Most day cares and preschools require you to have your kiddo completely potty trained before they will accept them into their program. So here's what we need do to - we need to work fast but not stressfully, to get your kiddos potty trained and ready for preschool. I'm here to help, let's get started!
If you have a question about potty training make sure to check all parts 1 thru 5. Very valuable information about beginning the processes of potty training your toddler all the way up thru getting them into day care and getting them qualified and enrolled and registered in their pre-school.
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Ok as a rule: its usually the school, preschool pre-K schools that require your kiddo to be somewhat potty trained and you just need to look on the website to see if they expect them to be partially potty trained, half way potty trained, or completely potty trained. The word completely probably means being able to take care of themself from the beginning to the end of the whole potty visit. Independently, without help, without assistance, maybe just with supervision. Going in there, getting up to the stool, unzipping or taking down their pants, turning around and sitting on the potty comfortably, independently by themselves, going potty, completely emptying their bladder or their bowels, cleaning up after themselves, wiping. Making sure that they get it all so that there’s no remnants in their underpants - no skid marks. I'm assuming these are cotton underpants because by the time your kiddo is in pre-K or preschool they're gonna require you to be out of diapers and pull-ups. So it's probably gonna be sending in your kiddo to school in cotton underpants.
So get started now Mama's so that you're not waiting until the last minute and then frantically, stressfully trying to potty train your kiddo in a crash course on a weekend and creating a lot of pressure and stress and anxiety for you and your little one. Give it time.
Every child is different. Every kiddo is different they learn at different stages and phases and ages. Thats a tongue twister! (ha ha!) Just like learning how to talk or walk or crawl: every baby’s different. Every baby has their own level of development in different stages, at different times in their life and their milestones. Only you know your kiddo the way you know your kiddo, so if your kiddo is a little slow on the uptake if your kiddo is a little slow to pick up on things or try new things or learn things, maybe they have some delays, maybe they're nonverbal? Then start working a little bit earlier. Give it plenty of time.
If you know that you're gonna be sending your kiddo to preschool or pre-K make sure you start way advance so that you have plenty of time and you're not stressing and rushing and pressuring that child to learn a life skill that's going to be very important for them for the rest of their life. You don't want to create that stress and anxiety and it's going to create these negative associations for your child and the whole potty training process and it's going to create hang-ups. It could possibly lead to things like withholding their urine flow, holding their pee all day long until nighttime when everyone's asleep and they have a diaper on or a pull-up. Or possibly something more serious like anal retention. These things cause medical issues and physical ailments like constipation and backing up and clogging their digestive system and not to mention the emotional, psychological part that goes with that too. Take a minute to go back to my video series part 2 where I talk a lot about anal retention and withholding and the issues and the psychological problems that can cause.
I cant tell you how many toddlers I've worked with through the years and I've spent the entire summer with them working on potty training with them and getting that potty training skill down and creating potty training champions and they're completely potty trained by the time they start preschool and then after 4 days of preschool they come back completely regressed! Potty training regression: completely going backwards, completely stopping and unlearning everything that I worked on with them all summer. Because of some new routine or ritual at their new school. Or a teacher that's not maybe as friendly or as soft hearted as you are.
Or maybe they're intimidated by the other kids and their peers and their classmates. Maybe they're shy or embarrassed to be going to the potty in front of other people. Privacy issues. That could be a big thing that you work on at home. If there are siblings or mommies and daddies around that you can maybe practice the privacy, non privacy concept with your child and not to be too completely afraid or dependent upon privacy to be able to have something come out. Yes as grown ups we appreciate privacy and demand it - but for a toddler who's gonna be at a preschool or daycare they might not have that luxury. They might not allow that option. They might have an open room or an open restroom area that's visible to the teachers, so that they can keep an eye on them. Or so that other peers are coming and going freely to go to the potty when they want to go potty. So privacy issues and being able to relax and open their flow and go potty and have a potty success without all the doors locked and the windows closed: "Don't look at me, don't look at me! Close your eyes!” You know that might be something you want to think about. Again that might be something completely individual to your specific preschool so you might want to talk to your teachers and your helpers there and see what their rules are for that.
So your kiddo might come home from pre-school one day and be completely untrained and start saying "No mommy I don't use this potty anymore” or "I don't like going potty at home.” Or maybe they haven't been going potty at school and have started having accidents in their pants. And these are things you're gonna get notes from the teachers and the helpers because they definitely keep track of potty successes and they keep track of patty accidents and if there are too many accidents at school, it's going to put your kiddo's name on a list of: "okay we've got to work on it with this kiddo, we need to send a note home with a this kiddo to mommy and talk to mommy about working on some things at home.” And at that point that might be your opportunity to talk to one of the teachers or helpers and ask them what their rules are and what their routines are and how they go about their pottying and toileting at school.
