The 5 Biggest Potty Training Mistakes

Transcript

Andrea Olson:
Hi, my name is Andrea Olson with godiaperfree.com and my book The Tiny Potty Training Book. Today I want to tell you what the five top mistakes are that parents make regarding potty training.

The first mistake is returning to diapers. So a lot of parents will complete the potty training experience, what I call it, and they will go forth into the world and something will happen. They'll have a bunch of accidents one day and they won't look into actually how to troubleshoot, instead, they'll put the child back into diapers and say, well hey, they just were ready yet. But waiting for readiness is a whole nother thing that I covered before, and it really isn't a factor for potty training. But what is a factor is a parent's steadfastness. So one of the things I highly advise is to be steadfast. To start as you mean to go on. To never go back to diapers, because that is the way our grandparents trained. They never went back to diapers and it was a done deal. When our kids know that we're serious and we don't go back to diapers, they're done. So that is one of the things that parents usually make a mistake about in potty training.

Number two is putting it off. So delaying the start of potty training just delays the end of potty training and usually causes it to be a lot more difficult in the end. Mostly, parents don't find out about how to potty train or think about that they should until their child's about two years old and at that time they want to do research or they lack the confidence or the instruction. They don't know exactly what to do or what to expect even. They expect that the child should just train themselves because it's time and they're a big kid and they should do what you want them to do. But unfortunately two and three-year-olds don't work that way, so putting off starting potty training is the number two mistake that parents make regarding potty training.

Number three, the third biggest mistake that parents make with potty training is they think that they have to potty train completely naked, just letting the child run around naked, putting the potty out and telling them verbally to on it when they can. And then who knows what we do when there is an accident on the floor or something happens, but usually they think, oh, my child's not ready because they're actually not just going to the potty while they're naked and putting their pee in it and we expect them to do that without any instruction. So having the child just naked for potty training is the third mistake that parents make.

The fourth mistake that parents make when potty training is bribery. So going to the bathroom itself is a natural experience and it's a very private one. It is one that should not be rewarded. Yes, we can praise our children and be excited with them and say, oh boy, great you did it, you went in the potty. And that is great praise and that way is wonderful. But rewards like sticker charts and M&Ms and candy are big giant toys. I would say for about 1% of children, that is going to be something that you might need to try if everything else in the world doesn't work and bribery happens to really be the ticket with your child. But generally, 99% of children, what we've found is that bribery actually makes them externally motivated with potty training. But potty training and going to the bathroom is such a private process that it really is best and most effectively administered or executed by an internal motivating factor. So bribery has no place if you're trying to teach your child to be internally motivated about something.

And number five, the fifth top mistake that parents regarding potty training is winging it. So we have a vast amount of resources across the internet now at our disposal. And we tend to use them and when we are interested in something, we hit every single resource that we can find about that one thing and we overload our brains with it and that actually undermines our confidence. So with potty training, winging it off of free information found on this website, or that website or what mothering.com said or baby center or what you found on Facebook or from all of your friends when you posted, hey I'm going to potty train. Anybody got ideas? All of this stuff equals winging it. Without a method and a plan and knowing exactly what you're doing, it is very very likely that potty training will be a disaster and won't work. It's just the way that it is.

So these have been the top five mistakes that parents make while potty training. I hope that you've learned something today and that you can avoid these mistakes if possible. If you've already made some of these mistakes, don't worry. There are lots of resources that I can provide to you that will help you get past this, especially The Tiny Potting Training Book that I wrote for babies and toddlers 18 months and over. So thanks so much. I'm Andrea with Go Diaper Free.