Breastfeeding - Toilet Training

Here are a few things that I have gathered from talking to people and observing children, and also from hearing about my own childhood from my parents:

• Don't force your child to toilet train. She or he will let you know when she or he will ready.
• Don't use embarrassment as a toilet training method!
  • Suppose your child is wetting her or his bed.
  • There's a very easy solution: let him or her wear diapers. Then you can start thinking about the underlying cause of the problem. See for example if your child is looking for more attention from you.
  • However, if you've spent the last several months telling your child that only dumb people or babies who don't know anything... use diapers, then you can't very well ask your child to start wearing diapers again! Then the bedwetting problem will be a major cause of distress.
  • What have you gained by embarrassing your child out of diapers? Nothing!
• If your child is about to become a big sister or brother, delay toilet training!
  • Many children will regress when their younger sibling is born.
  • Some might start babbling again.
  • Some may want to start nursing again. Those who have been nursing only occasionally will probably want to nurse a lot more often at least at the beginning. The best strategy in both cases is to let them. Show them that you still care for them! You won't regret it. As an extra bonus, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that tandem-nursing children experience little or no sibling rivalry.
  • Some that have been toilet trained will start wetting and soiling themselves again.
  • It's not worth the trouble and embarrassment, is it? Just don't push your child too hard. Let her or him decide on the timing of weaning and toilet training.

It's interesting to note the similarities between good breastfeeding and toilet training methods. In both cases the trick is to be sensitive to be your child's needs and not worry so much about externally imposed schedules or rules.

Here is my son Jem's toilet training diary. You'll see that we're just letting him set his own schedule.

• At 25 months, he said "I peed in the potty at Irene's" (Irene is his daycare provider). He hadn't actually used the potty, but he had seen other kids use it.
• He likes reading the "potty book" that came with his potty. He sometimes sits on his potty for a few seconds in his clothes.
• At 2.5 years, he likes to sit on his potty in the nude before his bath. He likes to look at a copy of van Gogh's "starry night" while he sits there. He doesn't use the potty for its intended purpose.

Back to the breastfeeding main page

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