Another thing to think about is the toilets at your kiddo's preschool. They might be different from the toilet your little one has been using at home during their potty training process. Most kiddos are learning at home on a small toddler potty, which I personally hugely, highly recommend. Thats like the only way to go for me because I think a kiddo needs a toilet down on their level, on the ground easy access. They can easily turn and get on it and sit, turn around and sit down, they're not afraid. They're not up on this high toilet throne adult grown up toilet trying to climb up there and turning around with their wobbly little arms and their tiny little toddler legs, trying to balance on this big toilet with their legs all spread out and their hiney parts all open and exposed.
So for me personally starting a toddler out on their potty training adventure, I always prefer a small toddler potty on the floor. But of course we do need to eventually teach our toddlers to be comfortable using a big potty, an adult grown up toilet. Which means getting one of those potty toilet inserts that I talk about in Part 3, my video part 3. If you wanna revisit that. Let your kiddo pick it out. They have cartoon characters and little super heroes on them and it's part of the process of helping your kiddo be comfortable and happy about sitting on the big potty and familiar and comfortable. Letting them choose that toilet seat character or cartoon face that they like and just taking away some of the intimidation and fear that might happen when they're trying to climb up on the big gigantic adult toilet. I've actually heard a lot of feedback from my mommy clients and my potty training consulting mommy clients that their kiddos have been sent off to school, preschool and they don’t have the small potties there. They don’t have the small low to the ground children's potties, which actually breaks my heart. This actually kind of surprises me because I've even been to just elementary schools like kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade and I've had to use the toilets in there and the toilets are like this far off the floor. They have the small child level toilets down low on the ground. So why they wouldn't have this at a daycare or a preschool I'm not sure. But I've heard a lot of mommy say that the kiddos will not use the potty at school because it's a big gigantic adult toilet. Even though they might have little step stools available for the toddlers to climb up and turn around and go potty and sit or stand to go pee pee-pee or poo-poo, if your child is not familiar with what its like to sit on a big adult toilet, then they're going to be intimidated and they're going to hold it. They're going to hold it all day long while they're at school and they're not going to want to use the potty at school at all. And your teacher's gonna fill out the report and say: "Zero potties today. Held it all day. Withholding" you know "Didn't pee, didn’t poop, no BM's no pee-pees. That's where you will learn, from your school’s communication and the notes that they fill out hopefully - whether or not your child is using the bathroom successfully at school. And if they're completely emptying their bladder or if they're just going a "little bit" just to do their job and get their little star by their name or get that checked off their list for the day. "Okay I went pee-pee. I'm done! Don't make me go any more. Please, I'm done I don't want to go on there anymore!” You want to make sure your kiddo is emptying their bladder completely, voiding completely, so that they're not gonna come home with urinary tract infections and kidney problems and bladder problems.
Same with holding their poo-poos. Many kiddos are not comfortable going number 2 in front of anyone, not even Mommy! Not even you right? Have you had experience with this? I know I have. A lot of toddlers just don't like letting their poo out. Again that negative association with the smell or maybe they've been told that they're stinky or yucky poo-poo yucky gross ew. We need to be very careful not to to say: Yuck, Pee-yo oh gosh, gross uh ugh ew.. I can't do this! You do it!” If a toddler has learned at home that going poo-poo is gross and dirty and stinky and yucky then what's it gonna be like when they go to school to try to impress their new teachers? Or their new classmates and their peers and their friends? They're gonna be embarrassed or shy or scared that their friend is gonna smell their poo or the teacher is gonna say that they're stinky and yucky and they're gonna hold it in. So these are all things that are very psychological that we need to work on with our toddlers while we're at home, in their safe space, in their controlled environment - so that they can learn at home from the very get go, from the very beginning, that going potty is natural, going potty is healthy, going potty is not a thing to be embarrassed about or shy or ashamed about. Yes privacy might become an issue or might be something that you want to work on and talk to your school teachers about. But for the most part we need to teach our kiddos to be completely comfortable eliminating and poop'n and peeing on other potties that aren't just at home.
One of the ways that you can work on this with your toddler is something that I actually have fun with when I'm in potty training mode with some toddlers and kiddos that I'm working with: is taking them to a public restroom once in a while. Whether it's your kiddo's favorite local library... most public libraries have a children’s section with all the children's books and stuffed animals and decorations on the walls and they usually have a bathroom there for your convenience. And I find that hanging out at the library with a kiddo and hanging out in the kid’s section and then eventually just going: “Okay it's time to go potty, that's what our watch says it’s time to go potty!” Let's go use the restroom.” Most kiddos enjoy those bathrooms because they're already in a fun, playful child friendly zone. But a lot of those libraries will have a small little kid potty lower to the ground. I'm not talking about a plastic toddler training toilet that you buy at the store. I'm talking about just a toilet - a commode, but it's closer to the floor and it's easier for them to get on and off. Even if it's not, you can bring your own potty toilet insert ring and have that handy and have some clorox wipes to clean that up when they're done. But have that in a tote bag with you and then when you go to the library: "Okay it's potty time, let’s sit on the potty. Let’s use our topper ring" or whatever. And then wash up let them use the soap, let them push the bubbles out and scrub-a-dub-dub and scratch their nails and get all the stuff out and wash their hands before they go back into the library and read some more cool kid books!
