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Toilet training: And now for something completely grown up
Nowadays, parents have the halfway house option of disposable trainer pants. These may be useful if you are going somewhere that will not tolerate accidents, but they are a temporary measure. Your child needs to move into proper pants to be fully toilet trained.
- Once the nappy is off, it’s up to you to remind your child to sit on the pot or toilet at regular intervals. This means about every couple of hours; more often, if you have an enthusiastic drinker.
- For most young children, there is a very short time gap between recognising they want to pee and it being too late.
- Keep your child company and be pleased about successes, without going right over the top.
- Many children find it easier to become toilet trained for bowel movements. They may only want a poo once or twice a day, and some young children become regular about when it happens.
- Do your level best to keep calm about the inevitable accidents. Point out that your child needs to have her pants changed. But avoid any sense that she is dirty or naughty – she’s not, she’s just had an accident.
- Admittedly, summertime toilet training feels more relaxed, especially if you have a garden and nappyless children can run about outside. Young children take time to get the hang of it all, so there will be wet pants and wet floors along the way.
Potty training can sometimes be a case of one step forward and two steps back, but keep up with the ‘well done’ and gentle reminders, even when your child seems to have completed toilet training. Two, three and four year olds, who are involved in play, may ignore the physical sensations that tell them they should head for the toilet. You also need to become an expert toilet finder when you are out and about. Young children have limited ability to hold on – a bit like pregnant women really.
Once children are reliably toilet trained, you also share some of the responsibility for hygiene. Children need help with wiping their bottom, until they’re three or four years old. Show them how and explain to little girls that they need to wipe from front to back (otherwise they risk vaginal infections such as thrush). Do get them into the important habit of hand washing.
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