what do you need to do to prepare for potty training especially for the three
day potty training method i'm gonna tell you exactly what you need to do coming right up
hi welcome if you haven't been here before i'm holly mclean the mommy answer lady i'm
a certified parent educator and mom of nine and i am the author of how to train your child to behave
and i make weekly content and put it on this channel so that you can become the most effective
parent you can be so i hope you'll like and subscribe first i want to tell you if you're
watching this and you haven't seen me before this is actually part two in a three-part series
on potty training in three days so you want to go back and check out that first video first
and it's called readiness so be sure and do that and then come right back here if you already
watched the first video then you're ready to go on to the preparation and so that's what we're going
to talk about today don't forget about the link in the description below it'll give you the notes
on readiness preparation and process and so don't forget that free resource okay so here's what you
need to do to prepare number one schedule three full days you wanna give three full days to potty
training and that's all you're doing so you wanna make sure you're off of work you don't have to go
to the grocery store you don't have plans to go on play dates or go over to someone's house
you don't have a vacation planned or anything like that three full days that potty training is
going to be what you're doing and also you want to make sure that you don't have a trip planned
in the next two to three weeks after that a month is better but at least make sure that there's no
vacation coming because you want to want them not only to have these three days but you also want
to get into the routine before you actually go out of town or something number two plan
fun activities so for each day of those three days you want to have a craft a game a movie
and some kind of recipe that they can help you make you want to make these days fun you don't
want it to be a burden and you don't want to feel bad you want to make this time where you're
actually bonding with your child your child and you are getting together and at doing a lot of
things so have some things planned out so that means that you're going to need to make sure you
have the craft supplies that you're going to need for the crafts that you're going to do you need to
have those games prepared whatever they may be and you want to have the ingredients for the recipes
that you're going to make and anything else that you're going to need so you don't have to go to
the store in the next three days number three do a diaper countdown this is kind of fun what you
do a week before you're going to schedule those three days the week before you want to count out
all the diapers that your child's going to use in that week and then you want to sit your child down
and count those diapers with them and say when these diapers are done it's going to be
time for you to use the potty and you won't be using the diapers anymore this is a good
way to help your child prepare for what's coming and to get them excited about the whole process
so every time they use a diaper go ahead and recount and let them see the diapers are going
down there's fewer and fewer of them through the week number four teach anatomy i always like to
say that it's so much easier to train a child to do almost anything when they have a lot of
information so what you want to do is help your child understand how food is processed through the
body there's a really good book called how food travels through the body the digestive system it's
a book for kids and i have that down below in the description you can find it if you want to use it
some other books maybe at the library or something where you can show them how food processes through
the body you're doing it on a two to three year level age level so you have to be aware of that
if they understand this then they can know what is what it's all about and also you can tell
them when you point to the digestive system in the intestinal area you can say this area of your body
starts to feel different when it's almost time to go on the potty and you want them to recognize how
that feels so that they can communicate that to you so sit down and have a nice conversation with
them and go through all of that information number five t-shirts and training pants okay
i'm not okay with naked there are some parents that think and some people that teach let your
child run around naked that's not my cup of tea if that's what you think and you're okay with that
eh that's okay i just personally believe that it's better for children to learn about modesty early
and so i don't really like the child to run around naked so my suggestion is that instead of that you
get them a t-shirt if you don't like this part and you don't want to do it that's fine but i suggest
you use a t-shirt a child-sized t-shirt that maybe goes down to their knees the first day in the
three days i'm going to tell you about in the next video is going to talk about how they won't have
anything on their bottom half the first day and so go ahead and put a t-shirt on them and get that
ready but then also you want to get training pants the training pants that i suggest you use snap up
on the sides because remember it's all about not struggling and making this easy and personally
i think when a child poos in their pants and you have to slide that poop down their legs
that's a little stressful i don't like that so in order to not struggle uh if you get those kind of
training pants that have snaps on the sides then when they make that kind of mistake it
isn't quite as bad and then i want to suggest in the same um number five here that you might want
to get some pull-ups and i i think pull-ups are something that are an option to use at night and
