When to start potty training?

And so, it has been 3 weeks since Emma started using her potty daily. While we thought it was the good work of her school teachers, it turned out that they aren't starting it in school until mid year.

Hubby and I believe it's better to start potty training when Emma's ready so it was really the last things on our mind. And true enough, she caught us by surprise and initiated potty training. She's just ready after seeing her older peers going toilet. At 2 years 4 months, she's now able to go diaperless for a couple of hours before bed and pee when she wakes up. How awesome is that?

While some children started training between 18 - 24 months, there isn't any magic number as to when to start the training. From what I've experienced and read, it's probably best to wait till the child shows sign of readiness to avoid unnecessary frustration and stress. So, what are some signs for readiness?

1. Increased independence

It would be just the right time to start when the child is getting more independent. By then, she should be able to walk and run, able to sit down quietly, able to take off her diapers and pull her pants up/down. There won't be any difficulties for her to hit the potty.

2. Interested in others' bathroom habits

Children are curious and they learn lots by observation. So, when your child start to show interest in others' bathroom habits, it is easy to introduce the idea of going toilet. Emma loves to check us out when we are in the toilets and her teacher guessed that Emma learnt to go toilet from her classmate.

3. Tell or show signs of going to pee or poo

As children tell signs of going to pee or poo, they figure out how their body works and understand the feeling of doing their business. Emma started to tell us that she pee or poo many months ago and she slowly learnt how to control her bladder.

4. Improved understanding & communication skills

When the children begin to follow simple instructions and understand words for urine/pee or bowel/poo, they are about ready to react better to the urges and tell herself to control her bladder. She understands what she is going through and tell us that she doesn't like to pee in her diapers.

5. Reduced frequency of urination. 

As the children get older, they are able to keep their diapers dry for a longer period of time. It shows that they are having better control over their bladder. For Emma, the only issue that bothers us a little was overflowing diapers so we didn't observe much of the dry diapers. I tried different diapers brand and there's still overflow. She was probably urinating too much at one go - pee-ing less frequency but quite a fair bits each time.

Potty training is such an art that I just need to do more research and find tips on that!

Things are going fine but there's still a long way. We are facing some fussing in the car as she refused to pee in her diaper and just wanted her potty immediately!, she refused to poo in the potty, though she had did it once successfully and I can imagine the night training in time to come.

Meantime, we are taking this easy and indulging in all the victorious moment with lots of praise and cheers!

More soon!

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