My Best Potty Training Tips

This potty training post has been sponsored by Pedia-Lax®. All thoughts and reviews are my own. 

Starting potty training? Don’t let it overwhelm you. It can be less stressful with these helpful potty training tips! 

Potty training can be one of the most stressful times of a parent of young children. I remember being beyond stressed with my oldest. It felt like we would never succeed, but then it happened. Now, I have three kids who are potty trained and wanted to share some potty training tips with you! Remember, these are just tips from my experience. I am not a medical doctor and different things work for different families.

My Best Potty Training Tips

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Start when they are ready, not when all your friends are doing it.

I believe one of the biggest mistakes we made at first was trying too soon. I know some people may potty train an 18 month old, but maybe it is because they were ready and not because of their technique. With one of my kids I started because my friend was working on it with her son. It worked great for him but was a disaster with us. However, after waiting another year, we had it down.

Use a potty seat.

This is completely a preference but after having potty trained 3 kids, I learned that potty seats are easier. They are easier to clean, transport, and transition from. Plus, there are fun designs you can find on the potty seats.

Work on it when you will be home for a few days.

I highly recommend taking on potty training when you will be home for a few days. Whether it is a long weekend or you commit to being home for a few days, it is much easier when you are not trying to potty train and get groceries or run errands.

Once you take off the diapers, do not put them back on.

A lady from church told me this and I think it is golden advice. It can be very confusing for kids to have panties at home and then diapers on when running to the store.

Drink lots of water.

The water will help them need to pee more which increases practice and also helps the bowels to keep moving regularly.

Take care of constipation right away.

Constipation can be very common during potty training. If this does happen, I advise you to tackle it right away! You can use an over-the-counter medicine, like Pedia-Lax®. IT is a complete line of laxatives made just for kids to help support digestive health and ease constipation. The Pedia-Lax® Chewable  Tablets are for kids ages 2-11 and come in watermelon flavor and provide quick relief.

Play Pretend. 

This worked really well with my daughter because of her love for her babies. She had a little doll potty so we would play pretend that the baby has to go and act it out. Super simple and very effective!

Use rewards.

We love using positive reinforcement in our home. What worked best for us was to have a small jar and then a bowl of little cotton balls or pom poms. Whenever the child used the potty, they got a cotton ball or pom pom in the jar. When it was full, they got a surprise. We also used M&Ms and would give one for every potty success!

Try different things for different kids. 

Parenting is not a perfect formula where you do this and that and get the anticipated result. Every child is going to have a different experience with potty training. All three of my kids were completely different! I was definitely more relaxed with the last two (cue stressed out first time mom with my poor oldest!), but they each had their own way of doing things. You may need to try a slightly different method with each kid- it is okay!

Take a deep breath and keep trying.

Someone told me when I was potty training that I needed to just breathe and relax because my child would be potty trained eventually. Guess what? They were right! With many parenting struggles, I think we need to remember it is just a phase. If potty training is a disaster one day, it is okay, just try again the next day!

What worked for us?

The best thing we did was to have our kids wear a long shirt at home with nothing on the bottoms. When I tried potty training with underwear on them, there would be countless accidents. We usually would do this method for the first couple days and then as they had more success, we would get them some fun underwear to wear.

What about you? What are some potty training tips you have?

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