Study findings reveal that:
- 4% of the children were potty trained by age 2
- 22% by 2.5 years
- 60% by 3 years
- 88% by 3.5 years of age
- 2% were not trained at 4 years old
- Boys tend to train later than girls. 48% of boys were not trained until after 3 years old compared to 30% of girls.
Results of a 1996 national survey of diaper service customers revealed that babies diapered in cotton potty train much sooner - on average at 30 months of age.
These facts are taken from a Potty Training Concepts website and are quite interesting. We had that discussion with mothers attending our playgroup probably a million times. This topic is and always will be a controversial for so many reasons. First one would be that is actually really exhausting to train your child and the other main reason would be that we all are just simply afraid of handling a mess. And we are all right - we would rather have someone else teach our kid how to use a toilet....unfortunately this is not possible.
You will find so many articles and books about this subject. Having 2 kids myself I read tons of materials especially with my first kid. This is all new and we really don't know how to start. There are just a few things true and common to all:
- every child is different and there is no one golden rule to follow,
- what you need to worry about the most is YOUR ability to handle it,
- have all the necessary equipment ready so it is as easy and clean process as possible,
- be ready for a rough ride and you may be positively surprised!
My kids never used traditional potty (it only served as a hat!). However there is plenty of other useful tools that you can and should use to help yourself and your child. What I personally found very useful was a travel potty chair and by travel I mean do a grocery run with a child in a car seat without a diaper! I was a strong believer that once we remove a diaper you should never put it back on as it only confuses the child. And a car seat is hard to wash every day! Can't tell you how many times I had to stop on hazard lights in the middle of a busy highway just to help my child and myself! Travel potty was extremely handy back then!
Also soft potty seats that go inside your regular toilet were used in my house for quite a while. Both my kids preferred to go to a "big people" toilet and act like an adult plus it was a great way to boost their confidence as they could do it themselves.
As a reward I was using potty stickers. Every time they were successful on doing it the right way they were getting a "potty sticker". Kids love that stuff! It is colorful and makes them feel awesome about themselves. This really helps to speed the whole training as they are looking forward to a next sticker. Sometimes they would just go and try just to be rewarded!
The best thing about potty training is that this subject is well covered online and you can get pretty much everything now on sale. However it may be a bit overwhelming to search everywhere and read everything. The best website I used and which covers all the aspects of toilet training starting from great tips and pieces of advice to selling all the products that you will need is Potty Training Concepts. This site is super fun to browse and you can find everything you need when it comes to potty training and all the tools that are necessary to make it an enjoyable experience for you and your child too.
Now I guess all there is left to do is to take a deep breath and START! Remember to have fun together with your kid and it will happen! Trust me - there is light at the end of that tunnel! Good luck!
SHARE IT:
0 comments: