Hi guys. Welcome back to my channel. In today's video I'm going to be talking about potty
training and giving you my best potty training hacks and tips as I have just trained my third
and final child. So I hope you really like these tips. If you do, give this video a thumbs
up and don't forget to subscribe if you're new. My first hack is to wait until your child
is ready to be potty trained and to know the signs when it's time to start. All the children
are so different so don't let anybody put pressure on you or say to you, "Maybe you
should think about potty training," because you will see signs when your child is ready
like they'll start telling you every time that they are going for a wee in their nappy
and then telling you every time they want to be changed.
Also, taking an interest in you going to the toilet and maybe their siblings going to the
toilet and also being dry after nap times. As I said, I've got three children and one
of them I trained when he was just 20 months old versus the other two that I trained when
they were two years and nine months old and the children that were nearly three got it
within just four days of trying. They clicked so much quicker. They could communicate better.
They could take their underwear on and off a lot easier. So I would definitely wait if
you can. My next hack is to get all of the potty training
gear that you're going to need before you start and also to involve your child in the
process as much as possible to get them really excited about it and make them feel really
special. So you can either go to the shops with your child and let them choose a potty
and the underwear that they want or what I did was actually just go online to Amazon
with Jackson and let him choose a potty. We looked at so many different colors and he
chose a green one in the end and then we also looked at some character pants or underwear
and he chose a few different ones. I think he chose like Mickey Mouse and Peppa Pig.
So yeah, we ordered them all together and then when they arrived he was really excited
about it.
I want that one.
Letting your child choose underwear that they want to wear is a great idea because if it's
a color that they like or character that they really like, they're more likely to want to
wear the underwear and I would say just get a lot, maybe like 14 pairs because there might
be quite a few accidents. Once you have your potty, it's also worth getting some stickers
and maybe a few little sweets to have around as rewards. We also got some step stools so
that they could climb up to the big toilet when they're ready and a toilet insert as
well. We also have some travel potties which are great. This one is called the My Carry
Potty. It kind of contains everything. They come in really bright, cute, colorful designs.
Then I also really like this thing, it's called a Toodle-Loo. You can stick it into your handbag
when they are more confident in actually going on the big toilet. Then if you're ever out
and about or especially on holiday, you can just have this with you and it's really compact
and you can just put it onto the toilet for them. It's also worth getting an antibacterial
spray or wipes so that you can clean the potty quickly and puppy pads are great for splashes
as well. You can put a puppy pad underneath the potty and it can catch any mess or you
can also use these to put under your children's sheets to protect their mattress.
Another great hack is to introduce the potty really early. Even if your child seems months
away from training, it's worth getting a potty and having it in and around the toy area or
in your bathroom, maybe you sit them on it before they get in the bath every night or
you just play with it like what we did was put some of his toys on the potty and they
would go to the potty and they would kind of use it until Jackson was ready to give
it a go himself. As well as introducing the potty early, it's also worth getting a few
little potty training books or stories that you can read to your children at bedtime.
My kids loved talking about Wee and Poo at the best of times, but these stories were
great just to talk about how to use the potty and how aren't they big boys and everyone's
so proud of them and accidents are not a big deal. So yeah, I'll link a few of these down
below. Definitely make sure that you have some rewards
at home so that if your child is successful on the potty that you can give them something.
There are some great reward chart printables that you can get online specifically for the
potty and they work really well. What we do is he gets a sticker for a wee and a sweet
treat for a number two. I think definitely steer clear of sugary sweets just for a wee
if you can, because if you do give them a sweet every time he wee, I think you'll find
that they are sitting on the potty all the time trying to have a wee. So stickers is
enough. Jackson get super excited about them. I think I should create some kind of printable
reward chart for moms so that if you get through a day of potty training, you win yourself
a glass of wine at the end of the day. Let me know you think about that.
Another hack that worked great for us is to have an open door policy before your potty
training and while your potty training as well. In this house, people just walk into
the toilet whenever they want to anyway, but if you can get your child interested in the
fact that maybe their brother or sister is using the toilet and aren't they good, aren't
they so clever, get them excited about it, even when you are going to the toilet, they're
bound to follow you in. So maybe just talk them through what you're doing and now I'm
going to flush and I'm going to wash my hands. It feels really silly and some people won't
be comfortable with it, but the more you can get them excited about potty training, the
better. A hack for when you first started potty training
is to stay at home or for a day or two. I know this can be really difficult because
everyone is so busy and I found it hard with training my third child. But if you can get
help from friends and family with school runs and other things going on, it's worth doing
so that your child can be at home and concentrate on using the potty. Get a few little arts
and crafts in and some new toys, maybe a couple of puzzles. We got some coloring books. I
even got rock painting and we also made some cupcakes. But while we were at home I could
keep on top of if he needed the potty, is he holding it, is he showing any signs that
he might need to, because once they sit on the potty and get it a few times, it's much
easier. But it's just trying to like get that moment in the first couple of days. So yes,
I recommend staying home if you can just for a little bit.
