The No-cry Potty Training Solution (21 page)

Common Questions and Sensible Answers

149

Arianna, two years old

Instead, be patient, make the experience joyful, and you will eventually have potty success.

Celebrations and Rewards

Every time my son has a successful deposit in his potty, we
have a little victory dance and he gets a small prize. He’s
making great progress, and we’re having fun, too, but my
friend told me that she never made such a big deal over it
with her kids and they are both trained. Should I stop the
celebrations?

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The No-Cry Potty Training Solution

Children are different from one another, just as adults are different from each other. Some children respond beautifully to celebrations and prizes, and it makes training a pleasant, rapid, and successful endeavor. On the other hand, some children feel pressure to perform or feel that every small act deserves a big prize, thus causing the effort to not go as planned. And while some parents enjoy the party atmosphere, other parents don’t want to approach training in this way.

There is no one right answer to the question of whether to use prizes and celebration or to approach training with a matter-of-fact acceptance. Success comes differently for each child. Just as in many aspects of parenting, you know your child best and you should proceed in the ways that work best for you and your family. So if you and your son are enjoying your little potty parties, then go right ahead and celebrate!

Fascination with New Bathrooms

My son has recently mastered potty training. We’re having
a real problem with him constantly asking to use the bathroom. Any restaurant, store, or friend’s home that we visit
requires repeated visits—with little actual use! He also interrupts our conversations to ask to be taken to the bathroom.

What should we do?

The first thing you should do is congratulate yourself and your son for doing such a great job with potty training! Your little one understands that no matter what he’s doing, he should stop when he has the need and find a bathroom. Because this is all so new to him, he
Common Questions and Sensible Answers

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may not yet be reading his body signals clearly, meaning he’ll often have a dry run or two.

He’s also just learning that no matter where he is, there is a bathroom close by. He’s discovered that every bathroom looks and functions differently. This can be a bit confusing. In addition, being curious and interested as children are, the novelty of visiting new bathrooms is a grand adventure.

Most often the best approach here is to simply be patient. You really
do
want your child to continue to let you know when he has to use the bathroom, and you want him to go anytime he feels he should. The novelty of this newly discovered power usually passes quickly, and your child will learn to recognize and respond to his body signals. Relax. All this practice will pay off. Soon your child will only be requesting a bathroom visit when one is truly needed.

Stalling Bedtime with Potty Visits

Since we’ve started potty training, it’s become the number
one stall tactic for avoiding bedtime. It seems like every night
after my son has been tucked into bed, he has to get up once
or twice to use the bathroom.

It may be a stall tactic, but it also may be his biology.

Your child likely gets through the bedtime routine, including a visit to the potty, but then asks to get back out of bed to use the bathroom five or ten minutes later.

It’s possible that he may not feel the need to urinate when he’s walking around, but the minute he lies qui-etly in bed his bladder relaxes and calls out to him. So 152

The No-Cry Potty Training Solution

he really
didn’t
have to go before, but he really
does
need to go now.

And yes, your son
may
have discovered that the one way he can—for sure—get you to stop the bedtime process is to announce that he has to go potty. The solution is to take him when he asks but make it brisk and businesslike. Avoid chitchat or any pit stops for something to drink or for picking up a toy. Just get him right back to bed. This way extra bathroom trips will lose their appeal.

Frequent Potty Visits

We’re really proud that our daughter is doing such a great
job with potty training. However, she seems to have to make
use of the toilet every hour or so. Then when she goes, she
often doesn’t wait until she’s finished. She jumps up too
soon, so she ends up peeing on her pants!

A common reason for frequent potty visits is that your child isn’t relaxing on the toilet long enough to empty her bladder completely. Children are much more interested in going off to play than sitting on the toilet, so pit stops and incomplete voiding are common occurrences. The problem, of course, is that your child will just finish going but quickly have the urge to go again, or, as in this case, she’ll stand up before she’s even done peeing!

In addition, some children drink fluids in small amounts throughout the entire day, which is very healthy but, of course, leads to more frequent potty visits.

Furthermore, busy parents often rush children, telling them, “Hurry up! It’s time to leave!” This causes their

Common Questions and Sensible Answers

153

Avery, twenty months old

children to get into the habit of rushing toilet time, which results in incomplete voiding.

If these frequent potty visits are something new in your house, your child might have a urinary tract infection. Check out the list of symptoms earlier in this chapter.

If your child is healthy but active, the solution to these pit stops, dribbling, and frequent bathroom trips 154

The No-Cry Potty Training Solution

is to make sure that your child has adequate time on the potty—usually two to three minutes. You can sing songs, read books, or use an egg timer to make sure that your child sits long enough to void completely.

Bladder-Stretching Exercises for

Accident Control

My daughter is working on potty training, but she has lots
of accidents. My aunt said we should work on bladder-stretching exercises: having her hold it as long as possible
before having her use the toilet. Is this a good plan to
strengthen her bladder muscles?

