Related topics: •  Toilet Training Basics, Ages 1 to 3 •  Toilet Training Problems, Ages 3 to 6

While most children learn to use the toilet sometime between their second and third birthdays, many are still learning well past that point and some 3-year-olds aren't even ready to start. Boys tend to be ready later than girls, and firstborns tend to learn later than younger siblings. To figure out if your child is ready, answer these seven questions.

1. Does your child know what a toilet is for?

2. Does he like to come into the bathroom with you?

3. Can he stay dry for at least two hours at a time?

4. Can he follow simple instructions, such as those for washing hands?

5. Does he recognize at least a few moments ahead of time that he's about to go? (Typical signs: He may grimace, squat suddenly, grab his crotch, or run from the room.)

6. Can he sit on the toilet without help?

7. Does he understand the meaning of the words wet and dry?

If you answered yes to all of the above, your child is ready to learn. If you answered no to one or more questions, let a little time pass and then revisit the subject.

•Lay the groundwork. Unless you're very uncomfortable with the idea, let your child accompany you into the bathroom and watch you use the toilet as often as possible; there's no substitute for a clear example. Keep up a running dialogue about what you're doing. Dads or other male relatives can speed things up for little boys by providing a same-sex example. And if you don't already use the correct words for body parts such as the penis and vagina, make the switch now. If your child says "elbow" when he means elbow but "wiener" when he means penis, he may wonder if he should feel abashed about this particular body part.

•Get equipped. Take your child shopping for a potty chair, so he feels involved in the process. Steer him toward picking one that's sturdy, comfortable, and low enough that his feet are flat on the floor when he sits on it. That way he can get on and off it whenever he wants to and has some leverage for pushing when he's having a bowel movement.

•Help your child get comfortable. Let him know that this is his potty; tell him it's a sign that he's a big boy now. Help him write his name on it and, if he likes, decorate it with stickers. Put the potty in the bathroom, and encourage him to sit on it fully clothed until he gets used to the idea.

It may seem as though everyone you ask swears by a different approach. Here's a three-step commonsense method to try:

1. Have some diaper-less days. When you work on reaching your goal -- getting your child out of diapers -- will depend on your schedule and whether your child is in a regular program away from home. If he is, you'll want to coordinate your strategy with his daycare provider or teacher.

Whatever your routine, start by choosing a time when your child can run around the house bottomless for a while. (Weekends are great if you work outside the home.) Put the potty in an accessible area, and encourage your child to sit on it at regular intervals. (Warm weather allows you to do this outside, which makes it more relaxing.) Watch for signs that he has to go, using these cues to suggest it's potty time. You can do this on several consecutive days, in the evenings when the family is all together, or just on weekends, but the more time your child spends out of diapers, the faster he'll learn.

2. Celebrate victory. Eventually your child will experience the triumph of getting something in the potty. Greet this moment with fanfare. Because children become more self-conscious as they get older, your child might feel a little embarrassed or ashamed about toilet training, so it's especially important to make him feel great when he succeeds. When he's staying dry for entire days at a time, plan a special reward -- a trip to the zoo, a new "big boy" toy, a long-awaited sleep-over -- to make him feel that his hard work was worthwhile.

3. Extend underpants time. At this point you have to decide whether to use the back-and-forth method of switching between diapers and underpants or the cold-turkey method of going to underpants full-time. Again, your schedule will influence your choice. You'll want to continue using diapers at night and probably on long trips out for a while. And your daycare provider or preschool teacher will have her own opinion on when to switch to underpants at school.

Older children who aren't toilet trained may feel embarrassed about wearing diapers and ask their parents for disposable training pants. Unfortunately, relying on these can interfere with toilet training, as the wetness-wicking lining tends to keep kids from realizing that they're wetting themselves. (For this reason, many preschools are asking parents not to put their children in disposable underwear.) Explain to your child that wearing these pants won't help him learn to use the toilet, and reassure him that he'll catch on soon. You might say, "Potty training is like learning to ride a bicycle: Some kids do it when they're 4, some when they're 5, and some when they're 6, and it doesn't matter in the long run."

The short answer is, you can't. But here are a few suggestions for minimizing the number of accidents and making them less stressful.

•For kids on the go, keep an extra potty chair in the trunk of the car.

•Dress your child in loose-fitting clothes that he can easily take off himself. Buy underpants a size too big.

•Check your expectations. Just because your child is older than some toilet-trained kids doesn't mean he can speed through the learning process. He has to learn both to sense his need to go and to act on that sensation.

•Don't punish or overreact. No matter how frustrated you get, try to be understanding and sympathetic. Your child doesn't need you to make him feel any worse. Keep in mind that even older children who have used the toilet reliably for months occasionally wet their pants when they're engrossed in an activity. And a calm cleanup now will likely mean fewer diapers later.

Here are a few ideas for getting your child interested and building his confidence.

•Buy a packet of "big kid" underpants decorated with a cool design or your child's favorite movie hero. He'll find them an incentive to get out of diapers.

•For a boy, use targets to teach him to pee standing up. Cheerios floating in the toilet bowl are great fun to aim at. And if you're not squeamish about him peeing in the yard, you can paint or tape a target on a tree. (Make sure he understands that this is okay at home, but not at the park or in a friend's yard.)

•Make a "potty" for a favorite doll out of a small cardboard box. You can also buy dolls that come with their own miniature potties. When your child teaches his doll how to use the toilet, he's teaching himself.

•Help your child choose a book about toilet training from the library or bookstore. There are a number of good ones, including longtime favorite Once Upon a Potty, which comes in separate editions for boys and girls, and The Princess and the Potty, by Wendy Cheyette Lewison, which hilariously captures the principle that potty training is fruitless without a child's cooperation.

•Put blue food coloring in the toilet bowl water. Your child will love the magic trick of turning it green.

Wait until he's securely toilet trained, then start checking his diapers in the mornings and after naps to see if they're dry. Many children start staying dry during their afternoon naps within about six months of learning to use the toilet.

Nighttime training is trickier, because it depends on a child's body being able to hold the urine for an extended period of time and it's also affected by how deeply the child sleeps. If your child wants to try sleeping without diapers, go ahead and let him. Should a few nights of this experiment show he's not ready, put him back in diapers in a nonjudgmental way. You can also support his attempts to stay dry by restricting how much he drinks after 5 p.m. and getting him up for a bathroom trip before you go to bed.

References

First published July 28, 1999
Last updated May 22, 2007
Copyright © 1999 Consumer Health Interactive

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