Or maybe you can take them to their favorite restaurant. Whether it's a burger joint or their favorite little hot dog place or whatever, a restaurant that they really enjoy their favorite french fries are their favorite chicken nuggets whatever. Take them to the restaurant order their favorite meal, bring your toilet ring insert and work on using that restroom there with them. And if they have a potty success for you in the restaurant maybe they earn a reward, maybe they earn a little dessert, a little free ice cream scoop or a little cherry on top whip cream, whatever they bring in for the dessert. Order him a cookie, order her a favorite little ice cream or a little treat or dessert. Let them earn a reward every time they go potty in that public restroom and eventually over time they will associate public restrooms and big adult toilets with rewards and positive associations. Creating positive associations with using public restrooms is gonna help your kiddo succeed at preschool and day care and using those potties there at school.
Okay Mamas, let's not wait until the last minute on this. Let's start working with your toddler on the potty training program at home, during the summer so that by the time fall rolls around, your kiddo will be completely potty trained and ready to take charge and go to school and be the coolest kid on campus and know everything they need to know about potty training and be completely potty trained per the guidelines of your school's rules. Schools rules!! If you have any questions please make sure to leave comments because I can answer your questions directly here on my website. if you found my video helpful at all today please take a moment to subscribe, this helps me to be able to continue to help other mommies like you who are in need of assistance with potty training their toddlers.
We're gonna get through this Mommy's - with a little bit of patience, some compassion and a lot of love. I'm Miss Jen, thanks for reading and good luck!
Please leave some comments down below. Don't forget to subscribe to my youtube, some thumbs up are always nice. I'll see you next time thanks!
Miss Jen
💗 Be sure to read Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the potty training series!
The links to Toddler Potty Training Videos parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are down below...
__________________________________________________ Toddler Potty Training Part 1: https://youtu.be/goaxRLXdM4w Toddler Potty Training Part 2: https://youtu.be/Fmh6iymN1Ao Toddler Potty Training Part 3: https://youtu.be/Ga7TKnFOoQA Toddler Potty Training Part 4: https://youtu.be/5I-PSudPWYg Toddler Potty Training Part 5: https://youtu.be/wZ2MUhp3M9k
Potty Train Your Toddler Before Preschool Part 1: https://youtu.be/2ZGyc-jQPyA Potty Train Your Toddler Before Preschool Part 2: https://youtu.be/J9q4P9UqIXw Miss Jen's Website: https://www.nannyknowledgemissjen.com
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Miss Jen's Favorite Potty Training products & recommendations:
Toddler Potty Training Toilets:
I’ve had experience working with Toddler Potty Training Toilets that cost $400+ (yes, that’s a thing!) and ones that are only $5 (the cheaper ones usually fall apart quickly). These are MY favorites and most reasonable in price. The kiddos love them - they are close to the ground, comfortable, sturdy and easy to get onto:
https://amzn.to/3wrYVUN
https://amzn.to/3kcp0Vk
https://amzn.to/3jXzwzR
Toddler Potty Training Potty Seat: https://amzn.to/3yDDbXO
Toddler Potty Seat: https://amzn.to/2TNoLoY
Potty Training Insert Seat: https://amzn.to/3dVDrJA
Toilet Seat with Built-in Potty Training Seat for Toddlers:
https://amzn.to/3AMwLax
Potty Training Timer Watch:
Blue: https://amzn.to/3hupSmt
Huggies Pull-ups:
Girls: https://amzn.to/2TXkb7N
Boys: https://amzn.to/3yHmvi0
Night Time Pull Ups - Goodnites:
For Girls: https://amzn.to/2TXlZO7
For Boys: https://amzn.to/3xDII0s
Toddler Underwear:
Girls: https://amzn.to/3xFyI6H
Boys: https://amzn.to/3kdipu6
Potty Step Stool For Kids:
Pink: https://amzn.to/3ks3rk6
Blue: https://amzn.to/36E1zwb
Urine stain remover & odor spray:
https://amzn.to/3BmEr3I
💜 For more information about newborns, babies, infant, toddlers: you might find my FUN educational youtube videos helpful: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyUZ0DQiBXWUvkOaKRtHFVA