My potty training tips (potty training a 20 month old)
Everyone is so scared of potty training. I’m here to tell you not to be afraid and to share my best tips. I’m not going to dance around the words, so if you’re uncomfortable with potty talk please skip this post. I’m definitely no expert, but I want to share what I have learned in the hopes it can help someone else. It will also be a great reminder when the time comes to potty train our next child.
To start, I have to say that I hate the word potty. But <potty> is a lot easier for kids to say than <toilet> or <bathroom>. So we say potty in this house for now.
R is 21 months old, and he is potty trained. Of course there are still things we’re working on, but I feel comfortable saying he’s trained. I can confidently say that R is completely day trained, including naps, for pee. He has not had even a minor accident in several weeks. He still wears a Pull-Up at night, and sometimes it’s wet, but most of the time it’s not. I’m not pushing the nighttime training just yet since he’s still in a crib and he is pretty young. R is also poop trained, but it takes him a lot longer to, well, produce. And sometimes he has a small accident on the way to the potty (about 1 time a week). We are working through it though, and luckily I don’t mind hanging around the bathroom for 45-60 minutes so he can take care of business. I know that with time and more practice this will become easier.
It’s tough to know when to decide you can say your child is potty trained. I’ve decided R is potty trained because he wears undies full time during the day, rarely has an accident, initiates bathroom visits, etc. We started at 19.5 months and it took us about 6 weeks to get him trained.
Here are my potty training tips. Again, I’m no expert, but this is what I’ve learned.
Trust your instincts. If you feel your child is ready but everyone around you claims he can’t be, trust yourself. Everyone said Raffi was too young, but I felt he wasn’t and thought I had a good window to work on it. I didn’t mind if it would take a few weeks because of his age. We started at 19.5 months. Everything else he has learned has taken weeks to master, why wouldn’t potty training?
Read The Nuts and Bolts of Toilet Training board‘s featured post. I learned a lot from that post and found that board to be helpful.
Keep a diary of successes/accidents/incentives. Basically keep a diary of every potty training detail. I did this for the first couple of weeks and even now check in every few days so that I can see his progress. It helps a lot when you’re feeling discouraged to be able to look back and see how much they have improved over time.
Here’s how we actually potty trained:
After introducing the potty over a period of a few months, I carved out a few days to officially start training. I chose not to do a parent directed method because I wanted him to learn and understand his body’s signs, even if that meant it would take him longer to initially stop having accidents.
*As an aside: So many people are afraid of accidents. I don’t know why. Accidents are an important learning tool in potty training, and they are really no big deal. I kept Clorox wipes around to clean the hardwoods, and for the first two weeks had to use Resolve on my carpets a few times. If there’s still some stains and odor, services like carpet cleaning glendale az can help address it. We also had to change clothes a thousand times the first two weeks, but what’s the big deal? For a pee accident I would just throw the clothes in the washing machine, and for a poop accident I would rinse out the clothing and then wash and soak in hot water in the washing machine. I think lots of people make a mistake in forcing their children to sit on the potty at regular intervals because they don’t want accidents. Don’t be afraid of accidents – use them to your advantage.
Day 1: OK, so the first day I kept Raffi naked and gave him lots of stuff he would never normally have. He was given french fries and pretzels and juice and fun water cups and my house was full of crumbs and spilled water. I put the potty in the living room in front of the TV (which remained on for hours). When he’d start to pee a little I would stop him and run him over to the potty. I also had Elmo pee in the potty and made a big deal when he did it. I just used an old medicine dropper that I hid behind Elmo as Elmo sat there. I didn’t think Raffi would understand or appreciate the pretend potty play, but he was really interested in it and I think it helped him that first day. His only reward the first day was getting to pour the pee into the toilet from the small potty, but it was fun for him and fine for the first day.
