How to potty train your toddler?

When should one start?

Every parent knows their child best. Every parent follows different approaches, and therefore it can start at different ages for every child, but the key is to follow your child and look for signs of readiness. All children achieve milestones at a different pace. Therefore, when your child can follow simple instructions and use few words, shows signs of having the urge to ‘go’ such as holding their diaper, or clutching at their crotch, would be a good time to start.

Having said that, it is a bad idea to try and start toilet training when the child is experiencing big changes or adjustments. Shifting house, birth of a sibling, illness, trips and vacations, sudden absence of a parent, could all be too stressful for a child and could become an obstacle in toilet training, leading you both to frustration. Instead, let that adjusting period pass and then begin.

Few Tips & Tricks:

• Use words associated with using the toilet long before you begin, so that you build your child’s vocabulary to be well equipped.
• Calmly & repeatedly tell your child to tell you when they need to use a toilet.
• Study the signs that tell you that your child is about to pee or poop.
• Buy a small attractive potty chair, or the baby toilet seat to fit on a regular toilet, and discuss it with your child.
• Let your child see an older child using the toilet.
• Never force a child to sit on it until they show ready willingness. Anything new can frighten children.
• Make sure the baby wears something that makes using a toilet easy. A diaper will send the message that you expect no cooperation from them. However, some Padded Underwear would work great as children can pull them down themselves!

What is Padded Underwear?

Padded Underwear or Potty-training pants are underwear/pull up pants with heavy padding so that it absorbs pee and the accidental pee does not drip down and cause bed wetting or puddles of pee.

Padded Underwear also have a non dry feel unlike diapers so that the baby/toddler understands wetness. Since the baby will feel wetness in these, they will complain and ask the caregiver to change these instantly. This will also reinforce the concept of not peeing in the pants.

They are meant to be worn in the transition between wearing diapers but before they are ready to wear regular Padded Underwear. Padded Underwear/Training pants are usually reusable and made of comfortable materials such as cotton.

How and when to use Padded Underwear?

Padded underwear comes in a pull-up pant style cotton training pants by SuperBottoms with gentle elastics, partial waterproofing and thick cotton padding.

If you are planning to potty train your baby or if your baby is showing signs of potty training, you can use Padded Underwear at home and SuperBottoms UNO when out and about. This is a great idea if your little one uses the toilet occasionally but is not a pro yet!

Then there are those toddlers who are ‘pros’ at keeping dry, yet the mamma prefers to be completely and safely prepared for a miss, so she leaves nothing to chance, and keeps her toddler in the Padded underwear all the time, until both she, and the toddler are fully prepared to say goodbye to babywear and pull up those big boy pants!

Some parents feel that the padding in a training pant would make a baby feel that it’s just a diaper, and would wet it. However, that’s not true. The padding, while it has several layers to soak wetness, has no dry-feel. This means the baby would feel wet and uncomfortable after peeing, and this would cause the child to learn what it takes to stay dry next time!

Even if a child has been out of diapers, some parents prefer Padded Underwear to avoid any accidental leaks especially at night.

Here’s wishing your toddler & you good luck as you hop on the toilet-training train just like Bummy!