Three Key Factors for Short & Successful Training
Have a clear, confident and encouraging attitude. Be gently assertive, using phrases like, “It’s time to go to the toilet now.” During toilet training, never ask a child, “Do you want to go to the toilet?” as it invites a refusal and then a power struggle is more likely.
Keep your tone, facial expression and body language neutral when your child has an accident. Be positive and enthusiastic when they have a success.
Ditch the nappy. Use training pants so your toddler will feel the wetness and be uncomfortable.
This is essential to learning the ‘cause and effect’ relationship between their bodily sensations of weeing or pooping and then the wetness, stickiness, smelliness of what they have done.
The arguments around when to toilet train are abound. American pediatrician Dr. Alla Gordina argues infants are anatomically and physiologically ready to begin toilet training at the time they start crawling, and are ready to be successfully trained by the time they are steadily walking.
If you choose to train your child at this early stage, the goal is to show the child where to do their business. With early toilet training you are not trying to achieve total continence all at once; just getting the pee and poop in the right place most of the time is great. The good thing about early training is that infants and young toddlers want to please you and do not mind trying new things. If your child resists sitting on the toilet - don't fight, don't push; just try again in a few weeks.
The age that children are toilet trained has changed a lot over the years. Today, 51 percent of toddlers are completely day-time toilet trained at 36 months of age compared with the 1970s when over 90% of toddlers were completely trained. Children are achieving urinary and bowel control on average one year later than any previous generation.
What’s causing this delay you may ask? According to a recent study at the University of New South Wales, prolonged incontinence in children is linked to affluence and the ready availability of disposable nappies, particularly the newer versions of pull-up nappies which encourage young children to urinate and defecate in their pants. General practitioner and author Dr. Sarah Buckley refers to pull-up incontinence underpants as “anti-training pants”, because they play a role in prolonging incontinence rather than the reverse.
It is important that Toilet Training is pleasant for the child and that means that you have to be calm and encouraging. You need to have a plan, collect your supplies and be confident before you start.
Establishing Healthy Habits
Food, fluid and fun! One of the most important things to remember when you start toilet training is good daily water intake. This will produce good amounts of wee and their poo will be soft so they are less likely to become constipated. Constipation not only affects the passing of poo but can lead to tummy discomfort and loss of appetite.
Writing a Plan & Setting Goals
The purpose of the plan is to make sure that everyone involved in helping your child with developing toilet skills has a consistent approach. To help your child learn new skills you need to be clear as to what you want your child to be able to do. Learn how to set the right goals and when to reward.
Developing Skills Needed
A child needs to have a number of skills before they can use the toilet on their own - it’s not just about being able to do wee or poo in the right place.
Explore these facts and much much more
in this kid friendly 24 page book, One Step at a Time:
written by Lisa Wragg of Victorian Continence Resource Centre
Click HereBedwetting is also known as Nocturnal Enuresis and occurs when a sleeping child cannot retain urine at night, becoming ‘watertight’ at night time is a normal part of a child’s development. Nocturnal enuresis is not related to being dry during the day as a child may wet the bed for a long time after being toilet trained.
Here are the facts: 30 percent of four year olds wet the bed, and by age six about 10 percent are bedwetting. By age 11 there are still five percent, or one in 20, children who are bedwetting. In other words, the vast majority of children will just grow out of bedwetting if you do nothing. In the meantime, though, bedwetting can cause embarrassment and social problems.
My advice, then, is that if your six year old is still bedwetting it is time to engage in some strategies to help your child achieve nighttime dryness while maintaining a calm and positive attitude to your child and their desire to be dry at night. You may want to consult a doctor to rule out medical causes like neurological conditions (rare) or bladder infections (not so rare).
The main known cause is hereditary: 75 percent of children who are bedwetters have a parent or sibling who is or was a bedwetter.
Compared with children who have achieved night-time dryness, bedwetters are more likely to:
Have a smaller bladder capacity
Sleep deeply so don’t wake up when the bladder is full
Produce more urine at night (due to not concentrating urine as well).