For the first week I slowly transitioned from bare bottom to undies. He still wore a Pull-Up for nap and a diaper overnight. He also wore a Pull-Up on top of his undies if we had to go to the park or run an errand. It provided me peace of mind so I wouldn’t stress myself or him out about the potty. Any accidents were neatly contained and I could just switch his undies and Pull-Up and move on with our day.
Over time I stopped using the Pull-Up on top of his undies for outings, and started putting him in undies with a Pull-Up on top for nap. After two weeks of dry naps I put him in undies only. I think it’s important that you show them you trust them to trust their bodies, so I tried to phase out the Pull-Up barrier and the naptime one as soon as possible.
At first, especially when out of the house, I’d give lots of reminders. I would tell him “no peepee in the undies, ok?” and the potty was mentioned multiple times an hour. Pretty much every 5 minutes the potty was mentioned. I would ask him to tell me when he had to go, but I only insisted he sit on the potty before and after nap, before bed, first thing in the morning, before we’d leave the house, and when we arrived somewhere. Once he got better control of his bladder (about 2-3 weeks in) I switched to only making him sit before and after nap, first thing in the morning and before bed.
There are lots of skills to learn in potty training. You have to learn how to hold it, how to release it, know when you have to go, be able to communicate that to someone, etc. I focused on a few of those skills at first, and once he mastered holding/releasing I switched my focus to initiating. I now put the ball in his court to decide when to go. Since we lead active lives he wasn’t given the chance to initiate initially, so he didn’t really learn how. Now I simply ask him if he has to go before we leave the house, and if he says no we leave and that’s that. He has been forced to ask to go to the bathroom when out which has helped him to learn to initiate and to use bathrooms all over town.
You need to be flexible when potty training. We’ve visited many random cafe bathrooms, and I’ve stopped 10 minutes into a car ride to get him to a bathroom upon his request. Sometimes he can’t go even after telling me he had to, but I think it’s important for them to understand that they can stop and use the bathroom even when out. I suggest not waiting too long to introduce a public bathroom. I think I had R in a public bathroom within a few days so it would never be a scary experience for him. I also think it’s important for them to know that they can take a quick break from playing to use the bathroom and they can go back to playing after. Oh! And at night, before bed, if he says he has to go (“I go peepee?”) I always take him – even if it means the bedtime routine takes a little longer and he’s just trying to delay it. I want him to know that I am listening, and that it’s normal to stop your daily activities to use the bathroom.
I needed a lot of support while potty training. I had lots of questions and took advantage of the nuts and bolts board to have them answered. No one method works for anyone, so it’s important to be able to brainstorm different ideas to move past any obstacles. For example, at first we didn’t need rewards for using the potty. Then we used rewards for going potty, then switched to rewards for staying dry, and finally rewards for pooping in the potty. I used chocolate chips, new small toys, and stickers as rewards. We currently use rewards only for doing a full poop on the potty (with no mini accident before), in which case he gets to pick a toy or a chocolate.
Everyone wants to know if it’s better to use the toilet insert or the potty on the floor. I use both. I started with just the potty on the floor but had the toilet insert readily available. Within a week I was using both, and when we are out I often bring the toilet insert with us. If I don’t have it, I sit him on the toilet sideways so that he doesn’t feel like he’s going to fall in. The Baby Bjorn stand alone potty ($28) is great, but IKEA has one identical to it for much cheaper called the LOCKIG ($9.99). We have one in R’s bathroom and one in the bathroom next to the living room where he plays. For toilet inserts we have a CARS one that we use at home and a Sesame Street one that lives in the car or stroller to take along with us. I brought it everywhere the first few weeks, but now only bring it if we are going to be somewhere for several hours. We also got two TROGEN bathroom stools from IKEA ($19.99) so he can wash his hands independently. He still doesn’t climb up onto the toilet himself, but in a few months when he’s tall enough I’ll move the stool in front of the toilet.
R also can’t quickly pull his clothes off himself. In the last month he has learned how to do it, but it takes him to long when he has to use the bathroom so I still do it for him.
