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Learning to use the toilet is a big step for your child. Most, but not all, are ready between ages 2 and 3. It can be one of the most difficult developmental phases that both children and parents experience together. Your little one is trying their best to develop their physical abilities, react to external pressures and understand relationship dynamics.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you wait for several developmental signals that indicate your child may be ready to begin the toilet training process. Does your child understand what to do? Can they take their clothes off? Do they want to use the toilet? Remember to encourage your child, but do not force them. As each step is achieved, their self-esteem and confidence are also developed.

Don't Rush
Before starting toilet training, look for signs your toddler is ready. Beginning too soon can be frustrating for both of you and can make the whole process take longer. Here are a few signs that your toddler is ready to take the throne:

Her diapers are dry for at least two hours or after her naps.

She fusses or asks to be changed when her diaper is wet or dry.

Her bowel movements are regular.

She asks to use the potty or wear "big kid" underwear.

She can walk to the bathroom, help undress herself and follow simple directions.

Her face or postures shows when she is ready to go.

Always be patient and move at your child's pace. Don't force it.

Provide Support.
We would let him feel wet and then sign the word potty in sign language. That way he began to connect and communicate. - Camila and Tom E., Scottsdale, AZ.

Your child is better able to take on new challenges when they feel supported and encouraged by you and other important adults. There are several ways to help familiarize them with using the toilet. You can read them books about the potty, post visual reminders in the bathroom or use their favorite stuffed animal to show them how it's done. And most importantly, make sure to praise your child's efforts, successful or not. After all, mistakes are a part of learning.

At Night
Patience and support may be even more important at night. Many children still need a diaper when they go to sleep, even when they use the toilet during the day. If an accident happens, do not make your child feel ashamed. Remember, it may take th ree to six months before your child learns to use the toilet during the day. Staying dry all night can take longer. Be patient. Over time, your child will have fewer accidents.

Nicoletta Kennedy is a communications coordinator at First Things First. You can reach herat nkennedy@firstthingsfirst.org

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Knowing when your child is ready for toilet training

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Learning to use the toilet is a big step for your child. Most, but not all, are ready between ages 2 and 3. It can be one of the most difficult developmental phases that both children and parents experience together, but with some patience and understanding you can get through it.

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How to COORDINATE POTTY TRAINING with your child's DAYCARE | Tips from a former daycare teacher

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This plan can be used to support children's individual needs. Contact your Compliance Officer if you have questions about using this tool.

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AZ Dept. of Health Services Director's Blog

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Pre- School & Special Needs Kids

A couple of months ago I heard a story from a parent of a special needs kid who told me that she was trying to find a pre-school- but her kid was denied admission. She said that the facility told her that our licensing regulations wouldn't allow the school to admit her child because he or she wasn't completely potty trained yet- and they didn't have a changing station in that grade. Our regulations say no such thing- but I wanted to make it crystal clear for the future that there are plenty of options when it comes to accommodating special needs kids in pre-school.

To clear up the confusion, we created a substantive policy statement to clarify the issue and we also put together some helpful information to provide some clarity to child care providers and the general public regarding children who have special needs in licensed child care facilities and child care group homes.

Overall, our child care surveyors are reporting that child care providers have become more confident that they can meet all children's needs and are enrolling more children with identified special needs than in previous years. We're partnering with child care providers and continuing to offer technical assistance to support inclusion- making a difference for Arizona's Children, our most important resource for Arizona's future. This new substantive policy statement should help too.

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A couple of months ago I heard a story from a parent of a special needs kid who told me that she was trying to find a pre-school- but her kid was denied admission. She said that the facility told her

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You can locate these courses in the Arizona Early Childhood Workforce Registry if you have a CCEI Account. An account is required.

CHD107 Understanding and Promoting Toddler Development

ESP_CHD107 Comprender y promover el desarrollo de los niños pequeños

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Potty Training For Preschool | Potty Training Expert

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Potty Training: Learning to the Use the Toilet

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There is not one "right" way or one "right" age to learn how to use the toilet. Here's what to keep in mind to child approach potty training.

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Your guide to potty training basics, including when to start and what to do.

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All About Learning to Use the Toilet

When and how to help your child learn to use the potty depends on how ready your child is, as well as your own beliefs and values about toilet training. There is not one "right" way or one "right" age to learn. Here are some questions and thoughts to keep in mind as you help your child learn to use the toilet.

Signs That Children Are Ready for Potty Training

Most children develop control over their bowel and bladder by 18 months. This skill is necessary for children to physically be able to use the toilet. How ready a child is emotionally to begin learning to use the potty depends on the individual child. Some children are ready at 18 months, and others are ready at three. While every child is different, about 22 percent of children are out of diapers by two and a half, and 88 percent of children are out of diapers by three and a half.