nap times which we'll talk about in the next video while we're on that subject um be sure
to get a mattress protector if you don't have one i'm kind of assuming you all have those but
um if you don't get a mattress protector good to have number six get a potty chair and a potty seat
so the days that they're learning how to use the potty you're going to want to use the potty chair
and the reason that you don't want to use the potty seat and when i'm saying
one or the other i'm talking about the potty chair is its own little toilet you know that you put on
the floor but the potty seat is something that you put on the adult toilet okay so you don't want to
use the potty seat at first because you want to make sure that every time they have success and
they've gone in the potty at all that you're able to acknowledge that and say great you did
a good job okay and if you put them on the potty seat with the thing that goes on the adult toilet
and they go just a little bit you won't be able to tell they might say they went and it's like
you can't tell so if you have the potty chair then you can always tell when they put anything in it
so you want to make sure and do that when we're talking about the potty chair you want to make
sure it's really easy to clean that's important and if you have a boy you want to make sure you
have a deflector very important and then you want to make sure that when you get the potty seat that
it would be something that you can take with you after the three days i have some suggestions in
the description below about a good potty seat and uh potty chair the pie seat actually folds
up so you can like bring it with you easily like in a bag or something like that so that's a really
good thing to have and that's a good thing to be prepared with number seven get a visual timer
i know some people like to use their watch and then they can tell and set a little timer on their
watch or whatever but i think it's good to have a visual timer so that the child can see it so the
child can see when that time is coming because sometimes they'll be involved in something they
kind of get frustrated that they have to go to the potty again right so you want them to kind of see
oh look the timer's almost done or you want them to look at when that time's coming it's good for
them to learn about time and how it goes by too and so having a visual timer isn't just good for
potty training it's good for lots of other things while you're raising your kids number eight shop
with your tot i don't suggest that you necessarily shop for the training pants and the potty chair
and all that stuff with your child go ahead and do that yourself that's just my suggestion
because i want you to shop with your tot for the underwear because the underwear is going to be the
ultimate wonderful goal you want the underwear to be the big thing that they're trying to do they're
trying to accomplish being able to wear that underwear so whether you get online with them or
whether you take them to the store go ahead and let them choose the underwear they get to wear
after they have been potty trained okay so you want them to do their favorite color maybe their
favorite character or whatever and then you want to show them these underwear and you want to say
these are what you get to wear when you're all done potty training so you want to make it really
exciting and the way to do that also is to put those underwear in a place of honor in your home
like maybe up on the mantel on a special hanger maybe on the kitchen counter or somewhere where
everybody can see it and like that's the thing that they get to do and you want to make this
very important in their mind so that this is a long-term goal we'll talk about short-term
goals in just a second this underwear is going to be able to be theirs when they go one full day
keeping their pants dry and clean so let them pick their favorite
and get them excited about it by the way that you talk to them about it number nine other rewards
so we talked about the underwear that's their long-term goal and obviously they're going to
be two to three years old so a long-term goal is something they're still kind of learning about
so you want to make sure you have a short-term goal now one of the things that i like to teach
parents is that any of the rewards or consequences as much as possible should relate to the behavior
usually i don't say give them m m's or give them skittles or something as rewards but in this case
i think it's a great idea and the reason i do is because you have just shown them about anatomy
you've shown them how food is processed through the body right so when you put a little bowl of
skittles or m m's there and they get to use those as short-term rewards for each time they actually
use the potty and they actually go that you can relate that to the behavior because they're going
through that process of allowing that food to go through their body and they are able to control it
so that anything that comes out of them is going into the potty and then they get a reward that
reward relates to that so i think that's a really good thing to do m m's and skittles are really
good because i don't usually like to give kids a lot of candy but this is a special time but if you
don't like that you can use raisins or anything else you think might be good so now there's nine
things here i've said that need to be in place for you to start the three day process of potty
training so if you've gone through the readiness and you've gone through this preparation you're
ready to start the three-day process the next video is going to be the process and i hope to see
you in that video which i will be putting out next week if this video has been helpful please hit
that like button and remember to subscribe parents you can do this i hope to see you next week