Family• Reviews

Starting Our Potty Training Journey

July 20, 2019

Disclaimer – This post features gifted items, any gifted items will be highlighted in the post.

Potty training, it’s something I’ve known we have to do but I’ve been dreading it. I couldn’t get past the thoughts of wee and poo all over the house or trying to start the process when she wasn’t ready and it being a disaster.

It never occurred to me that she would know when she was ready, and that she would instigate the whole thing.

Her interest peaked a little when we were gifted a new potty for her by Oxo Tot, she wanted to use it and sit on it and I think just by good timing she did her first wee about 2 weeks ago. I wasn’t entirely sure if she was ready so I thought I would leave it and see if she asked for the potty again the next day but she didn’t.

I won’t lie, I was a little disappointed because it felt like maybe this wasn’t the right time for her yet but five days later, at nursery, she did another wee on the potty and refused to put her nappy back on.

She wanted her ‘potty pants’ which are just pull up nappies but I guess psychologically they mean different things to her and so our journey began.

I can’t pin point exactly what made her feel ready other than the fact that all of her little friends at nursery and most that we see socially are all using potty’s and wearing ‘big girl pants’ so she wants to join in too.

We decided it was time to embrace it and see how she got on with it; I took her shopping for a few things to help encourage her such as choosing her own first knickers – obviously she chose Peppa Pig ones. She’s not ready to wear them yet but she keeps getting them out of the draw and saying she will wear them soon so it’s giving her something to work towards.

I also picked up a reward chart, it’s technically a chore board but we can improvise. She gets a star every time she does a wee or a poo on the potty and it’s had such a positive effect on her. She’s so excited to give herself a new star after her wees and we’ve also agreed that for every 5th wee in a day, she can choose one of the ‘special stickers’. When I snapped this photo on Thursday morning she hadn’t done more than 2 wees each day on the potty but by the time she went to bed on Thursday she had done 5 and had earned her ‘special sticker’. I’m really hoping that will help encourage her to go more often during the day.

There are loads of different way to approach potty training and none of them are wrong, you just have to find what works for you and your child.

At the moment, I’m asking her occasionally throughout the day if she needs a wee or needs to use the potty but she always says no. If I say nothing, she will most often come to me and say she needs to do a wee and then she will be successful. I think she’s figuring out what it feels like when she needs a wee and also knowing with enough time to get on the potty, there have been a few near misses but with pull ups it doesn’t matter and I just encourage her to try again next time.

She wants to be so involved with every aspect of the process, I love that the Oxo Tot potty (gifted) has a removable bowl which makes it so much easier to tip away and clean up and Amelia likes to help me pour her wee down the toilet and then flush it. She will actually come to find me after a wee and it goes a little like this “Mummy mummy, I did a wee, you need to tip it in the toilet so I flush it and then I need to do my chart” in the most excited little voice you’ve ever heard.

Currently we’re only using the potty at home during the day as I really want to crack that and get her dry before we move on to the next stages although during our park trip this afternoon she asked to do a wee in the potty and I didn’t have one for her. I honestly didn’t think she would even associate it with being outside but maybe I’m just not giving her enough credit.

Time for me to break out the travel potty and start to take it with us, just in case she asks again. Our travel potty was also kindly gifted by Oxo Tot and can be used as either a fold out potty with little legs, or it can placed over the seat of a normal toilet to give them a smaller space to sit on. It is recommended to use it with the Oxo Tot Go Potty liners and it does come with a few included so I’ve got no excuse not to take it out with us and start using it whenever she asks.

As we haven’t used the Go Potty yet, I’ll add some images below from the Oxo Tot site so you can see what it looks like:

So, that’s where we’re up to at the moment. I must admit it’s been surprisingly easy and I’m so proud with how quickly she’s picked it up. Of course I’m saying it’s easy when she’s still wearing pull ups, it’ll be a completely different story once she’s in pants and our days revolve around how far from the toilets we are at any given time.

Amelia was also gifted a stepper stool, intended to help with her potty training but it’s taken up residence in the kitchen and is now used for buttering crumpets, personally I think she’s got her priorities just right. We’re very grateful to Oxo Tot for providing these products and Amelia is making very good use of everything she’s received.