We bought about 25 pairs of Thomas & Mickey underwear and went through about 15 of them the first day. I bought R size 2T-3T since that was the smallest available, even though he wears 18-24 month clothing. They fit him just fine.
Other tips… Once you decide your child doesn’t need constant reminders you can switch to subtle reminders: for example walking by the bathroom and making a comment about it, or announcing that you have to go and does anyone else in the house need to too? I don’t do either now. I wait for him to tell me, but if he hasn’t gone in about 3 hours I will ask him if he needs to go.
These are just my first hand potty training tips. I am not saying I’m any sort of expert, but I thought I’d share what I’ve learned so far. I can’t express enough how much I learned from The Nuts and Bolts of Toilet Training board (what TO do AND what NOT to do), and I found it to be more informative than any book I could have read. I also found that having support on those bad days where they seem to regress was really encouraging.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask away. I’d love to help in any way. Potty training is made out to be this big scary thing, but it really isn’t. Just remember that accidents are good learning tools and potty training doesn’t happen overnight.
I’d love for you to share any potty training tips you have so that anyone coming upon this post can have even more tips to learn.
56 Responses to “My potty training tips (potty training a 20 month old)”
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I loved reading your experience! You say it’s no big deal, but to read through it sure sounds like it was a little complicated. I’m sure it’s just because I haven’t started yet. I’m so glad it went so well for you and R! I’m so impressed that he is all potty trained! Go YOU!
I’m thinking we will go for it sometime this summer. I’d like to have her trained before she starts moms morning out in September. I’ll be contacting you with questions… 😉
It reminds me a lot of when we started solids. Remember how complicated that seemed at first? I remember I couldn’t figure out when to feed R, what to feed him, how to feed him – and those things changed over time as he learned how to eat. It’s the same thing. Contact me with all your questions!
Thanks for the advice!! I hope to have our daughter potty trained by 2 years. This gives me a lot of encouragement!
Thank you for sharing! MacKenna’s only a month younger than R, but we are no where even close to being ready. I honestly haven’t even thought about it until recently. But when we are ready, I will definitely be using your tips!
Thank you so much for sharing! My son is 21 months and I really think he’s ready, but with a recent move (well, 2 months ago) I didn’t want to push even more onto him. Hopefully we can get our place organized for a good potty training set-up, and get started soon.
By the way, my neighbor handed me a freebie parenting kit from the library, which states that a 2 y/o is ready to learn about gun safety, but most likely not ready to sit on the toilet until 3… Just sharing. I’m originally from Germany, with the past 5 years in Canada, and now living in California and I guess I got a bit of a culture shock reading this…
Thanks again for sharing your tips! I’ll come back when we’re getting started! 🙂
I was in a similar situation. We moved in February and my son will be 2 1/2 tomorrow. About 3 weeks ago, we just picked a weekend and went for it (bare bottom day 1, undies by day 3 (pull-up for nap and nighttime, although he trained himself quickly for those) and we haven’t looked back (fingers crossed). His last accident was on day 4 and he’s completely trained.
It was surprisingly easy and I hope the same for you. I really think it was important to wait a little into his ‘2s.’ Good luck!
Wow, sounds awesome that it went so quick for you! My son went on his potty by himself (without me initiating) a couple of times, when he was naked at home, so I really think he’s ready. And I’m getting to a point that I cannot take the diaper changing wrestling matches anymore. Just need a good time window to get started!
When do they toilet train in Germany?
Cannot even begin to tell you how helpful this post is for me!! Ellie is now 18 months & we are getting ready to embark on this adventure. My goal is to have her “trained” before we move to Abu Dhabi in September. You make me feel like it is totally doable. Thank you!!
Great post Sabrina! I definitely agree there is a “window” in which they are ready to train. How did you manage training while he was in day care? Were the teachers open to following your lead?