Your child is ready to learn to use the toilet when he or she:

Stays dry for at least two hours at a time, or after naps.

Recognizes that she is urinating or having a bowel movement. For example, your child might go into another room or under the table when she has a bowel movement. This is important-if you child does not realize she is having a bowel movement, she won't be successful at potty training.

Is developing physical skills that are critical to potty training-the ability to walk, to pull pants up and down and to get onto/off the potty (with some help).

Copies a parent's toileting behavior.

Can follow simple instructions.

Most importantly, your child wants to use the potty. He may tell you that he wants to wear "big boy" underpants or learn to go potty "like Daddy does." He may feel uncomfortable in a soiled diaper and ask to be changed, or ask to use the toilet himself.

When Not to Start Potty Training

There are some issues that can sometimes get in the way of successful potty training. For example, when children are going through a significant change or several changes at once (see list below) it might be smart to hold off on adventures in potty training. At these times, children often feel overwhelmed and sometimes lose skills they have already learned or were making progress on, like potty training.

Common situations that can cause stress and are generally not good times to start training include:

An upcoming or recent family move.

Beginning new or changing existing child care arrangements.

Switching from crib to bed.

When you are expecting or have recently had a new baby.

A major illness, a recent death or some other family crisis.

If your child is in the middle of potty training during a stressful time and seems to be having more accidents than usual, know that this is normal. Your child needs all of your patience and support right now. She will return to her previous level of potty training once things have gotten back to normal.

Starting Potty Training

It can be helpful to think of potty training as a process in which both you and your child have your own "jobs" to do. It is the parent's responsibility to create a supportive learning environment. This means that you:

Recognize that your child is in control of his or her body.

Let your child decide whether to use the potty or a diaper/pull‐up each day.

Teach your child words for body parts, urine and bowel movements.

Offer your child the tools she needs to be successful at toileting (such as a small potty, potty seat, stool, etc.).

Expect and handle potty accidents without anger.

Avoid punishment as well as too much praise around toilet use. (This can make children feel bad when they aren't successful.)

It is your child's responsibility to:

Decide whether to use the toilet or a diaper/pull‐up.

Learn his body's signals for when he needs to use the toilet.

Use the toilet at his own speed.

Finding a toilet training method that works for your family is the key. No matter how you do it, remember this is a learning process that takes time, with many accidents along the way. Being patient is the best way you can support your child as she learns.

Keep in mind that children with special needs may take longer to learn to use the potty. They may also need special equipment, and a lot of help and support from you. If you need assistance with your child's toilet training, talk with your child's health care provider or community service coordinator.

What to Avoid When Potty Training My Toddler

Toddlers are all about trying to gain some control over their world. They are using their growing physical, thinking and language skills to gain some power over themselves, their bodies and their surroundings. This natural and healthy desire for control can lead to power struggles, as children quickly figure out that one way to feel in charge is by refusing to do something they know their parent wants them to do. And for better or worse, learning to use the potty is way up there on most parents' list of what they really, really, really want their children to do-and children quickly pick up on that. (Just picture mom and dad clapping and jumping up and down when they see their child's first bowel movement in the potty.) Toilet training is particularly ripe for power struggles because it is so tied up with toddlers wanting to have control over their own bodies.

So, it's important to approach toilet training matter‐of‐factly and without a lot of emotion. Think of it as just another skill you are helping your child learn. If you show anger or disappointment when it's not going well, or overwhelming joy when it is, it lets your child know this is something you want him to do badly. Refusing to do it becomes a very powerful way for your child to feel in control. The more emotional you are, the more it shows your child how much it matters to you that he use the potty.

It is also very important not to force your child to use the potty because it can cause intense power struggles. These power struggles sometimes lead to children trying to regain control over their bodies by withholding urine or bowel movements. This can create physical problems, like constipation. So if you are starting to see power struggles developing over potty training, it might help to take the pressure off. Stop talking about potty training or doing anything about it for a little while, until your child shows signs of readiness and interest again.

To Use Rewards for Potty Training or Not

Many parents wonder about offering rewards for using the potty-a sticker, an extra sweet or a little toy every time their child is successful on the toilet. While these kinds of rewards may encourage progress in the short run, the concern is that for some children, the pressure of "success" in the form of the reward creates anxiety or feelings of failure when they have a (very normal and even expected) potty accident. The other risk is that the use of rewards for toileting can lead children to expect rewards for doing almost anything-finishing a meal, brushing teeth, etc. When parents are matter‐of‐fact about potty training and don't make a big deal about it, children are more likely to follow their own internal desire to reach this important milestone.

