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Potty training can be a very stressful time for parents and children. These are the reasons why we potty trained slowly.

My daughter is extremely easy-going, intelligent and she started to ask for the potty before she turned 2. We didn’t totally ditch daytime diapers until 3 months before her 3rd birthday. She could have been fully potty trained around 2 years old, I have no doubts about it at all, but instead we potty trained slowly. These are our reasons why.

She’s Happy

She has always viewed the potty in a positive manner and we didn’t experience any regression in her willingness to use the potty over the course of training. We didn’t bribe her to ask us when she had to go nor reward her when she did go. She proudly announces when it’s time and we go without any theatrics.

Limited Accidents

Over the course of about 8 months that we used a mix of pull-ups and big girl underwear, we only had 2 accidents. Both accidents were pee and not the other unfriendly movement. She was devastated both times and not because we got mad at her but rather because she didn’t like the feeling of having peed herself. We were very encouraging and told her that it was okay.

We do still keep her in pull-ups at night and for naps. She does not have bladder control when she naps and this can be challenging in 3-year-old preschool. She has had 2 accidents in her sleep during school. There is not much we can do about that but to have a spare change of clothes in the classroom. I do not see the need to rush to be without diapers at night.

No Stress

Potty training really seemed to be a pain in the butt and not something I was looking forward to at all. Not pushing really kept the stress at bay for us and it ended up being a very low-stress experience. If only I could figure out how to apply this method to her thumb sucking!

No Time

This is probably pretty obvious for a lot of working moms out there. I am sure many of you can relate. I am not with my daughter around the clock and thus having a consistent method for using the potty was not enforced the same at every place she visited. Given that, it made the decision not to rush potty training very obvious for us.

Being at Peace with Parenting Decisions

To every parent out there that feels the pressure to do things on someone else’s timeline. STOP. This is your child! You make the rules and you decide what works best for your family. We have crazy, busy and chaotic lives, sometimes you have to choose your battles. Meltdowns over the potty was not a battle I wanted to have, so we didn’t.

Do you know what the end result was? She willingly used the potty without being pushed. I know we could have ditched daytime diapers sooner than we did but why rush? It just didn’t seem like something that important to stress about.

Resources

Becky Mansfield’s book Potty Train in a Weekend (affiliate link) provided many useful tips that I used during our transition. If you want to take the process fast or slow, this book is a good resource to keep on hand.

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Need advice on how to potty train a toddler? I'm discussing the reasons why we chose to potty train slowly instead of pressuring our daughter to potty train in a weekend. Potty train your girl or boy in a non-stressful environment too!

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5 Comments

  1. We actually took a slow and steady route too, but we started super young (at one!) based on this pretty awesome potty training book I read. This resulted in my youngest being trained at 2, totally on her own speed though and no fussing or fighting. I now realize that we only have a small say in the whole thing, no matter how we do it, and they certainly “train” when they are ready to do so! This was most evident when both of my girls stayed dry at night at about the same time (despite being almost 2 years apart in age!).

  2. I’ve been asked multiple times lately when we are planning on potty training our 18-month old son and I kind of can’t believe it. He’s only 18 months old! Everyone assumes because we have another on the way we want to rush our first into potty training and his big boy bed. Not the case now – and maybe our mind will change in a couple months. But at this point, I want to keep life peaceful. Like you wrote in the post, we’re at peace with our parenting decision and taking it slowly vs. rushing and stressing is what we’ve decided is best for us. Great post and thanks for sharing!

  3. This is such great information. My daughter will be 3 on the 17th of this month and we are still working on potty training with her as she is just a little stubborn. Hopefully with this information I will be able to get her potty trained soon.

  4. I love this article. We are “currently” potty training, and by this I mean for the last year. We like to take it slow at her pace. This keeps everyone happy through out the process. I love the part where you talk about being at peace with your parenting decisions. I think a lot of people like to compare (especially potty training success) and it makes parents feel guilty or pressured to get our child potty trained faster!