Daycare followed my lead without a problem – they just asked me to send lots of changes of clothes in case he needed them. He goes there on Wednesdays and I started on a Thursday so by the following Wednesday he wasn’t having too many accidents.
Fantastic! The sign of a good day care
I know. I was thrilled at their reaction to it!
My daughter was potty trained very early too and everyone asks me how I did it and my biggest thing was, I did not rush. I did not even care really when she potty trained. She was interested and that was it. I don’t think I did any of the things you did, Sabrina!! haha. But it just worked for us that I am very very laid back…I think my daughter can sense that I was not anxious/worried/concerned about it whatsoever and that made her more relaxed. I don’t think we ever even did the bare bottom thing. She just wore undies or a pull-up and went when she needed to go. I will say that it took my son (7 now) a bit longer to master the #2 than it did my girl.
Thanks for sharing. My daughter will be two on the 3rd. She initiated potty training around 18-19 months. We didn’t push it but supported her when she wanted to use the potty every once in a while. Fast forward to last month, she was all about it, at home and school. We bought Pull-Ups and thought optimistically maybe this was it.
Then the past two weeks happened. She’s totally started to regress. Only using the potty 2-3 times/day and when we say that she’s such a big girl using the potty, she says no, Ella’s a baby. We think it might have something my due date approaching. Jury is out on whether we’re going to still try to have her trained before this baby is born or just let her wait.
Enjoyed reading your post! Congratulations on such a great achievement! I totally agree with you the child should be potty trained as soon as possible and that we are the ones who have to spend some time and support them in such a huge developmental step. I started slowly training my daughter at around 18months and by 24 months we never used diapers.
You will probably act even sooner with Ali:)))
WOW! We’re just starting Kaylin (shes almost 23 months). Thats amazing that hes already trained! Whoop whoop- go mama
Thanks Erica! Please keep me updated on your progress.
Thanks for the info! You’ve officially supplied me with a boost of confidence for my 23 month old 🙂 I think it’s time to do this 🙂
You’re welcome! Let me know how it goes.
What do you do when your toddler is scared to poop in the potty? My daughter will pee in the potty but WILL NOT go #2 in the potty. She held it in for a few days and got completely constipated so would rather she listen to her body and go in a pull up but this is not what I was hoping for. Suggestions please!
I’m not sure. We are still working on mastering the pooping in the potty thing. Raffi has a tough time sitting for long enough so I’ve been giving him my phone or a book to try and get him to stay longer. Let me know when you figure it out and I will do the same!
Hey thanks for sharing your success. I am almost 2 weeks in to training my 19.5 month old and he is doing great. Most days he has no pee accidents but he hasn’t pooped on the potty once. Has your little one started this yet? I’m wondering if its gonna click soon? Or if there is something I can do to help him along ?
Thanks for your info! My son is almost 20 months old now and we are in pull ups most days, but having issues with babysitter and dad taking him to potty often enough. We have toys and books at the potty and he likes going to it when I work with him. He went through a nap dry a couple of days ago and he will sometimes spontaneously tell us he needs to go. Hoping to get him trained before Christmas this year!!
This is brilliant advice! I’ve been after some tips and pointers for about a month and this is the most helpful thing I’ve read. My daughter is 22 month and I think its time. Im still a little bit vary if she’ll get it, but I’m a sahm so have time and the worst that can happen is poo on the carpet right?! lol thank you, this is going into pc’s bookmarks 🙂
Try the towel potty training method.
Your experience is awesome. Glad R trained so soon. Though it does sound like u did put in a lot of work. My son is going to turn 22 months in a few days and I just started. Whats your email id? Id love getting in touch with you so I can ask you some questions
THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION In trying to figure out what age to start potty training your
child, it happens to be important to not compare your child with other children.
Convince her from time to time to use the potty and perhaps she will actually
do it. As for me, I went from diaper to underwear immediately,
and it worked well for my daughter. My daughter found it much easier to urinate in the potty than
defecate.
