3 Reasons Your Toddler is Fighting Potty Training

If potty training started out strong, but now your toddler is fighting it hard, you're not alone! Potty training can feel exciting at first, but for some kids, it can quickly turn into feeling like a lot of pressure, an unpreffered task, and a lack of control.  This can lead to major pushback! Think big feelings, potty refusals and more accidents than you bargained for.

If this sounds familiar, here are 3 suprising reasons potty training pushback may be happening and how to get your child back on track.

1. You're praising your child too much. Yup! You heard me right. For some kids, lots of praise works well, but for others, it just adds pressure! When you make a big deal out of potty success, your child may be worrying that they won't be able to repeat the success again. They also see that this is a very big deal to  you, and that can feel overwhelming. These big feelings can lead to unconscious self-sabotaging for some kids. They're worried that they're not going to be successful (and that they're going to let you down), so they take control in their own unproductive way. 

2. Your child is afraid of going to the bathroom. It's easy to foget how many new and scary things are involved in using the potty! There are lots of new sounds, lots of new body sensations, and lots of unknowns. To support this, take a little break from actual potty learning and do some prep work. Start by inviting your child into the bathroom with you and narrating what you're doing, what your body feels like when you go potty, etc. This will help your child know what to expect and will also demystify and normalize all of the things happening when going to the bathroom. Next, make a basket of fun (and simple) things for your child to do while sitting on the potty. Let them sit on the potty and play - without pressure to "go" in the days leading up to potty training.  

3. You're doing timed potty sits. Timed potty sits make potty learning hard for a few reasons. First, they're not helping your child  tune into their body to know when they need to go potty - a much needed skill for potty learning! They can also create pushback, because you're constantly pulling your child away from preferred activities when  they may or may not actually need to go. AND - all of these potty demands add a lot of pressure to the potty-learning process. Instead, encourage your child to go potty when they feel the sensation that they need to go (talk with them about how it feels and have them point on their body where they feel that they need to go pee or poop. If they're not going on their own, every 30 minutes or so, ask your child to check in with their body to see if they need to go potty. The most important part: NO PRESSURE! If your child says they don't need to go, simply say, "Okay. When you feel like you need to pee or poop, go to the potty and let your pee or poop come out on the potty." You'll be suprised by how much your chill approach helps your child be successful. 

If you're in the thick of potty training and it feels like a disaster, or if you want to know exactly how to make potty learning a success from the start, I'm here to help. Click here to check out how I support famlies with potty learning through my potty learning guide, custom potty learning plans, and 1 hour consultations. Let's make potty learning a sweet success!