June is Potty Training Awareness month according to @PullUpsBigKids. Who knew? Do we need a special month for that? Aren't we already aware of this eventuality, fingers crossed, every time we wipe our toddler's bottoms? Our strong willed and active younger daughter recently decided she was not going to wear diapers anymore. Her diapers were slowing her down and she loved running around the house naked. It took her a few days to figure out when it was time to go to the potty. There was a lot of "I'm peeing mommy" before she got the hang of it. However, this time I was determined she was going to go “cold turkey” and not use disposable training pants. My older daughter took almost a year before she finally would use the potty full time. I had always used cloth diapers but when it came time to potty train, I could not find training pants I liked (at that time, only giant marshmallow-like trainers were available). So I started using disposable trainers thinking it would only take a few weeks (that's what my mom said!) Ten months later, as the land fill was filling up, she finally gave up the pull-ups (mostly because the other kids at daycare were using the toilet). The problem with the disposable trainers is that there is no motivation to actually learn to use the potty all of the time. Sometimes she would go in the potty and sometimes she would just go in her diaper. The other thing about disposables is they have all sorts of gimmicks to make your toddler love them – princesses, cars, Dora, as well as disappearing or reappearing pictures when they pee. Do the makers of these disposable trainers really want you to potty train your child quickly? I like to blame the use of pull-ups on my older daughter’s prolonged learning but personality, readiness and the toddler’s will all contribute to the success of potty training. So my advice from the trenches would be to make sure they are on board and have some interest in learning, be very, very patient, roll up the rugs and go cold turkey! I have read many posts and books on potty training and the most important thing is toddler readiness. You can lead a toddler to the potty but you can't make him pee!