I came across this program that showed my wife and I how to potty train our son within three days. There were some great techniques and helpful information there that I felt compelled to share with others. We’ve been trying to potty train my son for the last six weeks with no luck, Googling potty training was turning up outdated techniques and some of them we believe were even harmful and I really didn’t have the time for trial and error and all the researching. We needed something that worked and was easy to apply to everyday life.
We followed the instructions and “eureka” we found a successful formula in 3 days. It was “Potty Training Made Easy”.
Three days completely trained our son, it worked for us and I hope it works for you.
So I hope this helps and good luck with your training…. O’ almost forgot here’s the site: />http://www.threedayspottytraining.com
We started training our 20 month old twins 3 days ago. So I’m glad I found this article for reassurance.
Glad I found your post. We just started potty training our 19.5 month old 5 days ago and I was having doubts. But your post reassured me. My little guy has had dry diapers in the morning for months now and has been wanting to sit on our potty, so we went out and got him a little potty, and brought it home, and boom, he sat on it and peed. So I put him in gerber training underwear and we’ve been working on it since then. First and second days were great, third and fourth were not so great (lots of accidents and I was feeling like he was pushing back), today is going good so far. I didn’t start with treats, but instituted stickers yesterday for pee-pees and showed him there are candies for poops if he goes poop on the potty. I’m wondering how long it will be before he stops having accidents and whether I should put a pause on our efforts because of a trip we have coming up. Not sure what to do about trips and traveling. Diapers would be so much easier, but I don’t want to confuse him or lose any progress we have made.
It took a few weeks for R to stop having a daily accident, and it took a couple of months before he completely stopped having accidents. To be honest, he had a monthly accident for several months before he was completely trained around 2. I didn’t mind because I saved loads on diapers. Good luck!
Its nice post to all parents to understand potty training process for their 20 months old baby .sometimes its very difficult to handle kids without proper training it will be very helpful to all of them
I have a son, titus, who just turned 2. I began potty training him at 18 months. he was doing great until just recently. I hear about regression… but I don’t know if titus is regressing as he will tell me outside of the house when he needs to go. he goes to the restroom all by himself without aid when I’m at my moms, sisters, or even friends house. In the past 6 days, he only refuses to go potty in our house. poo or pee. I keep reminding him and ask him if he needs to go but he just says no and continues on with his activities. But then if we go to the park or someplace else… he will let me know he needs to go without accidents. I can’t just stay away from my home all the time. What should I do, I’m nearly at a loss? I have tried to re-encourage him… I’ve even gone to disciplining him with a time out.
What is the consequence when he has an accident at home? he knows he will miss out on the fun when he’s out.
a time out from playing. He has an older brother who is 4yrs and they usually always play together. so if he does have an accident, i sit him on the couch while his brother continues to play. at the play station. I let him sit until he says, I pee pee. I say okay, then lets go pee pee in the potty. he pees in the potty… then can continue to play. this method worked prior… but now he just does his pee and still continues to wet himself no matter how many time outs we do.
phew… so nevermind! he has fully straightened himself out! Super excited! thank you soo much for your posts and experiences… 🙂
Hi, my daughter is 23 months old and she have been potty training for almost 1 month, she did great I think the 3 first weeks she rarely had accidents I think 3 and only pee, we went on a trip last week and out of nothing she stop telling me she has to go and today she had many accidents, I’m so frustrated right now is like being back in the beginning and worse, what should I do, help?
It’s normal to have setbacks. I finally realized that if I didn’t make a big deal out of it my son would correct himself and stop having accidents after a few days. In his case, he would have accidents under stress- for example traveling or having a new babysitter.
Hi I have a 19month old boy I have him the Elmo potty chair . He wants to go with me when I go to the potty I have his chair in front of me and I tell him to go potty but he won’t use it just wants to go with me but he takes his diapers off …my mother in law is down my throat she had my husband potty trained by this age ..ive tryied sitting him on his elmo but he just won’t pee or anything ..can anyone help me I want him to potty ..
