Potty Training

My son has been showing potty readiness this past one week! Hurray! It has been a long time since I wanted to potty train him, but he seemed not ready yet until at least early this week. He told me he wanted to wee-wee in the bathroom. That’s a real good sign that he’s all ready to be trained!

I actually planned to train him last year, when he was turning 2 coz I thought he was old enough to do so. But his pediatrician told me to delay the training coz I was pregnant and gonna give birth that time. She said that if I started training him, when the new baby comes, there’s a risk that we were going to start the process all over again.

I’m glad I listened. Otherwise, I’ll just get frustrated.

So, when actually is the right time to potty train them kids? Our oldies would say that we can start potty training even as young as 6 months!Age is one factor to consider to start potty training. However, age is not enough to consider. According to this source there’s physiological, psychological and physical factors to be considered.

Phsysiological readiness means the child can control his bladder. I noticed that today, when my son asked me to go with him to the bathroom coz he wanna wee-wee, i saw that the nappy was still dry. And the last time I changed his nappy was like more than 2 hours ago already.
This also means that a child must be willing! Willing to sit on the potty - when we bought our son’s potty, and we told him it was going to be his potty and he was going to do his “job” there, he refused to sit on it. Let alone touch it!

Psychological readiness means the child is able to recognize that he’s doing it (wee-wee or void). I think the fact that he asked me he wanted to wee-wee was a sign that he’s ready psychologically. Also, if the child is aware that he’s doing it, then he’s ready. My boy used to not care even if he has done it already. Let mommy smell it and it’s good enough! Now, he complains when he did it already. “Mommy, I wanna change nappy.”

Physical readiness means the child can walk to and out of the bathroom, can sit, and pull his pants up and down. Now, I wonder how mothers can train a child who’s not physically ready yet. I’m sure they had a very tough time, they had to carry and do everything for the child. Maybe, if I was willing to do all this for my son when he was not walking yet, probably I would have one difficult time, with my bulging tummy and all that! Kudos to mothers who sacrificially do all these for their kids!

Things to remember when we start training our kids to potty is never to push them to do it. The more we push, the more they resist, and all the more it will be so frustrating for mothers. Also, when they show readiness and tell you they wanna do it, acknowledge it and give him praises. This way, it will encourage him more to tell us when he’s ready to go. Also, we need ot be really consistent and patient in the process.

Last but not the least, when it comes to potty, we not only check whether our child is ready or not, we also check ourselves whether we are ready or not because if we’re not ready, we’ll just contribute to the stress in the process. Both child and the mother (or whoever is training the child), must be ready. This way, we will be assured of smooth and successful result!
I hope I’ll be patient and consistent enough to go through this with him. It will be a lot of help if he is potty trained already, at least financially wise… no need to add the nappy cost in the budget!