TikTok Hacks for Toilet Training Your Toddler
Parenting isn’t always easy, and it can be particularly difficult, and messy, when you’re trying to teach your toddler some toilet habits. But with plenty of parenting advice online, with #parenting receiving 47 billion views on TikTok alone, there’s many tips and tricks you can take for training your toddler to use the toilet.
Simon Howard, Senior National Account Manager at Oceans, providers in sustainable toilet paper, says: “From privacy, cleanliness, and personal hygiene, toilet training is more than just swapping your toddlers from nappies to toilet seats. It can help your children learn boundaries and to learn more about their bodies, including when to listen to it. But we understand that it isn’t always an easy transition.”
With International Day of Education coming up on 24th January, here are the tips and tricks you need according to TikTok.
Recognising signs of readiness
Not only is toilet training a time for learning for your toddler, but also for you. Timing it correctly is essential for how easy, or difficult, it will be to train your little one. You don’t want to start toilet training too early as it can cause a lot more stress and anxiety for both child and parent.
In one video by @motherhoodandmontessori, with 2.8 million views, they go highlight the signs that you need to recognise to know your little one is ready to transition from their nappies to a toilet. Signs you need to look out for include:
* Is their nappy staying dry for two hours at a time or more?
* Do they ask to use a potty/ the toilet?
* Do they hide when they are using the toilet?
* Do they understand and follow directions well?
If the answer to these four questions is “yes”, then it is time to start toilet training your toddler.
Put the ball in their court
When it comes to potty training your child, it is important that they’re learning to register correctly when they need the toilet. Part of the training means that they can understand when they need to go in time to get to the toilet correctly.
Tiktoker @hollinparkinson’s potty training playlist recommends multiple tips and tricks for training your child to use the toilet correctly. On one video, with two million views, she highlights that simply taking your child to the toilet every twenty minutes won’t work. She recommends using the phrase “remember to tell me when you need to go potty.” This puts the responsibility on your child to understand their body and start recognising when they might need the toilet.
She also recognises how frustrating toilet training your toddler can be, however it is important to remain positive even when accidents happen. It is inevitable that your toddler is going to have some accidents, it is only natural, so remember to not to be too harsh.
Reward systems
When it comes to training children, rewards are a tried-and-tested method of positive reinforcement. The top liked TikTok video for potty training for toddlers by @mommylifesquad, with 14.4 million views and 999.7k likes, shows one sticker method to encourage your children to use their potty.
Stickers are a great way to make toilet training fun and this video shows a temperature-reactive toilet sticker than changes from black into an imagine when peed on. This is a great way to get your kids not only to sit on their potty, but also to want to go to the toilet. And the best part – they’re reusable! Simply rinse with cold water and they’ll turn back to black.
Other sticker methods can include using a sticker chart every time they go to the toilet, to keep track of how many times a day they’re using the toilet correctly. As shown by @jenniedimatteo with her realistic day potty training video. This video has 5.8 million views and highlights the importance of positive reinforcement when training your toddler to use the toilet.
Toilet training your toddler is sometimes a slow process, but staying consistent and providing a bit of positivity can make it a much easier experience for both you and your little one. Adding in some incentives, and knowing when is the right time to start your training, can make taking your toddler to the toilet a little bit easier.