Hi
I have a 22 month old girl baby. I just started her potty training few days back. I generally will take her to the potty when I feel like she has to go, since she is not telling me when she wants to go. She will sit in her potty chair for 10 or 15 mins, just scribbling on some papers with crayons or doing some activities, but she wont pee or poo. Once I put her underwear back and bring her out of bathroom she will sit in the carpet or bed and pee. Please let me know whether I can continue her training or do I need to stop for few days.
Gah! I’m not sure what to tell you and I’m sorry for my late reply. What did you decide to do? I probably would keep it up but maybe try doing naked bottom for a day or two – catch her mid act and race her to the potty. Offer an incentive?
Oh! Also you can make one of her dolls “pee” on the potty using a medicine dropper or small cup. Maybe that will help it connect for her. Until now she’s been used to peeing against fabric/diaper so it is a new sensation for them.
Hi
I have a 23 month old baby boy. I just started potty training today! And he did really good of corse we had some accidents. The problem I’m having is that he wont get through using the potty before he gets up. He would use the potty and I would have him sit a few more minutes to make sure he was done but he was not. I have toys and books to keep him occupied, but he would never get done using the potty. Please let me know if you have any ideas on how to get him to finish!!
How’s it going? Sorry I just saw this comment.
To get him to stay, how about a timer? I remember with my son saying “do ALL the peepee. get it allll out” once he learned the basic skills. Good luck!
Thank you for this! I have landed on this page several times in the last month. My daughter started showing signs at 18 months. I tried to train her at 18.5 months but didn’t have success until 19 months exactly. We are 2 weeks in and she goes some day with no accidents and some days with 2 tees. I’m glad to hear words of encouragement and to see accident free can take up to 6 weeks.
I love your post!! Very helpful! I am curious, how long did it take your son to poo on the toilet? My son is 20 months and after 5 days of training he is comfortable with peeing but will not sit long enough to poo.
Try giving special books or a tablet on the toilet so he stays longer. Unfortunately I can’t remember how long it took him!
Thanks for your helpful post. I’m training my 20 mo son and I’m gonna try this!
Wow. Loved reading this. My daughter is 22 months and we’ve been training for about 2 weeks now. Ive had lots of people telling me shes too young and she wont get it, but i know shes ready. Just wanted to ask a quick few questions. Shes doing well, we use potty and toilet. Some days shes fab and tells me everytime weewee and will go on the potty even if shes told me too late, she will still sit on it. However sometimes she doesnt tell me even after she has wee’d and its like she doesnt care she is wet (tried with her wearing just pants and with nothing on..same result) and these are usually on the days she has refused to sit on the potty when ive asked, Any tips? Also is it normal for them not to get the no.2s as well? So far we’ve only managed one on the potty in 2 weeks. Thanks again felt good to read ur post and others comments.
I’m sorry for my delayed reply. I think it’s all normal and I have found that before age 2, for me at least, it’s been more about them practicing holding it and knowing how to release then it is them initiating.
Help! How did you get R to tell you they had to go pee/poop? My 20 month old has been potty training for almost a week. She has success when sat on the potty (mostly at home, not so much at daycare) but is not making the connection that she has to go and doesnt tell us. Therefore if she isnt going on command, she’s having an accident. Any suggestions? Or is it too early to tell? Thank you!
Hope you can help! My daughter almost 22 months has been in underwear since 19 months (only for daytime, pull-ups for bed). This past week she had a fever and she complained when she had to go potty. I thought maybe she had a uti, I brought her in and they needed a urine sample. I used her potty but she refused to go in the cup. We finally got enough to test, it cam back fine. Now the last two days she has done nothing but pee on herself. Any advice would be great! She was at the point where she did not need reminders she would tell me when she had to go or she would go directly to the bathroom. Thank you!