Okay, to be honest with you, I never blogged this topic because to me a lot of baby/toddler/kid topics, I just generally don’t like talking about unless I’m in a one on one conversation with someone or am specifically being asked. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it till the end of time, the thing that really gets on my nerves about motherhood is the comparison factor of it all, and I don’t like to feel like I’m contributing to that by “boasting” about my own child’s milestones. So before we get started, I am not writing this to boast or brag by any means and just want it to be understood that I fully believe children will reach milestones when they are ready, on their own. I don’t think “milestones” actually exist and I don’t believe in the idea that there are things to be pushed or forced at all when it comes to raising children.

That being said, we started potty training a little before Avery turned 2. We didn’t take it too seriously, just switched her to pull ups because she naturally started telling us that she needed to go potty. We didn’t bring it up at all with her, hell I hadn’t even read a potty training book yet. But one of the main takeaways that has really stuck with me from all the pre-baby reading, was to lean in to whatever your child is telling you and to follow their instinct, so because she was naturally telling us herself, I thought we better follow her lead and just go with it. We bought a training toilet and started taking it everywhere with us, and sure enough Avery got better and better with it. She’d have accidents where she wouldn’t tell us on long drives and things like that so we always kept a pull up on her for car rides, but at home, we started to do the bare butt method and Avery took to it really quickly. I honestly believe we were just really, really lucky because a lot of horror stories I’ve read and seen online with accidents non-stop on the floor or wetting underwear constantly, just never happened with us.

I ordered this book but honestly still haven’t finished it because Avery basically beat me to it and it felt pointless to read a book for tips when my kid was already wayy ahead of what the book was teaching me.

Avery was 98% potty trained by 2 1/2 (if I’m remembering correctly, we’re a little out of it now lol) and the only 2% left was overnight. We kept her in a nighttime diaper for overnight because she wasn’t waking up dry. I’d say like July of 2023 we were 100% potty trained and Avery has stopped wearing anything other than big girl underwear prior to her 3rd birthday. Which also means baby brother is going to finish off some pretty cute Frozen/Elsa pull-ups when his turn comes LOL.

If you’re looking for tips, I honestly don’t have much (wish Avery could give you some) but here are some things I’d implore you to try!

+ Have patience, don’t push your kid. The last thing you want to do is push them when they aren’t ready and then have them take even longer to potty train (or do anything for that matter) because they’re resentful or just not excited about it.

+ Make it exciting!! Throw a dance party and cheer each and every time your little one uses the toilet (to be honest, we still do this and Avery hasn’t been bored by it yet lol).

+ Let your little one pick out their own big kid underwear! Avery loved picking her own princess ones and whenever we’d put them on, I’d just always remind her, you don’t want to go potty on the princesses, we have to use the toilet!

+ Make sure you’re ready to fully commit and bring the toilet with you everywhere! If you’ve got a busy schedule or find that you’re traveling with your little one quite a bit, maybe hold off until things slow down and you can focus more on potty training rather than events you’ve got going on. We bought this little toilet that was super easy to throw in the back of the car!

+ Don’t panic or freak out if they do have an accident, they’re learning and are bound to have hiccups here and there. Keep in mind that their attention spans are small and they might completely forget to feel the potty queue, especially if they’re distracted or doing a fun activity.

+ If your kid is in preschool or a day time program, or being babysat by family, make sure that those spending that time with your kid know that you’re potty training so that they can also support your efforts!

That’s about all I’ve got. I’ve heard that girls take quicker to potty training than boys, so I’m not expecting my next go around with potty training to be as smooth come baby boy, but I’ll keep ya’ll posted on all that!