most likely going to pee on the floor, but it’s with a purpose. When that happens, try not to show your annoyance or frustration (then the child will try it again on purpose to see if she can make mom or dad annoyed again, because that’s powerful!). Wipe it up and say something like, “Oops, you had an accident. We’ll clean it up. Maybe next time you’ll go in the potty.”

3) THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL PEEING IN THE POTTY:

Make a big scene at this joyous moment: clap, stand on your head, call grandma with the news. The little one will get the idea that this is something GREAT he has done. Sometimes it happens once and then not again for a long time. Just keep having naked times and try for a second or even third successful peeing in the potty before moving on. If your child doesn’t fight it, you can suggest he try the potty at times when he is naturally naked: before bath, when you change him, when you get him dressed in the morning. Always keep it light, a suggestion and not a command, “Do you want to try and pee in the potty?” or even “Do you want to sit on the potty?” And when he gets up, “No pee. Maybe next time. Good try.”

4) REGULAR NAKED TIME:

When you are ready to move into real toilet training, make a commitment to stick to a schedule and the process will go much more quickly. Set aside a time that your child can be naked for about an hour (more, if you’re up for it). It should be the same time each day. Try to stay in a room with a potty. If there are a lot of accidents at this point, maybe you should consider holding off for a few more months. Some kids get very good at holding in their pee, but then have more trouble learning to let it go. If your child has had something to drink and spent a whole hour dry, try to have her sit on the potty before you put her back in diapers. Sometimes running water while she sits really helps (our mothers were right about this!). Or try having the child imitate you taking a big breath in, holding it, and then letting it out—the pee often follows! If your child has an accident during naked time, proceed as before, wiping it up and keeping it light, but you can add a question, “Where is the pee supposed to go?” and then, “In the potty, that’s right.”

5) UNDERWEAR AT HOME WHEN AWAKE:

This is a big step because it involves a (potential) lot of laundry and because this is when your child starts to feel uncomfortable (let’s face it, wet pants feel gross). Buy underwear that is a little big so that it’s easy to get on and off. Find clothing that kids can get on and off themselves (elastic waist pants, etc.). This way, kids can begin to be able to pull their pants up and down on their own and to feel a little more ownership of the process. You can start the underwear stage in bits of time, like naked time, and expand it to fill all the time at home. Think ahead about where accidents would NOT be okay. If you have a beautiful living room rug, either put it away for this stage or make the living room off-limits. Set some rules about where your underwear-clad child can go in the house—and try to do it before the accident happens.

Some kids get stuck at this point, either lacking the interest, the motivation, or the skill to stay dry. This is where a reward system can come in handy. Set up a chart and buy some stickers your child really likes. Then decide what will be rewarded: a period in underwear where she stayed dry; each time she pees in the potty; or a whole day of staying dry. Let her put her sticker on the chart. If you want, for extra motivation, you can have her “earn” rewards (picking out a book at the bookstore is always a good one). Set the price and organize the chart accordingly, so that after 5 dry days, she has filled one row and knows she gets to go pick out a book tomorrow. Another great motivator is to show the child a friend who is wearing underwear (they love to show it off) and better yet, to have that friend demonstrate peeing in the potty.

6) SHORT TRIPS OUT IN UNDERWEAR: Make a rule that everyone tries to go to the bathroom before leaving the house (you, too! You have to model it. . .). Pick places to try first where it won’t be horrendous if there’s an accident (not the grocery store, perhaps the playground or a tolerant friend’s house).

7) UNDERWEAR ALL THE TIME WHEN AWAKE:

This stage is just a natural outgrowth of the one before, and the reward system can be extended here, although it should be one sticker to each dry day at this point. When things are well established, you can do away with the rewards; kids generally just forget about them and, if not, understand and feel proud about no longer needing them. It is a good idea to buy small plastic potties to have in your car during this time. This way, you have something available at all times if the urge suddenly strikes. You will have to do a lot of urging about, “Tell me when you need to pee, so we have enough time to get to a potty. Don’t wait until it is an emergency.” You will get to visit bathrooms all over town during this phase—kids often want to check out the bathroom everywhere they go during this phase. Always carry two outfits, two plastic bags, and lots of paper towels with you during this period.

Generally speaking, children need a year of daytime training before they are ready to be dry at night, so don’t rush this. I wouldn’t put a kid to bed without a diaper until they are always or almost always dry in the morning. It is completely normal for children to wet the bed until age 5, although most are dry by 4. But a good percentage still wet the bed past that age 5, at which point it’s time to consult your pediatrician. If you want to work for dryness, limit drinks in the evening (nothing after 6 for an 8 o’clock bedtime or only 1 glass with dinner).

Pooping in the potty can go hand-inhand with learning to pee, or it can go on its own track. Many children prefer to poop in a diaper for a time and some make an arrangement where they ask for a diaper in which to poop, and then get changed when they’re done. It’s all about feeling safe and secure, and about poops seeming more like a part of them, or like something they’ve ‘made.’ Try to be sensitive to a child who is resisting pooping on a potty. You can make a plan the reverse of naked time, in which you set aside a certain time each day that is diaper time, a time at which your child is likely to poop. Again, this should be the same time each day. Eventually, you can get him to try it on the potty.

Some children become constipated when toilet training begins in earnest because they just don’t want to poop in a potty. Some will hide and poop in their underwear over and over again. Talk about this with them, and read and reread Everyone Poops. Serve extra liquids, fruit, prunes, bran cereals, bran muffins and other high-fiber foods to kids during this time. Eventually, with time, respect for their feelings, and understanding, they will poop in the potty. No one ever went to college in diapers. . .

If toilet training is causing stress, if you are getting angry or upset, or raising your voice in an exasperated way, it’s best to put the child back in diapers if he is under 3 and within a couple of months of first having stayed dry. If there’s still no interest, mark a day on the calendar that’s going to be ‘underwear day’ and make it like a national holiday. One day, you’ll realize you no longer have to carry a diaper bag with you. You’ll be free at last!

Lindsay Dunckel, Ph.D. and Grass Valley mother of two, is the Program Coordinator for Parent Support and Education for First 5 Nevada County.