I have three boys, each of them two years apart. My oldest was born in April. He potty trained the summer after his second birthday. Our second was more headstrong and waited until the summer after his third birthday. But they both learned the same way.
In the summertime, when it was warm outside and the forecast called for clear skies, we set aside one week to play outside in our fenced in back yard. We let the child that was potty training run around and play without his diaper or any training pants. When he would start to pee, he would naturally look down and watch. Sometimes it would run down his leg and he didn’t like that, so we would show him the little potty. We would talk to him about it and try to get him to understand and relate how he was feeling to needing to use the potty. Seeing himself go was very effective in teaching. The first day we weren’t worried about whether or not he made it to the potty. It was about teaching him what his body does.
After the first day, we would introduce the potty. We would put it outside with him and let him know that that was where he could go if he felt like he had to go. If he would start to go we would rush him to the potty and cheer him on each time he made it. Praise was very important. Usually be the end of the first day, he had succeeded in going on the potty several times.
Each day we did this. Our first son wanted to sit on the potty. Our second wanted to stand. Each time they went, we would cheer and praise them for being a big boy.
Towards the end of the week, once they had learned to go to the potty, we awarded them with their “big boy” underwear, with their favorite cartoon character or superhero on them. Then we took the next couple of days outside in their underwear. We explained to them that now that they knew how to use the potty, they needed to remember to take off their underwear first when they felt like they had to go. At that point, we let them rely on how they were feeling instead of having the visual there to remind them. Neither child had many accidents, only a few the first day, and maybe one the second day. After that, they knew what to do!
With both of our older boys, this method worked in one week. It was not a stressful process for us or for them. There were no accidents to clean up. Our youngest is now fifteen months old. When he turns two, we will be spending another week outside in the backyard teaching him to go potty.
