Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Wish I'd Known: Candy-less Potty Training

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Today's tip is about potty training.

Don't give candy as a reward for potty training - Nia

Nia, I totally 100% agree with you!  When I potty trained my daughter, I was trying to figure out what I would do as a reward.  I knew several people who gave candy, but I didn't really want my daughter eating a ton of candy.  I decided to use stickers.  I put a piece of paper on the wall that said "I Went Potty".  Then each time she went to the bathroom she got to put stickers on the paper.  She would get one sticker for pee-pee and two stickers for poo-poo.  She loved getting to pick out her stickers.

The first day couple of days of potty training consisted of several trips to the bathroom with a ton of little successes.  IfI had been giving her candy as a reward, my daughter would have been in a sugar coma!

Unfortunately, we went on a trip to Georgia and through wearing pull-ups in the car rides, her potty training regressed a bit so I had to re-potty train her.  I wasn't totally starting from scratch, but you get the idea.  I wanted to do a different reward this time, but still avoid the candy.  What I ended up doing was hanging a paper on the fridge and each time she went to the bathroom she could come and draw a smiley face.  No, they didn't really look like faces, but she LOVED it!  Then every day my husband would get back from work she could show him all of her faces.

I started thinking that the whole drawing faces thing could be used as a learning opportunity.  Instead of drawing faces, your child could trace a letter of the alphabet or draw a certain shape.  They are learning while getting their reward!

Potty training can be hard.  Let us know if you have any other tips for moms out there!

3 comments:

Judy said... #

With my son, stickers didn't work and neither did candy, but he got really excited when we used pennies!

jazzkat said... #

My mom bribed us with cool underwear, i don't remember what it was for me, but my little brother was obsessed with batman and was willing to do just about anything for his batman underwear lol

Unknown said... #

Hiya I did the whole reward sticker chart thing and my daughter did really well. When my second daughter was born she went backwards and none of the sticker charts treats etc were working so I thought of getting a piggy bank we usually put our change in for them and said every time she goes to the toilet she gets pennies for a princess dress she wanted after more than a week we counted the pennies and there was enough for her dress. We are now saving for a doll she likes. I think this also shows them about saving for things we want too. Hope this helps