More On Potty Training

          A recent article in a pediatric journal caused me to want to expand my comments on potty training. Please refer back to my previous article.

      The first concern for parents is: “When should I start potty training?” Training is education and parents are the child’s primary teachers. You start teaching your child from the minute he is born. You start potty training as soon as the toddler starts using the words and connecting them to the action. You talk to him when you are changing his diaper: “You pooped”; “Mommies and Daddies poop in the toilet”. It is uncomfortable to sit around in your own stool and urine - if it was more convenient than toilets, we’d all wear diapers. The child is going to realize that fact someday and would start using toilets even if you never said a word to him about potties. You are simply helping him learn to use toilets a little sooner than Senior Prom. But, as I’ve said about breast-feeding and so many other parenting matters, don’t create a success/fail situation for yourself. Let it happen naturally. Most children learn to control their bladder and bowel by 3 years of age.

     Don’t push and pressure a child about potty training. Don’t force him to sit on the toilet if he is reluctant or afraid. He will watch you sitting on the toilet and naturally want to copy you. Let him. Pants on or pants off doesn’t matter. Don’t feel you have to offer rewards – toys, stickers, etc. The reward he wants most is your praise and you can give that freely.

     Problems with potty training begin when the child associates negative things with the process – when it involves fights, pressure or crying. However, the most common cause of problems is constipation because it introduces the element of pain. Constipation can develop for many reasons – a toddler could simply have a hard stool and then associate the sensation of stooling with pain and start to withhold. When he feels his bowels moving and the need to poop, he goes off into a corner, tightens his buttocks and legs and forces the stool back up. This causes the stool to become larger and harder and gives him even more pain when it eventually comes out which makes him even more afraid and continues the cycle.

     If a child has large, hard painful stools, stools that clog the toilet, recurrent abdominal cramps (especially after meals), streaks of stool in his pants or explosive bouts of squirting diarrhea, he probably has constipation. (see my previous articles on constipation and abdominal pain). Your caregiver should evaluate him and, if the problem is constipation, the cure is to get him on a laxative that makes his stools soft and keep him on it until he forgets that he ever had a problem with stooling. You forget about potty training until the constipation problem is totally resolved but don’t forget that problems with both constipation and potty training come and go. Relax. Soon you’ll have to figure out how to pay for college and that is a much bigger problem.