What to Expect the Toddler Years (189 page)

Do
explain your approach to toilet learning to any other adults who care for your child and ask them to stick to the same strategies. Consistency is especially important.

Do
be sensitive to your child’s feelings and needs. Self-confidence and self-esteem are at issue here, too—not just a clean, dry bottom.

Don’t
expect too much too soon. Most children take several weeks to master potty proficiency—and at first, you can expect as many steps backward as forward. Setting your expectations too high can dampen your child’s enthusiasm and damage self-confidence.

Don’t
scold, punish, or shame. Your child sits at length on the potty without results, then stands up and immediately drenches the carpet. Or asks to use the potty every five minutes while you’re busy trying to prepare dinner, but doesn’t produce even once. Or refuses to go before leaving the house, then soaks the car seat not two minutes out of the driveway. Your frustration will be great, your impulse to take your frustration out on your toddler greater still—yet staying calm in the face of toileting setbacks is crucial to ultimate success. Remember, for someone just learning, occasional or even frequent misinterpretations of body signals are to be expected; overreacting to lapses can discourage a toddler from future attempts.

Don’t
deny drinks. Though it might seem logical that withholding liquids would make it easier for a toddler to avoid accidents, this practice is unfair, unwise, unhealthy—and ultimately, ineffective. In fact, stepping up fluid intake means that there will be more opportunities for a toddler to use the potty, and thus, more opportunities for success.

Don’t
use unnatural means to get desired ends. Some parents give laxatives, suppositories, or enemas so that a child will have a convenient or timely bowel movement. But not only is this practice unwise (such products should only be used on a physician’s recommendation), it is generally unsuccessful. While it might produce the desired results in the short term, it teaches a child nothing about the bowel control essential for the long term.

Don’t
be a broken record. Nagging almost always backfires with toddlers, who don’t like to be told what to do once, never mind over and over again. Occasional, casual reminders of the presence of the potty in the room (“Your potty is here waiting for you whenever you’re ready”) or invitations (“I’m going to go to the bathroom now; you can come, too, if you like”) can help keep a toddler on the toileting track, but incessant carping will almost assuredly derail your efforts.

Don’t
force the issue. Never compel your toddler to sit on the potty when he or she’s already refused; don’t force your child to stay on the potty when he or she is ready to get up (even if you know that an accident is imminent). Besides hampering
toilet-learning efforts, forcing a child can lead to straining, constipation, and even anal fissures (see page 601). The process and the product are your toddler’s—and your toddler’s alone. You can lead the way, but ultimately the reins must be left in his or her hands. (Read: You can lead your toddler to the potty but you can’t make him—or her—use it.)

Don’t force, but when appropriate,
do
finesse. For example, your toddler is engrossed in watching a DVD, one hand holding an apple and the other hand on her crotch. Nonchalantly make an offer: “Here—why don’t I hold the apple while you take your pants down.” Before your toddler has a chance to compute what is going on, she’s on the potty and doing what needs to be done.

Don’t
turn toileting into a moral issue. There is no good or bad when it comes to toileting—only ready and not ready. A toddler who’s used the potty successfully shouldn’t be called “good” any more than one who’s had an accident should be called “bad.” Labeling a toddler who’s had success on the potty “big” or “grown-up” might stroke his or her ego in just the right way, or, in a toddler who’s ambivalent about stepping out of babyhood, might trigger potty regression. As a rule, rather than commending the child (“What a good girl you are!”), commend the act (“You did a great job!”).

Don’t
discuss progress (or lack of it) in front of your child. Toddlers usually hear—and understand—much more than their parents give them credit for.

Don’t
take slow progress personally. Slow potty learning is neither a reflection on your toddler (late learners are no less bright) or on you (parents of late learners are no less competent). But be sure that you’re not impeding your child’s natural progress by stepping up the pressure or by ignoring the subject of potty learning entirely.