Child may not tell you how they feel, but here are some things that kid say about their bedwetting:
"I get really angry with myself."
"I feel like a baby."
"I can't stay over at friends' houses."
“I can’t invite anyone to stay over at my house”
"I can’t go on school camps."
There are plenty of things you can try which will support your child as they grow out of bed wetting.
Develop a plan with you child about how to cope. Discuss what strategies you’ll both use.
Have a clear aim of no wet beds. That may mean going all night without weeing or your child waking up when their bladder is full so that they can go to the toilet.
Avoid giving fizzy or caffeinated drinks, particularly after 4pm, but do not restrict fluids (it does not work and it feels controlling).
Avoid constipation by increasing fruits, vegetables, whole grains and cereals in their diet.
Try a night-light and make sure your child can get to the toilet easily and safely alone.
Do not wake your child up to take them to the toilet. This will further reduce bladder capacity and can delay natural continence.
Avoid disposable nappies or pull-ups as they prevent your child from feeling wet when they start to wee; thus actually prolonging nighttime bedwetting.
Have a minimum of two Conni Kids bed wetting pads and keep them in your child’s bedroom where they can reach them. (It is important that the child feels wet and will wake up naturally; thus learning the association between a full bladder and bedwetting).
If your child is sometimes dry at night a motivational star chart (like the one that comes with our Conni Kids bed pad) may be just the extra incentive your child needs to achieve night time dryness. (Avoid using a star chart, however, if your child has never had a dry night as this is not under their control and failing to win the stars and rewards may actually make things worse for your child emotionally).
Allow your child to go to bed in a pajama top and snug fitting undies on the bottom only; that makes it easy for your child to change their own pants. If your child is a boy get them to point their penis down inside their pants to help prevent wetting the upper bed linen.
Encourage your child to change their own Conni bed pad and wet pants.
Ensure your child has a shower or bath before they go to school to avoid your child smelling of urine and being bullied and/or embarrassed.
If you have concerns or just want to make sure your child has no underlying health conditions, particularly if they’re older than six, then it’s a good idea to see your family doctor. The doctor can rule out medical problems and may prescribe further treatment.
Bedwetting is not a problem to your child other than its impact on self-esteem but if the child is wetting the bed after the age of 6 or 7, starts to have a wet bed after a period of being dry at night, or bed wetting occurs with painful bladder, excessive thirst, pink urine or snoring, see a health care professional.
The way you speak to your child about bedwetting can have a huge impact on their emotional health. Kids who are bedwetters can have decreased self-esteem and therefore it is important to maintain a positive and encouraging attitude, continue to treat the child with kindness and patience.
The way you speak to your child about bedwetting can have a huge impact on their emotional health.
Kids who are bedwetters can have decreased self-esteem and therefore it is important to maintain a positive and encouraging attitude, continue to treat the child with kindness and patience.
Tell them it is not their fault and that they will grow out of it. Be positive and calm.
Explain that they’re not alone, according to the statistics. Say something like, “In your Grade One class there are two other children who are bedwetting.”
Talk to your child about your own (or your partner’s) experiences of bedwetting and the age at which you achieved nighttime dryness.
Encourage your child to drink six glasses of water or other fluids during the day.
Discourage your child from going to the toilet 'just in case' (it reduces bladder capacity).
Tell your child that delaying bladder emptying by a few minutes during the day (when they are at home and able to go to the toilet when needed) might be worth a try as this will help enlarge their bladder and improve bladder capacity.
Tell your child not to rush to the toilet: go calmly to the toilet.
Tell your child to take their time each time they go to the toilet so that their bladder can fully empty.
Ask your child’s permission to tell selected adults, like parents of friends, who may be able to assist your child if they want a sleep over.
Disposable nappies represent about four percent of all solid waste sent to landfill. In a house with a child in nappies, disposables make up about 40 percent of household waste. No one knows how long it takes for a disposable nappy to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years.
How to Toilet Train your child
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