Pre-Potty Training Tips

Potty Training can be much more effective if you prepare yourself and your child for the task prior to actually starting. There are some very simple things you can do that will help you with potty training your child regardless of the method that you use.

Never go from diapers to pull-ups. Many parents buy pull-ups and start calling them "big" boy/girl pants and that confuses the child as they're just like a diaper and it's "ok" to mess in them. Avoid pull-ups altogether for better success later.Stop giving your child a cup or bottle to go to bed with. Besides the fact that bottles and cups can rotten your childs teeth, it makes it hard for the child to wake up dry in the morning. The earlier you can break the night time bottle or cup the better.A couple months prior to potty training, stop reacting to poopy diapers with a laugh. I often see parents laughing and making funny faces and smiling about how the poopy stinks. The child starts to think that pooping in a diaper is fun. If you stop reacting to the poops and just change them without saying anything but giving a "that stinks really bad and gross" look on your face they too will start looking at poops as stinky.Let your child go into the bathroom with you. Let them see that it's ok to flush the toilet. Let them do it for you. Let them see you say bye bye to the potty. Letting the child see that there is nothing to fear with the flushing of the toilet and letting the poopy go down will make them not fear the potty chair.Never, I mean NEVER, make your child just "sit" on the potty chair. There are many methods that talk about having your child sit on the potty chair until they go but all this does is end up making the child "fear" the potty chair and see it as a punishment. If the child starts seeing the potty chair as punishment, it's likely that they'll refuse to use it.