If you do not have the picture perfect potty training tale, you are certainly not alone. Many parents struggle with this for various reasons. Let’s look at two common struggles:
- regression (see post on regression)
- missing the zing and therefore training an older child
In either case, it’s time to evaluate the situation, stop the battles, and begin again with a fresh, new approach. First, empower the child!
REMINDER: Empowering does not mean relinquishing power to your child. It means to share some power with your child. Find ways to let your child feel some sense of control and independence, even though you, the adult, are “the decider”. Dr. Maria Montessori writes, “To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom.”
To begin: buy or create a calendar for your child. Open it up to today. Mark a few events or upcoming holidays on the calendar (someone’s birthday, snack day, swimming lessons, etc). With confidence and clarity, ask your child to choose a day to ditch the diapers (remember this is all diapers – daytime and nighttime).
Once the ditchin’ diapers date is set and written on the calendar you can cross off the days and look forward to the various events. Refer to the ditchin’ diapers date periodically and casually. Not as a threat. Not as a bribe. Just another event happening soon.
When the time comes, have your child help with ditchin’ the diapers (donating or passing them along to a friend). Support your child and encourage him so that he feels positive about this process. Empower you child. By believing in his ability to succeed, he will feel capable of succeeding.
Believe it or not, children do love to gain independence!
Nighttime Tip: Take your child to the toilet before you go to bed and then again a few hours later to help avoid bed-wetting. These quick disruptions are less jarring for parents than changing sheets in the middle of the night. It also helps the child feel successful with getting to the potty and staying dry all night. The goal is for the child to feel successful.
The difficult part is really very short relative to the huge leap your child is making. Stick to it. Once you graduate from puddles on the floor and wet bed sheets, you are off and running.
Congratulations on taking control of the situation!
To read more on this subject, check out:
My daughter day-time potty trained fairly easily when she was 2 1/2 (it was easy maybe due to using cloth diapers as one of your links suggest, yet later than you have noted of 18-24 mo. since she just didn’t show any interest until then), of course there have been glitches but none that have been of real concern for her or us. I was rather isolated from other parents during that time and did not even know that it is best to night time potty train at the same time. Maybe that is obvious but not to me then it wasn’t. Well, now I have a 4 year old who still loves diapers at bedtime. In fact the other night I did casually ask her about when she would like to stop wearing diapers at night she gleefully said “when I’m 7″. True this was not with the calendar all set in front of us, and we have been thinking up a plan that would work for our household, but it will be a process. … And I should add that thanks to this blog and your reading suggests we are ready for it.
I am so happy to hear that my thoughts are inspiring and motivating you toward potty training your daughter. I understand your concerns around nighttime, but it has to happen sometime, so you might as well make it as painless as possible and ride the potty training wave.
I look forward to hearing your success story!
I’m getting many tips and feeling inspired by the approaches you suggest, Emily. I think with Una having her help me maybe give the diapers away to some babies who need them will be helpful…we have figured out some time in March where we’ll both be taking some time off to start! I can’t imagine Una being OK with having a quiet day at home (all day), but we can try to make it fun, or just do close to home outside stuff, backyard, etc.
My concern with her mainly is at night. Sleep is such a struggle as it is, when she wakes up( you addressed this, in having them have a brief wake up to use the potty vs. cleaning up sheets, etc. ) she does NOT easily go back down. So its very tempting of course to remain with diapers at night in this case. My goal is to do it without, but since we’ve been sleep deprived now for over two years (she will now sleep for stretches of five hrs with some waking up and then back down for another few, then up again, etc. its still SOOO much better than it was!) it worries me a bit. Otherwise, I am psyched. Esp. to pick out the new undies!
We feel that we were very successful in toilet training our daughter at a little over 2.5 years of age. I am sure that we could have done it earlier, but I feel that going at her pace was also what made it a success. We let her look at how many diapers were left and do a count down as she used each one. When they were all gone she seemed more excited than nervous (the emotion that I was prepared to see). We have had maybe two accidents since that day, both of which were on the playground at school.
