Toilet Training in Day Care
If your child is in day care or attends some type of preschool, the teachers will typically have experience (as well as opinions)of how they can best help him use the bathroom. The teachers will have practice in dealing with toilet training with other children. Sometimes, in fact, as a result of seeing their friends and classmates using the bathroom at school, children are motivated to try out the school toilet even before the one at home.
To find out whether your two-year-old is experimenting with the potty or toilet (which at some facilities are smaller and lower to the ground for small children) at school or in day care, you may need to raise this issue with a staff member. A teacher or a day care provider should have a good understanding of how ready your child is to give up diapers.
Fact
Schools sometimes discourage early toilet training (with children under three) because younger children are more likely to have accidents and to regress. Most schools these days do not expect children to be trained until they are at least two years and nine months of age, although children are more often between three and three and a half.
Children are loved and cared for not only by their parents. Teachers, grandparents, babysitters, other adults as well as older children are sometimes called upon to teach young children the ropes. This is a good thing and can help take the pressure off a toddler, helping him see that everyone eventually learns how to use a bathroom. Having other caregivers involved also takes the pressure off the parent, and with less pressure may come more successful efforts on the part of your two-year-old.
On the other hand, toilet training is one of those topics on which many people have opinions, and not all of these are helpful. If a grandparent or teacher isn't handling the situation the way you would like her to, explain what you're doing and offer exact instructions on what you need her to do. Remember that, just as with children, it may take the adults in your life a little while to adapt to your instructions. Since they probably have your child's best interests at heart, explain why you are asking them to follow your way (after acknowledging them for their help).
If you find your toddler is interested in the bathroom or if you're trying to start toilet training, be sure to let the other people closely involved in her life know. They will be able to encourage her and might have some words of wisdom that you haven't thought of.
One day your child may want to wear underpants, the next day he wants his diaper. One day he sits on the potty, the next he decides he hates it. Toilet training is a big step for a child — diapers not only provide a real source of comfort and security, they offer an opportunity for the adults he loves to take care of him. In addition to grappling with physical changes at age two, your child will have mixed feelings about not being a baby anymore. So let his moods hover over the situation without putting too much emphasis on any one state of mind. Eventually he'll work through his ambivalence and be a preschooler who uses the bathroom reliably.
