Potty Training Tips and Tricks: With a Free Printable Tracker

Potty training is probably one of the most challenging parts of parenting. We know it! It is a difficult task for every parent that they have to do with every child. And every child is different.

Recently, 5 out of 6 of us have been potty training our toddlers at our houses. While we are in the thick of it, we decided to write down some of our favorite potty training tips and tricks to share.

We obviously aren’t professionals and we don’t know it all, but between the 6 of us, we have potty-trained a lot of kids.

The best part for us is that we all have different styles and tricks. That way we can make suggestions to help each other with each kid. Because like we said before, every kid is different. Each handles potty training differently and each is ready at a different time.

We hope you can find a tip here that helps ease your potty training process. We even made a free printable potty training tracker!

Here are some of our favorite potty training tips.

Preparation for anything always helps the process go smoothly. For potty training, there are some things you can do to help your little one better understand what potty training is.

Before you even begin potty training, start letting your little one sit on the toilet. We have done this before bathtime and bedtime to start. Then as we get closer to potty training time, we start asking if they want to try going on the potty every diaper change.

As you are doing this, you will familiarize your child with the bathroom. Explain to them what the toilet is, what its purpose is, and how it works. This also helps with teaching them not to play in the toilet. Teach your child how to flush the toilet. It’s an easy thing, but setting aside 5 minutes for this can help some kids. Especially if they are afraid of the toilet or the sound the flush makes.

Discuss how exciting it will be for them to use the potty like a big boy or girl. Talk about the fun things they can look forward to once they’re potty trained, like attending preschool or participating in special events. Getting them excited about these milestones can make the process more motivating!

Finally, go pick out underwear. Make it exciting! Maybe make it a date with you and the child. They get to choose the big boy/girl pants they get to wear.

Being positive is so important when potty training. And for the parents, sometimes being positive can be really hard! It takes a lot of focus to remember that this is a learning experience. We cannot punish them while they learn, we have to teach.

So, to make it easier while you potty train choose a time that is low stress, there aren’t many plans or big trips too near to the start of potty training. This needs a time when you can be consistent. Consistency is key. Once you start, you can’t go back!

Anytime there is a success if going potty in the toilet, have a celebration. This can look like clapping, cheering, having a 1-minute dance party afterward, or just telling them how proud you are! You need your child to be motivated to make this happen, so you have to be positive and excited.

This is why we use a potty tracker. We are able to have small celebrations every time as they mark off their chart and work towards something bigger. Some people also use M&Ms. They just give the child 1 after every time they use the potty.

We have all started with a timer. We start with 15 minutes. It makes for a very long day. But it helps them realize what it feels like to go potty in the potty.

This is also a great time to teach your child to understand what their body does to tell them they need to go potty.

After they understand the feeling of peeing in the toilet, encourage them to start listening to their body.

We typically up the timer to 20 minutes on day 2. Continue with the celebrations. If there is an accident, we reset the time to 15 minutes. After a few more successful trips to the bathroom, we go back to 20 again.

The timer helps our kids know when to stop playing. This gives them a second to focus on listening to their body to see if they need to use the bathroom. After a couple of days, we ask them to stop and listen to their body. “Does your body need to go potty?”

If there is an accident, have them put on their wet underwear and practice stopping the activity they are doing. Then running to go potty. We practice this a few times before changing into new underwear after each accident.

We also love to use natural consequences. If you poop in your pants you have to shower off. Some of our kids really hate the shower at potty training age. It really has refocused them. There may not be time for a bath every time.

The natural consequence of wetting the bed (especially for bigger kids) would be changing the sheets and doing their own wash.

We love using a potty training tracker to keep everything positive and keep our eyes on the long-term progress. We made a free printable potty training tracker that can be used in several ways. You can grab the chart here.

There are stars spaced throughout the tracker and the amount of shapes between stars varies and increases the farther on the chart you get. We like to give bigger rewards whenever our child reaches a star.

This helps them find motivation in the early stages of potty training. The rewards can be big or small.

Some rewards we like to use are:

• Quality time. Let your child choose an activity to do with you such as play a game or do a craft.
• Treats. You can get your child’s favorite treat for them to earn, take them for an ice cream cone, or let them pick a candy.
• Prize. Each time your child reaches a star they can pick a prize.
• Outing. Pick an outing to do as a family once your child has reached their goal.

You can use the chart in a few ways. We have used charts in a handful of different ways.

• Have your child put an “X” on the shape after they have a successful trip to the bathroom.
• Let your child place a sticker on the chart with each potty in the toilet. Our kids really love getting to choose a sticker for their chart.

• Laminate or place the chart in a sheet protector. Use a wet-erase marker to mark the chart off. Then you can erase it and start over once finished.

We have collected some items that we have used that have helped us with potty training our kids. As we said before, every child is different.

You may have to try one or two potty training tricks to figure out what works with each child.

Here are just a few items that we have used over the years of potty training.

• For potty training at night, we have placed these puppy pads in between the fitted sheet and the mattress protector. This trick has really saved us! This helps the mattress protector from having to be washed every day, which really wears it down.
• Sometimes, as our girls are learning, they try to watch their pee go into the toilet. Our best potty training tip for girls is to have them push their hips back. This helps them aim their pee in the toilet and feel like they can see in front of them.
• When our boys are starting out to potty train, there are so many tips and tricks out there. Having the boys sit backward on the toilet really helps them.
• If your child feels like they need to squat when they poop, we like to have a stool right there to help them put their feet on.
• A potty training seat with a step stool ladder is a game-changer for potty training. It helps your child feel confident and independent by providing a secure, comfortable seat and easy access to the toilet, making the transition smoother and more empowering.

If you have been here a while, you know we love books. Books open doors to many discussions you may not know how to have. They also assist us in explaining these hard-to-understand concepts to our sweet little kids. Here are a few of our favorite books we use for potty training.

To get your hands on our printable potty training tracker showcased in this blog, simply download it using the button below. For immediate access, subscribe to our newsletter by filling out the form provided. As a new subscriber, we will occasionally sprinkle your inbox with other fun family ideas, along with complimentary printables that have been released! Already subscribed? Just enter your email address below and click download without worries about being 'resubscribed' or receiving additional emails.

Hopefully, you found a tip or trick that helped ease this stressful time in parenting. Do you have any other great potty training advice? We would love to hear it! Leave your tips and tricks for potty training in the comments!