Having your child delay urination when she has the urge to go very likely won’t solve the accident problem and could easily create more problems for her. According to the American Urological Association (urology health.org):

Children who hold their urine deliberately during the daytime may not help their situation at all. Rather than

“stretching out the bladder,” using these techniques in children promotes delaying of normal urination and may lead to subsequent urgency and daytime wetting.

There are a number of techniques that really do help your child avoid daily accidents. Here are a few ideas:

• Have her use the toilet on a regular basis, every one and a half to two hours or twenty to forty-five minutes after drinking.

Common Questions and Sensible Answers

155

• Tell, don’t ask! Avoid asking a busy child, “Do you have to go potty?” (And stop my playtime? No,

thank you!) Just take her by the hand and say,

“Let’s go to the potty.”

• Give less attention for accidents (clean them up matter-of-factly), and give more positive attention for successes.

• Help your child relax while she is sitting on the toilet by reading to her, telling a story, chatting, or singing. (Tight, anxious muscles won’t release

urine.)

Handling His Penis While on the Potty

Frequently when I put my son on the potty, he reaches right
down and plays with his penis. I am not sure what to do
about it!

First, make sure that your son’s private areas are always kept clean. Check to be sure that he doesn’t have a dirt buildup in the creases or an infection. Undress him for his bath and examine him for any redness, rash, or crustiness. If you spot anything, give your pediatrician a call and ask about the best solution. The answer may be similar to treatment for diaper rash, such as daily cleaning, changing his pants immediately after wetness or soiling, and applying a healing ointment.

Very likely, though, your son is healthy and fine.

Often a child whose privates have been continually covered by a diaper or training pants will be happily surprised to find something new down there, something that he wasn’t really aware of! He may discover that it feels pleasant when he touches himself or that his new 156

The No-Cry Potty Training Solution

little “toy” responds to touch by changing shape and texture.

Usually this fascination is short-lived. Most often it’s simply a matter of distracting your child or giving him a toy to hold and keeping him focused on the reason he’s on the toilet.

Embarrassing Bathroom Questions

I’d heard that you should let your child watch you use the
toilet, so I let my daughter come into the bathroom with me.

I was unprepared, though, when she started asking about
my pubic hair and why I have it and she doesn’t!

It is common advice to have a child watch you to help teach toilet training. However, most people don’t tell you that it’s not really necessary for your child to observe every detail. Just seeing you sit on the toilet, even if all your private areas are covered, is enough to give a child the lesson she needs.

If your child
does
see more than you intended and asks questions about what she sees, keep your answers simple and brief. You might say, “Grown-ups have hair, but children don’t.” Typically, this will be enough to satisfy your curious child, who’s likely simply making an observation about what she sees.

Wiping Lessons

How do you teach a child to wipe decently after number
two? We have less than a year until kindergarten starts, and
our daughter can’t seem to do a good job. Are we expecting
Common Questions and Sensible Answers

157

too much? We have both failed at teaching Tushy Wiping
101 to our daughter!

Learning how to wipe properly is a big job that can be hard for young children to master. Their little arms just don’t reach easily, and it takes time and patience to learn, so they often get more on their hands or pants than on the toilet paper. Most children will need help with wiping until the age of four or five.

The best path to wiping independence is to allow your child to take over, a little at a time, in steps.

1. You wipe for her, while talking about what’s happening, to teach the process.

2. You wipe first, and then she finishes wiping, with some coaching from you.

3. She wipes first, and then you finish.

4. Finally, she takes over the job on her own.

Show your child how much toilet paper to use, either by counting squares or extending a piece to the floor or out to an arm’s length. Explain that it takes two or three wipings after a poop to clean it all off and that she should wipe until there is no more brown color on the paper. (If you have a septic system, teach her to flush after the first wiping, to prevent clogging problems.) A great product for helping young children to wipe better is flushable wet wipes. These are softer than toilet paper, and the wetness makes for a cleaner bottom.

An alternate is for you to dampen a small amount of toilet paper for your child. Finish with dry paper.

Remember to teach girls to wipe from front to back to prevent the transfer of bacteria. And teach boys to give their penis a slight shake after urination so their underpants don’t get covered with urine drops.

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Fecal Soiling (Encopresis)

Even though we’ve given our son a number of wiping lessons, we still continually see brown smears on his underwear. He doesn’t even seem bothered by this! What could
be the problem?

If you believe that your child is wiping well, but you’re seeing frequent brown smears on his pants, you may be dealing with something entirely different, called fecal soiling, which is often brought about by constipation.

It’s not uncommon for children to ignore the stains and even the odor—they can become used to these and fail to even notice them.

Constipation is a common cause of fecal soiling.

Children who are not having regular bowel movements can become constipated. Children who are constipated have hard stools that are painful to pass. These problems can lead to a buildup of pressure, resulting in some leakage into their pants. If this continues without inter-vention, a child can begin to lose nerve sensation in the area, preventing him from feeling the sensation necessary to identify the need to use the toilet.

Fecal soiling is the
result of a problem
, not the origi-nal problem. If you suspect that this is the case with your child, it is important for you to deal with any potty training resistance (see Chapter 7, page 107) or constipation (see Chapter 7, page 112) in order to end the soiling.