Potty Training - Come Round Potty Training Bundle -

I recently signed up to a site called Come Round which is a fresh & unique way to get your hands on amazing and exclusive products. All you have to do is: 1. Register for a Come Round account 2. Check out the What’s On page 3. Apply for parties that are live! They were looking for people for a Potty Training Kit (on this occasion I didn’t need to hold a party) and it was perfect with my son being the age he is at. So I thought I would tell you all about my experience of just starting potty training my son, with the help of this great kit.

My son is coming up to his 2nd Birthday which is on Halloween, and like most parents, I just don’t know where the time has gone. I can’t believe my baby is about to officially become a Toddler! It just feels so wrong and I am just not ready, but I guess I am going to have to be. He is a pretty well behaved little man, very cuddly, loving and has been sleeping like a dream from just a few months old! He does have pretty bad tantrums at times but all in all he is very good. He is also very advanced for his age and his speech is improving every single day, suprising me with how intelligent he is. However, the one thing we just can’t seem to grasp at the moment is potty training. I know there isn’t a huge rush for him to start potty training yet with him not even being 2 yet but it seems that this is something that needs to be done at a very slow, snails pace.

All the advice I have been given when it comes to potty training and all that I knew already was that you let them wander around, with no nappy on and keep putting them on the potty. So naturally I thought, right, this is what I need to do, might have some accidents but it’s not a problem, shouldn’t be too hard. But of course I was incorrect! I didn’t realise the upset it can cause your little ones (and you) and the other problems that could occur when having an accident. I also didn’t realise that he might not want to sit on the potty, this thought just didn’t occur to me, so when my little one said no to sitting on the potty It soon sank in what I was actually getting mysef in to.

I spent my first day of starting potty training very positive, calm and feeling quite confident and by the end I remember just wanting to cry and feeling a total failure. I don’t know why I expected it to go so much better, it just didn’t seem like it would be THAT hard! The first day I left his nappy off and kept asking him to sit on the potty, this was difficult enough however after a few times of me sitting on it myself (feeling pretty stupid) to show him it was ok he eventually decided to try it. I showed him how to squeeze and said ‘wee wee on the potty’, I tried singing songs and making the noise of doing a wee (again, feeling rather silly). After about a minute he got fed up and got off and wandered in to the kitchen, so I sat back down and got on with a bit of work. Seconds after I sat down he popped back through saying ‘uh oh’ and looked rather upset. I instantly knew what had happened and once I found the lovely little wet patch on the kitchen floor, I cleaned it up and told him it was ok. He was saying ‘oh no’ for a while after but seemed to forget about it eventually. So I continued placing him on the potty and trying to get him to do a wee various times throughout the day. He spent less and less time sitting on there, getting fed up and a bit whingy. I still felt optimistic however and continued trying.

He just wasn’t doing anything in the potty and so as it got to lunch time I put him in his high chair whilst I made him some sandwhiches. Within just a minute of being in his high chair he got very upset and said ‘oh no’, I turned around to see he had wee’d in his highchair (wearing just a pair of pants, no nappy) and it had gone everywhere! Without letting him see the frustration and how fed up I was I smiled and cleaned everything up, gave him a kiss and tried to reassure him. He continued this time to be quite upset about the accident which I just wasn’t expecting, and this is when the doubts started to kick in. There was a 3rd accident that day where he wee’d in the kitchen again and was upset by it also, this is when I decided to put his nappy back on and call it a day. I felt really deflated and couldn’t believe that he had 3 accidents and not a single wee in the potty the full day.

The next day I thought about trying it again and it suddenly dawned on me, this technique wasn’t working. Trying to force him to be potty trained wasn’t working for my son. I know it doesn’t happen immediately but my little guy was getting upset and it would have just done more damage than good, so that’s when I decided to completely ditch all the advice I had been given and decided to make up my own techniques. Something I felt was a much softer approach and suited myself and my little guy. I decided to keep him in his nappies and first get him comfortable with the potty and understanding what it was for. I had him sit on the potty and said ‘wee wee on the potty’ had a little giggle and would tell him every time I was going for a wee on the loo. I thought, If I do what I am asking him to do then he may copy, and he did. He started saying mummy ‘wee wee’ whenever I went to the toilet, he also started going over to the potty saying ‘wee wee potty’ and would strain like he was doing a wee. So I realised this was progress! He may not have done anything in the potty yet but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

I decided to start using the pull on pants from Huggies which I was sent to try as part of the potty training pack. I hoped this would make life easier when trying to get his nappy on and off with me not leaving his nappy off all the time. The nappies were so easy to pull on and off and my little man really liked them. He started actually asking for me to take his nappy off and would sit on the potty trying to do a wee. He still hasn’t done one on the potty yet but he is understanding what the potty is for now and keeps trying. I decided that it would be up to him when he wants to do a wee on the potty, even if it takes a good few months. He is progressing every day so I believe it won’t be long now before he masters it! Once he does something on the potty there will be lots of cheering, clapping and we will also be using a sticker chart to positively reinforce what he is doing. I love the ones that came in my pack from Huggies and my little man loves stickers so I believe they will really work to encourage him each time he manages to use the potty.

A few important things to know before potty training your child. The first is don’t have high expectations or an unrealistic time frame in which you believe your child will be trained by. Potty Training WILL mean accidents, doesn’t matter how hard you try, it will happen. It is important to remember not to get upset or frustrated in front of your child when they have an accident as this can cause them to get upset and they will not want their nappy off. If you feel like it is the wrong time to potty train or feel they are not ready then they probably aren’t. They may absolutely hate the potty and it may take a while just to get them comfortable with it. Letting them decorate it with stickers and other fun things may help. Other than this, do what you feel is right, you don’t have to follow the advice given by others or online. Still take in advice given, but make sure you do what is best for you and your little one.

You can see everything that I received in my party potty training pack and if I had done a party it would have been great for mums like me who were about to potty train. It also came with extra Huggies potty training sample packs which would have been given out to everyone that attended the party. It came with some extras like some nail scissors, a parenting magazine, stickers, advice leaflets and obviously the most helpful items being the pull on pants and the potty.