I’ve found the magic solution to toilet training

‘Toilet’ and ‘training’ are two words that strike fear into most parents’ hearts. Luckily I have the magic solution, although it has taken me three children to discover it.

 

The secret? Wait until they are three! Allow me to explain…

 

The eldest was just shy of two-and-a-half-years-old when I trained her. I was in full crèche mode, I stayed calm when she had accidents and I had loads of clothes with me every time I went downstairs, never mind when I left the house. I prepared her with lots of reading materials about learning to use the toilet. I trained her straight on to the toilet because that was most efficient. It took a LOT of patience and a good six weeks before she was comfortably telling me she needed to go. I considered it a success.

 

My son was a couple of months shy of his third birthday when we tackled toilet training. After a lot of accidents and copious hissy fits (mostly mine), an investment in a potty, the fear that we would never be able to leave the house again and on the verge of giving up altogether, it finally clicked just after his third birthday.

 

So my baby turned three at the end of April and was quite happily pottering around in her nappy, while I was also quite happy to maintain that status quo. Although the calendar said she was three, my heart knew she was just a baby.

 

It started getting uncomfortable though and she was showing a very keen interest in using the toilet, which I was studiously trying to ignore. Then one bright May day on the way home from the school run, she squatted (fully clad and safely in a nappy) in the middle of the lane because she was ‘doing a wee’.  I really could not put it off any longer.

 

So the June Bank Holiday weekend, we started what I expected to be the long arduous ordeal of toilet training. However, due to the fact that she was well past her third birthday, it was in fact an absolute doddle!

 

There was one day of accidents; by the end of the first week she was down to an accident a day. We hit a speed bump the next day where she had accidents all day, then she didn’t have another one until the following Saturday, when a day in Granny’s meant she was too distracted (and well- watered) to avoid it. In just over two weeks she was pretty much trained bar the occasional accident usually mid temper tantrum!

 

In fact as I write this she has had two dry nights to boot. Now I am not so naïve as to believe that that is that; however the absence of the expected stress and keeping cool has meant that I can tolerate the occasional accident without temper or blame!

Aisling Lyons, is a mum-of-three from Co. Wicklow, with over 20 years experience in the childcare sector. She runs the lovely blog, Babysteps, where she aims to help parents struggling with the little and large problems that parenting young children can bring.