When Preschoolers Are Still Not Interested in Potty Training

Reach out to your child's health care provider with your questions or concerns about potty training. Occasionally, children have physical issues that make potty training more difficult, so a check‐up is always a good idea. You may also want to sit down with a child development specialist who can help you figure out what the challenges around potty training might be for your individual child, and help you identify toilet learning strategies that might be more successful.

References

Signs That Children are Ready for Potty Training:

Children's Hospital Boston, Woolf, A., Kenna, M., & Shane, H., Eds. Children's Hospital Guide to Your Child's Health and Development. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2001.

Community Paediatrics Committee, Canadian Paediatric Society, (2000). Toilet learning: Anticipatory guidance with a child‐oriented approach. Pediatrics & Child Health, 5(6), 333‐335.

Resources used to develop signs of readiness list:

When Not to Start Potty Training:

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All About Potty Training | Child Development and Family Center | Northern Illinois University

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When and how to help your child learn to use the potty depends on how ready your child is, as well as your own beliefs and values about toilet training. There is not one "right" way or one "right" age to learn.

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Emotional Growth Needed for Toilet Learning

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Emotional Growth Needed for Toilet Training

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There are a number of emotional issues that can profoundly affect toilet training. Understanding your child’s emotional state can make for a more positive toilet training experience.

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Psychological Readiness and Motor Skills Needed for Toilet Learning

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All parents are familiar with the routine of feeding breast milk or formula to a baby and then immediately changing her diaper after her meal. At times the diaper-wetting response occurs so quickly that it seems the milk has gone into one end of the baby and straight through to the diaper at the other end. This involuntary elimination process occurs because a baby's digestive system has not yet fully matured.

While urine fills the baby's bladder and is released through the urethra, and bowel movements fill the large intestine and are expelled via the rectum, just as with adults, babies cannot yet control the circular sphincter muscles that keep the bladder and rectum closed. As a baby's stomach fills during a feeding and passes more fluid to the bladder, the sphincter muscles automatically relax, and urination or a bowel movement occurs.

As long as this process remains involuntary, until at least eighteen months in most cases, a baby is unable to consciously delay elimination. If placed on a potty at the right time, she will void into it, but she cannot deliberately wait to use the potty and so cannot be fully toilet-trained.

Awareness of the Need to Go

At around her first birthday, your child will begin for the first time to recognize the sensation of a full rectum or bladder, signaling a need to eliminate. In many cases, your child will show her awareness through her behavior: squatting and grunting when she is about to have a bowel movement or tugging at her diaper when she needs to urinate.

Even though she will still not be able to delay the function she senses taking place, it is a good idea to reinforce this awareness of the link between the inner feeling of fullness and the act of excretion or urination. When you see that she is about to eliminate, comment neutrally: "Oops, I think a poop [or pee] is coming. Do you feel it happening?"

Once she has soiled or wet her diaper, change it right away to reinforce the concept that bowel movements and urine should be removed from the body and discarded. There is no need to comment negatively on this natural process (words such as dirty or messy will only make your child feel bad), but you can certainly say positive things about how good it feels and smells to be clean and dry.

Your goal is to strengthen your child's awareness of the feeling of needing to go so that she can build on this understanding when the time comes, and to encourage her to see toilet training as a desirable skill.

Motor Skills

In addition to his physiological development, your child's motor skills must reach a certain level of maturity before he can easily begin toilet training.

The ability to walk (beginning at around twelve months) is an obvious asset in getting to the potty in time to use it. During the early months of learning to walk, your child's preoccupation with practicing this new skill will probably leave little energy for experimenting with potty use. As he grows more comfortable with getting around on two legs, however (by around eighteen to twenty-four months), he may become interested in acquiring other "grown-up" skills.

The gradual improvement in other gross and fine motor skills, which usually begins at around eighteen months, will support your child's ability to handle his clothing more efficiently and to engage in activities that may keep him seated on the potty long enough to eliminate successfully.

You can encourage these developments by teaching him to dress and undress himself, making sure that his clothing is easy to remove, and offering him picture books, toys, or crayons and paper to play with while he's waiting for a bowel movement to occur. The ability to master all of these new skills also greatly enhances young children's self-esteem-confidence that comes in handy as they meet the toilet-training challenge.

Guide to Toilet Training (Copyright © 2003 American Academy of Pediatrics)

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Psychological Readiness and Motor Skills Needed for Toilet Training

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At around their first birthday, your child will begin for the first time to recognize the sensation of a full rectum or bladder, signaling a need to eliminate. In addition to their physiological development, your child's motor skills must reach a certain level of maturity before he can easily begin toilet training.

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Maricopa County- Safe Diapering in Child Care online training

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Maricopa County Child Care Nurse Consultants are pleased to present these online training modules.