Simranjit Kaur

Mother of one, Master of Education with specialization in child-psychology. After becoming mother, I met with real me. I am now learning new concepts of parenting every fresh day and sharing my experiences with other mothers. I believe, one of the most important things that you, as a parent, should work on is - your child's psychology. Understanding the child-psychology will help you build stronger bonds and know them better.

None of us come with an instruction manual or programmed guidelines for things. For a thing or another, we all are babies. After becoming parents, we get to deal with many such things and your baby’s potty training is one of them.

You teach your child how to do the potty, once the little one becomes capable of handling his own weight. Indisputably, the potty training starts with a lot of tears, screams, nerves, and oppositions. And, this is very much normal. Before teaching your baby, you as a parent needs to learn how to deal with trouble psychologically. Here are a few tips for you; following these will make your baby’s potty training a very easy thing.

I know, many times, mothers boast that their child was very quick with potty training. However, in reality, these are exceptional cases.

The preparation phase

Before you start your baby’s potty training, you need to make sure that you are creating a positive attitude and awakening the child to potty. Do keep in mind that potty training is a new thing for you baby and he is not going to react the way you want him to.

When it is about babies, training with exclusive rewards and encouragement usually works well. You need to avoid any criticism and punishment.

In my case, after 18 months (22 months in the case of boys; right age), I started my baby’s potty training. In the beginning, my daughter tried her level best to make me accept her wish of not using a toilet seat. But, later on, I made her follow the instructions. I think the rewards policy worked for me as well.

Teach him to know when to pee or poop

Before you start making your kid used to the potty training, it is important for him to learn the signals; you must teach him, what signal means pee and what means poop.

Being a parent, you will be the first one to notice. Therefore, you need to learn to recognize the signals of your baby’s body. Like if he moves from one foot to another, or tighten his abs. The moment you baby gives you any such signal; replace those with right words.

Appreciate your baby, whenever he tells you the right thing; a right indication for peeing or pooping. The idea is making your baby familiarize with the process of going to the toilet. In the beginning, you can accompany your baby.

Make your baby comfortable with his potty seat

As a parent, you need to give you baby potty seat as a new object. Do the best you can to make it look interesting.

In my case, my daughter was very possessive and willing to take her things only. So, I customized her potty seat with her favorite cartoon character’s stickers. Do not overlook the importance of safety measure; learning to potty will not happen overnight and there will be accidents. It never hurts to predict certain situations.

Regardless of your baby’s first potty training session, after finishing embrace him and give him a reward (material or praise). This will make your baby feel that you are glad. You can even tell others, in front of him that you are glad that is already high.

Some parents stop this positive feedback session very early. That is a wrong thing. In my case, even after weeks of potty training’s spectacular success, I never missed a chance of rewarding her, though I reduced the amount of praise and rewards by time.

I remember, how impatient my daughter in her initial potty training sessions. But, there is nothing strange in it. At this age children are always on the move and cannot stand in one place and do nothing more than 1-2 minutes. To make my daughter sit for a longer duration, I used to keep her busy with toys.

There are several cases, where kids refuse to use the potty seat. It could be because of certain fears or it could be because you baby is scared about the idea of independence. You baby knows that this training is going to remove the involvement of parents. First, you need to figure out the right cause, and then to act.

Be it any reason, being a parent you need to help your kid with potty training. Guide him the right way as this is going to be his first experience of doing things without you. Write your experience in the comment section below.