How to Painlessly Potty Train

Potty training nightmares abound: parents tear their hair out, pediatricians offer advice, grandmothers give lectures, yet how many kids really go to college in diapers? Follow these steps (and the path of least resistance) to learn how to painlessly potty train.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Patience
• Candy
• Diapers
• Night time pull-ups
• Potty pager
• A deaf ear to unasked-for advice

1. Embrace that your child is still in diapers: you aren't racing to public restrooms, changing clothes five times a day due to accidents or having to pull over every fifteen minutes on car trips because someone’s gotta go.
2. Throw away those potty training articles, return the library books on preschool behavior and put your fingers in your ears and say, “La la la” when your mother or mother-in-law tells you how she potty trained her twelve children by year two.
3. Consider your child: is he or she showing signs of potty readiness? Does he stay dry all night? Show an aversion to her poop? Ask you to change him as soon as he goes? Know when she has to go? Realize when he is peeing? Change her own diaper?
4. If not, don’t engage in potty training until there are most of those signs, even if your child is approaching his or her fourth birthday and people are starting to talk.
5. If your child shows signs of potty readiness, bribery becomes your best friend. Reward each pee, each poop, even if they come a hundred times a day.
6. Don’t fuss over accidents, clothes wash, kids too, all is good. Praise constantly, so that potty training is a transition, not traumatizing.
7. Continue until your child is potty trained and you've run out of rewards, or you realize you've started too early and should wait another six months.

Tips & Warnings

• Boys typically potty train later than girls, but that isn't always the case, there are late girls and early boys, as well. Pay attention to your child’s individual potty readiness.
• Bribery doesn't have to be big, to have a big impact. While there are parents who offer action figures for bowel movements, a peppermint patty works just as well.
• Smile when strangers offer their opinion on your diaper-clad three-year-old, sure in your knowledge that you know what is right for your child. Ignore their well-meant advice.
• Dry through the night may be a distant dream for many parents; pad your night time piddler and worry not. He or she will be dry eventually (keep that “no diapers by college” time line in mind), and there are devices available to train a sleepy bed-wetter if he or she hasn't become dry in a year or two. See Resources.
• Keeping cool about the process makes potty training painless for the whole family.
• Don’t shame, berate or emotionally manipulate a diaper-wearing child, it won’t work, will leave both of you feeling awful, and could create other problems, not as easily solved.