Before embarking on this toilet training journey, the part that I was most perplexed by was the nighttime training. Thank you Emily for giving me the courage to just go for it! We had one sleepless week with at least one bedwetting episode per night. It has now been several nights of sound sleeping and NO bedwetting.
This is just another experience that makes me realize that sometimes MY anxieties hold HER back. She is capable of moving forward – how do I forget this??!! As you said, Emily, the intensity of toilet training is short term compared to the long term growth for the child. Thank you again for your words of encouragement!
Anyone have any tips? I have a son just about 6 years old who still wears a nappy at night. Nappies are still very wet in the morning and he still poos often too. He has been dry and clean during the day for 2 or 3 years, but has never been dry over night. He was clean over night for a while but now doesn’t manage to not poo for more than 3 nights in a row. He is not constipated, does go to the toilet before bed and during the day. Nothing wrong with him from his doctor. Any ideas on how to sort this out?
Yes, I just emailed you some tips. First tip – Get rid of the nappies!! But, 10 more tips are in the email.
Hello Anne.. I think there are far more 6 year olds wearing nappies at night than most people would imagine. It’s a personal private subject which we don’t usually discuss with family and friends, so we can easily be misled into thinking anxiously “My kid must be the only one.” I sometimes wonder whether my son is having accidents in his sleep, or if his soiling is to some extent deliberate (?) What about your boy ? But then again, I ask myself, Does it matter ? His need, whether physical or emotional, is harmless enough, and it’s contained confidentially within the home, and it has no adverse effect on his schooling and his friendships. I don’t want confrontation with my son; dirty nappies are much easier to deal with than a damaged relationship.
Margaret.
While I agreed with this before I had a child, I no longer do. For instance, we tried the “get up in the middle of the night” thing….except it ended up a nightmare because my DD sleeps deeply, detests being woken up at night, and screamed and fought the few times we tried it.
She’s 5, and whenever she stops wetting her training pants and lets us know she’s ready for panties overnight, it’ll happen. But I’ve spent 4 years struggling with her on training (she didn’t day train until she was nearly 3.5) and I’m quitting.
PS, another new reader, sent from Free Range Parenting!
My dd is 4 yrs and 4 months. She has speech dyspraxia and some other slight motor skill delays but understands just fine. I’ve been trying so hard to get her to potty train. We have 6 children..she’s the 5th, so I’m no stranger to pt. She’ll wear undies and asks for the potty, but as soon as she feels the need to go, she freaks out like she’s scared or it hurts. I’ve tried your suggestion of ditching the diapers and it doesn’t work with her. She literally has a melt down because she just can’t/won’t use the potty. I’m not sure at this point if it’s a power play or if she truly just doesn’t get it. I’m brought to tears with her on a constant basis not just from potty training but how difficult she is in general. If not kept busy ALL the time, she gets into major trouble. She’s exhausting and I’m ready to give up pt her. I’m beyond frustrated.
My step daughter is almost 11 with some developmental issues and my girlfriend and I are having a rough time potty training her daughter at night…her grandparents who have her once or twice a week have been getting her up sometimes 5 times a night..she only gets up at our house 2 times a night…now she was kind of potty trained at night before..but granpa and grandma seem to not know when the other has gotten her up so she has fallen into the …weak bladder as I call it…please help we are so frustrated and not knowing what to do for her and changing sheets every night and day is REALLY getting to be hard for us..plus with no washer and dryer in the home makes it for a real tough task at times….Thank you for your time!!!
Thank you for sharing your story. While it does get more challenging (for a whole host of reasons) to potty train later, I imagine it will go easier than you think. Now your daughter is enjoying the ease of the diapers and this can quickly become a power play. This is the most important time to remember that you, in fact, are the one in charge. So, stop asking her when she is ready to stop wearing nighttime diapers. Instead, compassionately tell her it’s time. Without second guessing yourself, tell her that her body is ready and that she can do it. You can let her choose the ditchin’ diapers day if she likes, or you can choose it if she’d rather. This is simply another skill to learn. I appreciate John Rosemond’s take on this. He says that learning the skill of potty training is no different than learning the skill of using a spoon. You can do it! Good luck.