Pre-Potty Practice
After watching your child carefully and noting the times at which he eats and eliminates on a calendar, schedule one or more daily potty practices when your child is likely to need to have a bowel movement. Some children regularly have a bowel movement a half hour or so after eating, regardless of when they eat.
ESSENTIAL
Punishing accidents by leaving your child in wet or messy clothes is abusive. The risk of rash and infection increases. In addition, he may become accustomed to wet diapers, so your punishment will backfire. Instead, teach your child to help with cleanup by taking a bath after soiling and by wiping up puddles with a sponge.
Several Daily Practices
Hold potty practice when you expect your child to have a bowel movement. If she is too irregular to predict, set up a regular schedule: When your schedule permits, hold potty practice first thing in the morning, shortly after breakfast, midmorning or immediately after a morning nap, shortly after lunch, midafternoon or immediately after her afternoon nap, shortly after dinner, and before bed. Although you should try to schedule practices around bowel movements, more frequent sessions give her more opportunities to urinate in the potty, too. Busy dual-income families and single working parents can ask day care providers to have their youngster spend five minutes in the bathroom at likely times or at regular two-hour intervals.
Do Your Best
If family schedules and unreliable caregivers make several daily practices impossible, do the best you can. Get up earlier in the morning so your child can practice first thing on awakening or after breakfast. Pick a time or two in the evening, perhaps after dinner or just before bed.
QUESTION?
My child sits on the potty very nicely but doesn't use it. What is the problem?
Being able to use the potty isn't just a question of sitting on it at the right time. Children must have waste in their systems, and they must be relaxed enough for their sphincters to open up so the waste can flow out.
If you can only manage once or twice a day during the work week, remember that while toddlers can learn to remain seated, relax, and use the potty, it will take them much longer to develop the habit of going to the potty each and every time they need to relieve themselves. Try putting the potty chair in the living room so your child can spend more time sitting on it while he is playing at a small desk, watching a video, or listening to a story. Have him wear pull-ups so he can easily use the potty any time he wants to, and provide a reward whenever he does use it. Otherwise, try to finish potty training during a week-long stay-at-home vacation when your schedule allows you to hold practices once every two hours.
