Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Potty Training Tips

Here are a list of things I've learned on our potty training journey. Hopefully these tips will help make your journey a little a bit smoother.

1) Do NOT buy cute little underpants with a large, colourful, appealing image on the rear. It will result in a very long, drawn out argument with your toddler about whether of not you have put these underpants on backwards. An argument that will lead your toddler to questions your capabilities as a caregiver, in turn causing an emotional  breakdown in both parties, and finally ending in chronic bed wetting in one or both of you. Kind of counter productive, huh?

2)Do NOT allow your child to roam the house naked. Friends of ours insisted that the only way they were able to get their child to stop wetting his pants was to strip him down to his birthday suit and set him loose. Apparently it worked like a charm for them. I jumped all over this method. I was all like 'You mean he'll use the potty AND I won't have to go through the hassle of actually dressing my child?!?!? uhhh SCORE!!!" I don't know what I was thinking. I just hope that I actually FOUND all the little puddles.

3)DO sit down and have a lengthy discussion with your child about reducing the size of their carbon footprint. They're either filling up the dumps with their dirty diapers or wasting one of our non renewable resources with the 18 loads of laundry your doing everyday. And really, what toddler doesn't respond positively to a good healthy political debate?

4)And finally, corn does NOT break down in the digestive system. This is not so much a tip as a.. let's say... heads up.



DISCLAIMER: I have not, in fact, successfully potty trained any children. Although I have tried, unsuccessfully, on several occasions, so I will maintain that I am, in fact, an authority on the matter.

11 comments:

  1. Those are GREAT tips:-)

    I am Johnnie-come-lately with the Welcomistas! But, I wanted to chime in to welcome you to the SITs party:-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This was really funny! I really like your blog and am following you now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Corn is not really nutritious, just decorative! ;D

    ReplyDelete
  4. HAHA I need to try tip #3 with my son tomorrow. He still insists on only pooping in a pull up and underwear only works while home or at the park.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LOL! How about children will subsitute poop for finger paint so if your trying the whole naked baby method watch your little Picasso like a hawk.

    ReplyDelete
  6. lol. =)

    I can't imagine what it's going to be like to potty train my toddler...

    Don't want to get there just yet.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I remember potty training my stepson. He used to get out of bed and pee on the carpet beside his bed. (I think I did the same thing once in college after playing century club at a toga party. Oops.) At least he wasn't peeing in the bed, right? But the room had a permanent stench until we replaced the carpet with hardwood floors.

    Now, I'm using cloth diapers for my daughter with hopes that when she gets to the potty training age, it will be easier because she'll be more aware of when she's wet. It's supposed to be effective. Or so I hear. Maybe something worth trying, especially if you're doing tons of laundry anyways!

    Stopping by from SITS, loving your blog and now a follower!

    ReplyDelete
  8. He'll get it! Following you from FFF at MBC. Stop by my place at http://nobirthcontrol.blogspot.com.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think I should print this for future reference. You know? Haha!

    And I think I know why this post is not updating on Blogger. It got posted accidentally at an earlier time (4 weeks ago). So you'll see this post on the day that it got posted by mistake. It happened to my other blogger friend. ;)

    And where was I? Oh yeah! Can I print this? Hahaha. Just kidding.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wonderful words of wisdom. I haven't technically started potty training for real. My daughter is 19 months and she's been using the potty since she was 12 months, but not regularly. Now she likes to tell me she has to go potty whenever I am trying to put her to sleep and I don't want to say no because maybe she does. She ends up sitting on there so long that eventually she does pee. I need to start being a little more structured about it. She thinks it's just fun to sit on the toilet whether she goes pottie or not.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hilarious! We're in the process of attempting this whole potty training thing. I'm over it. Can I just say we're done and I've accepted diapers into our lives forever!?! Although being naked does work with our son 90% of the time, when you put the under-roos on him he thinks it's a free for all. Super.

    ReplyDelete

Reading comments helps me avoid the laundry. Please don't make me do laundry!