Amaura (my eldest) was 2.5 years old when she was potty trained. Since she was my first child, I jumped into potty training with both feet and didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. I just asked my momma what her main tip was to getting my siblings and I potty trained as toddlers and ran with it. Although I was able to potty train Amaura in less than a week, I definitely made some mistakes and now with my second child coming up on potty training, I feel like I have more of an open mind going into it again.

After Amaura was potty trained I was pretty ignorant and thought that since she knew what she was doing that there wouldn’t be any accidents at all.
Since the very first day Amaura started potty training she would wake up in the mornings with a dry diaper, so I thought that after she was  officially potty trained that she would never have an accident and/or wet the bed. Granted she’s only wet the bed twice since being potty trained due to drinking plenty of water before bed, I still for some reason didn’t ever think that would happen.
I also thought that she would never have an accident and did not take into consideration the times when she would REALLY need to go to the restroom and not make it at times, or the times when she was just so excited to be having a play date with her friends that she tries to put off going potty and has an accident. Haha, the joke was on me.
To this day Amaura still has occasional accidents, but now they are if she misses or waits to long to go and ends up peeing on her way to the toilet.

That being said, I want to share my potty training tips in hopes that you momma’s or daddy’s can use some of these tips and have a successful potty training experience with your babies.

Go into potty training with a realistic time frame:
I started potty training Amaura when she was 2.5 and had a goal of her being potty trained by the time she turned 3. So I gave myself a time frame of 6 months to consistently potty train her.
I know of some momma’s who jumped into potty training thinking that their child would be potty trained in a couple of days and gave up soon after.
So go into potty training with a realistic goal of when you want your child to be potty trained.

Know that accidents will happen even after your child is potty trained:
Like I mentioned above, I went into potty training thinking that after Amaura was potty trained that, that was that. No more accidents. Wrong! Amaura will have been potty trained for a year come January 2017 and she still has accidents.
Don’t mistake your child’s accidents for being lazy like I did. Know the difference.

Start preparing your child for potty training NOW:
I started preparing Amaura for potty training around 16-18 months until she was 2.5. I did this by bringing it to her attention when ever her diaper was soiled. I would ask her if she went pee or poopoos and when I would check her diaper. I would then say something along the lines of ‘Ok, you peed your diaper. It’s time to change you.’ After a while Amaura would bring me a clean diaper and the wipes and she would lay down ready to be changed. Or she would come up to me in a squatting position pointing to her diaper letting me know it was soiled.
I’m starting this process now with Ariella and I can definitely see that come November of next year, she will be more than ready to start potty training.

Try and stay home as much as possible:
When I knew that potty training with Amaura was about to start, I made sure that I didn’t schedule anything within the first two weeks. That way she could get the hang of going to the potty consistently without any distractions or inconveniences.

Have your child sit on the potty 30 minutes after he/she goes and make sure they are eating and drinking regularly throughout the day:
I feel like this tip is how Amaura was able to catch on as quickly as she did.
As soon as she woke up in the morning I would have her sit on the toilet straight away, that way if she held anything in her bladder during the night she would let it out on the toilet. After she went to the toilet she would have her breakfast. Her breakfast has always been warm oats with greens juice. I started to notice that after all of that fiber in the morning she would go in her diaper about 10 minutes after eating her breakfast, so I then started to wait 10 minutes after she had her breakfast and on the potty she went. After she went potty I would add 30 minutes from that time and during those 30 minutes I made sure she had plenty of water to drink that way she actually had something to pee out when I sat her on the toilet. This really helped her recognize the sensation of needing to go pee.
It worked the same way with going number 2 with Amaura. I made sure she had an apple, an orange, or a granola bar in between meals that way she had some extra fiber in her diet. She did catch on to peeing first, but the second half didn’t take that much longer for her to catch on.

Praise your child every time they go to the toilet:
I’m pretty sure that this tip is a given. I started rewarding Amaura with one M&M every time she went to the toilet, but I ended that quickly because I wasn’t comfortable with her having refined sugars. 😉 So instead I replaced the M&M’s with Sofia the First stickers and a little bit of fruit and nut mix and she was more than happy with that reward.
I would also tell her what an amazing job she was doing and that I was so proud of her. This really excited her and made her want to go to the toilet without me asking her if she needed to go or taking her every 30 minutes.

Always bring 2 changes of clothes with you:
I pretty sure that this tip is also a given. 😉 But I used to only bring 1 change of clothes around with me, but for the times that there isn’t a bathroom anywhere close when we are on the road, I decided to start packing 2 pairs. Amaura hasn’t needed to change her clothes due to accidents in a long while, but I still do this just to be prepared.

Be patient with your child and make it fun:
I know of some incidents where the parent is really stressing about potty training and so the child doesn’t want to potty train anymore and absolutely dreads it, resulting in a longer potty training process.
I know that potty training can be stressful at times whether that reason being that you get tired of washing undees all day, or that you now have to clean up the puddle of pee in the middle of the grocery store. But it’s ok! It’s a learning process for both you and your child and after your child is potty trained, it’s a huge breath of fresh air and it is so rewarding. Remember, patients is key. 😉

I am not claiming to know it all when it comes to potty training and I know that every child is different. Some children may take 3 days to potty train and others may take 6 months to potty train. I’ve also heard that girls are much easier to potty train and I won’t be experiencing that for myself, due to our 3rd daughter’s arrival in April, until the Lord blesses my husband and I with a son.
These tips are what I used to get Amaura potty trained and she caught on and was potty trained in 5 days. Of course they were learned during the process, but I found these to be very successful tips and I hope you do too! 🙂