By
Elizabeth Pantley, Author of The No-Cry Potty Training Solution
Potty training can
be natural, easy, and peaceful. The first step is to know the facts.
The perfect age
to begin potty training is different for every child. Your child's best
starting age could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-two months. Pre-potty
training preparation can begin when a child is as young as ten months.
You can begin
training at any age, but your child's biology, skills, and readiness will
determine when he can take over his own toileting.
Teaching your
child how to use the toilet can, and should, be as natural as teaching him to
build a block tower or use a spoon.
No matter the
age that toilet training begins, most children become physically
capable of independent toileting between ages two and a half and four.
It takes three
to twelve months from the start of training to daytime toilet independence.
The more readiness skills that a child possesses, the quicker the
process will be.
The age that a
child masters toileting has absolutely no correlation to future abilities or
intelligence.
There isn’t only
one right way to potty train – any approach you use can work - if you are
pleasant, positive and patient.
Nighttime
dryness is achieved only when a child's physiology supports this--you can't
rush it.
A parent's
readiness to train is just as important as a child's readiness to learn.
Potty training
need not be expensive. A potty chair, a dozen pairs of training pants and a
relaxed and pleasant attitude are all that you really need. Anything else is
truly optional.
Most toddlers
urinate four to eight times each day, usually about every two hours or so.
Most toddlers
have one or two bowel movements each day, some have three, and others skip a
day or two in between movements. In general, each child has a regular pattern.
More than 80
percent of children experience setbacks in toilet training. This means that
what we call “setbacks” are really just the usual path to mastery of
toileting.
Ninety-eight
percent of children are completely daytime independent by age four.
This
article is an excerpt from The No-Cry Potty Training Solution: Gentle Ways
to Help Your Child Say Good-Bye to Diapers by Elizabeth Pantley.
(McGraw-Hill, 2006)
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author's name and book title. Please also send a link or copy to
elizabeth@pantley.com. Thank you.
