An Adeona Family Podcast: An Early Childhood Journey
Episode 04: Everything You Need To Know About Toilet Learning
When is the right time to start toilet learning? What are the main things you should be looking out for? What signs might your child be giving to let you know they’re ready? And how should we deal with accidents or setbacks?
There are 3 main things we should look out for before we consider beginning the toilet learning process:
- Bladder capacity and muscle control
- Cognitively children need to know when they need to go and what they need to do when they get to the bathroom
- Emotionally children need to be ready to let go of nappies
If they’re able to have dry nappies for 2-3 hours at a time or wake up from a nap with a dry nappy – it shows they have some level of control or the bladder capacity to be able to hold for a prolonged period of time.
Likewise, your child showing an increased awareness of bodily functions might be communicating that they’re ready to begin toilet learning—they might say to you that they’re weeing or tell you when they have finished going to the toilet.
Another key way of identifying that your child might be ready to begin toilet learning is a dislike of the sensation of staying in wet or soiled clothing or nappies. They might also express a desire to sit on the potty or to wear underwear, which they might not be ready for, but there’s no harm in letting them explore that.
As parents, we are keen to get them to move onto the next step and out of nappies, but we need to be patient and wait for them to indicate their desire and willingness to participate in the process.
Resources Mentioned
- 3 Reasons Kids Don’t need Toilet Training and What to Do Instead by Janet Lansbury
- Regarding Baby – Toilet Learning Made Easy by Lisa Sunbury
- It’s No Accident: Breakthrough Solutions to Your Child’s Wetting, Constipation, UTIs, and Other Potty Problems
Thank You
We’d love to hear from you! If you have any feedback, suggestions or questions about anything we discussed today, please feel free to reach out – tracy@adeona.com.au.
Our early childhood education centres:
Coorparoo | Mitchelton | Noosaville | Mackay