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Underwear potty training - making mistakes or getting it right?
Is your child ready for the transition from diapers to underwear? How do you know?
Should you use disposable undies? Is it okay to go back and forth between diapers and underwear?
What do you do if your child regresses? Is this normal?
These are all excellent questions.
Toilet training is an exciting time in a toddler's young life. Mom or Dad, you're in the spotlight because your little one is taking all her cues from you.
I have potty trained 4 children of my own; both boys and girls, strong willed and compliant. Let me share a little with you about making the move from diapers to underwear.
Underwear potty training is all about practicing new skills.
Putting your toddler into potty training underwear can come any time you like during the potty training process.
I had the best luck with doing some preliminary upfront toilet training while my kids were still using diapers. Gave them a chance to understand what I was expecting of them. We would get out the potty chair and have some discussions about what to put in the chair and we would take off the diaper and practice sitting a while.
Generally nothing happened at that moment and that was fine. I was simply introducing the concepts involved in toilet training.
After we did that for a few days I would gauge the interest level. If my child was already bored and showing no real potty training readiness cues, then we would drop the process for a few weeks and try again.
If my child showed even a bit of progress, we would move ahead. I would talk to them about what being a big girl - big boy means and that includes some underwear. We would go shopping together and they would pick out something that caught their fancy and we would go home and try it on.
I would explain, very seriously, that the underwear is different from a diaper and needs to stay clean and dry. That means all the pee and poop need to go into the potty chair.
From there on it's a matter of setting a semi-regular schedule (pottying first thing in the morning, after meals, before we leave the house, etc.) and practice.
How did that go? The same as it goes for most folks. We had good days and our "accident" days. That's fine. That's called practice and a couple of my children took a long time to be fully potty trained.
At the time I was quite impatient with them and that made matters worse. I understand now how important it is to be matter of fact about the underwear potty training process.
I would call this a casual potty training method. If you would rather try a more structured approach (and truthfully, if I was doing it again, I think I would at least give this a try), you'll want to look into the "potty train in 3 days" method or the "potty train in a day" method.
These methods are really ways to concentrate my casual training into a small period of time. If your child is ready to be potty trained, I think these methods are a great way to solidly introduce the toilet training process.
Your child will probably be in underwear right away using these methods. Of course, your toddler will need to practice his new bathroom skills and that takes serious time - usually months, at least.
And you should expect your fair share of accidents. Nonetheless, if you can focus for a few days solely on the potty training process, you'll have your toddler in potty training underwear rather quickly. Bye-bye diapers!
Underwear potty training problems.
The main obstacle that comes up during the transition to underwear from diapers is usually that a child still pees or poops in the underwear and that is much messier than a diaper.
Some parents solve this by using disposable underwear, like pull ups. Such a choice certainly is more convenient to the parent, but can be confusing to the child.
Is he in diapers or underwear? My kids regularly wet and pooped in their pull ups. I found more success when I was going out and needed more protection than a simple pair of toddler undies could provide in putting a pair of plastic pants over my child's underwear.
When they wet in those, they knew it. And so did I, so we could deal with the situation quickly. Inconvenient? Yes. But frankly, lots about parenting is inconvenient and if you make life too convenient for your child they have no incentive to change and grow up. That's just human nature.
If you have a child who is determined to only have bowel movements in their pull ups, try sitting them on their potty seat in their pull ups, to get them used to the idea that the poop needs to go into the potty chair.
Next remove the pull up and lay it open in the potty chair when you see from your child's posture that he needs to poop. Let him poop IN the potty chair ON the pull up.
Once this is mastered, remove the pull up altogether. As you can see, whatever the toilet training problems that arise, keeping in mind that this is a process will help both you and your child.
Popular potty training topics.
Potty Training Child
A list of all of our articles to help you while potty training your child.
Toilet Training Tips
Many times just one new piece of toilet training advice that I hadn't considered before was just the help I needed to help my child over a potty training hump.
Potty Training Boy
Additional tips to help if you are potty training a boy (I've trained two boys myself).
Potty Training Girls
Specific tips to help potty training for girls move smoothly (I've trained two girls myself).
Colleen Langenfeld is a mother with over 29 years of parenting experience and helps other busy moms around the globe at www.paintedgold.com.
Note from Colleen: Remember, I earn my living making excellent recommendations to you, Mom, so when you choose to click any of the links on this website and make a purchase, I may earn a commission.
Naturally, that means I care about what you think! If you try a product or service I recommend, I'd love to hear from you. How else can I keep my recommendations top notch for all my visitors?
And thank you, for stopping by.
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