Another hack is to be led by your child. All children will train differently. Some will
want to go straight to the big toilet. Some will like the small potty or one of my children
would only stand to wee because that is what he'd seen his dad do and his brother do. So
I would just let him stand over the potty or over the toilet, whichever he preferred,
but it's great to give them options. Sometimes I would take Jackson into the toilet and say,
"Okay, Jackson, do you want to wee on the small potty or do you want to wait on the
big toilet?" Then he could make that choice. You don't want them to sit on the big toilet
if they're really scared of it, you want to make it a really positive, nice experience.
Another hack is to remind your child to tell you when they need the potty rather than nagging
them 10,000 times a day saying, "Do you need to wee? Do you need to poo?" all the time.
That way, you're giving them the control and you're reminding them that they actually have
to communicate with you. On the first day that we started training Jackson, I would
try and get him to sit on the potty every hour or so and try and keep him there for
a few minutes with books or singing songs to him just to see if anything would come
out. But with Jackson, he didn't have loads of accidents. He actually went the other way.
He would hold it for about three hours and sometimes I just knew he needed a wee.
So this next hack is a bit weird, but it did actually work for us. On one occasion, I put
his hand into warm water and it made him wee because you know when you put them into the
bath and they instantly go, it was that kind of thinking. I was just like, if he could
just see that wee is going in the potty and then he's getting rewarded, he will start
to get this whole thing. My next tack is to put your child in waterproof
shoes while you're potty training if the weather allows. So obviously at home they don't need
anything on their feet. But if you go out and about, it's worth having waterproof shoes
because if they do have an accident you already have to change their pants and their trousers.
You don't want to also have to change their socks and their trainers as well. So it's
definitely worth getting some little Crocs or some little sliders so that they can wear
them. Let's talk about number twos on the potty
for a minute. That can be a lot more difficult for your child to get the hang of. It feels
very different and it can actually be quite scary for them. So at the moment my child
asks for a nappy whenever they need a number two and I'm totally fine with that. I'm going
to leave it for a few weeks and then try and get him to sit on the potty and do it again.
I think if I can just get him to master going for wee on the potty, then we can tackle that.
But I know some people and what I've done in the past is you can make poo time equal
screen time. So when they need to do a number two, they
can actually sit on the potty and maybe watch their favorite show for 10 minutes or play
their favorite game on an iPad. You can get some toddler friendly games and then that
would just encourage them to stay still and to try it that way. Can't believe I'm talking
about this. Once your child is ready for the big toilet, one hack that I did to make sure
that the we went into the toilet is to sit my child on a backwards and then to keep him
there for a few minutes. I gave him some whiteboard markers and I let him draw on the toilet lid.
This worked so well. I know that we probably shouldn't be letting
them draw on stuff because he could easily turn to the wall and draw on that. But if
you're right there with him and you're saying, "Oh, draw a happy face or draw this." It just
really kept his interest in the toilet and he didn't get as upset about the fact that
he was sitting on this giant toilet. If you have a boy, once they're confident
on the toilet and it's time to stand up and have a wee, I have a hack for you to help
with their aim, put some Cheerios or Fruit Loops into the toilet bowl and ask them to
aim at the Cheerios and that will really help with their aim. Another one that I did test
out for their aim was to put a few drops of blue food coloring into the toilet bowl and
ask them to wee in it and when they wee in it, it turns green. I tried this and it did
work. But I was just really worried that it was going to turn my toilet blue. So I must
admit I use the Cheerio hack a lot more than the blue one. But I thought it was worth sharing
with you. Once your child is potty trained, you'll still
need pull-ups or nighttime nappies for when they go to bed. Both of my older children
wore these until they're about four years old and I just kept putting them in nappies
until they just refused or until they're waking up with a dry, nappy. But one of my sons,
he would refuse to wear his nappy, but he would still need to wee during the night.
So we would do something called the lift or the dream wee. So once he would go to bed,
when we went to bed at about 11:00 PM and we would just pick him up and put him on the
toilet while he was asleep, tell him to have a wee. He would wee and then we would just
carry him back and put him back into his bed. It's crazy how they stay asleep, but it would
work and it meant that he didn't wet the bed. If you do have a child that needs to use the
toilet during the night, I thought it was worth showing you this product. It's called
a Toilight and what it does is it hooks onto the side of your toilet and it has a sensor
on it so that if your toilet is completely dark at night and someone walks in, just the
toilet bowl will light up. You can set it on any color you want to. You can even just
have it like flashing rainbow, but it just lights the toilet bowl enough for them to
go to the toilet and aim for the toilet as well without putting the bright overhead lights
on. So I wanted to show you that. It's only cheap from Amazon, but it definitely does
the trick for one of my children. Right. So that is it for my potty training
hacks. I think the main thing is for you to be positive and excited and just super proud
of them. If they have an accident, even if it's on your favorite rug or something, trying
not to show your frustration, try to just be super calm and just really proud of them
that they're growing up and that they're trying. They're going to take the lead from you. If
you're super excited and positive and treating it as like this special time with mommy, they're
going to love that. So just try and be as happy and as positive as you can be and get
some wine. Yeah. But anyway, I hope you liked my tips. Please put any of yours in the comments
below and I'll see you in my next one. Bye guys.