photo credit: Susan Riedel
When you become a parent, you start getting all sorts of well-meaning advice, including what works and what doesn’t when it comes to potty training boys. Other parents of boys might tell you it takes much longer to potty train a boy than it does a girl, but that’s not always true. In my experience, it was much harder to train my son then my daughter, however, my sister’s son was very easy to potty train! So you really have to go by your child.
While there are some obvious differences, potty training a boy is similar to how you would potty train a girl – as far as overall objectives and reward systems go. Your toddler, regardless of gender, needs to understand how using the potty works, why it’s important, and receive praise for a job well done.
There are things that can help when you’re potty training boys, though. For example, there are some cute flushable targets that little boys can aim at that you toss into the potty – making it like a game for them. You can even use Cherrios for aiming!!
It helps with little boys if they have a male role model to see how it’s done. But if your son doesn’t have one, a book on the subject will suffice. Some parents who are potty training boys make sure they teach them to sit at first – because they could need to urinate and have a bowel movement at the same time. Make sure to explain that they need to “Aim” down into the potty! Otherwise you might have pee everywhere!!
Start your son out on a child-size potty chair and then let him graduate to an adult sized potty. When he’s in the potty chair phase, some people recommend having a good pee-guard so that you won’t have accidents splattered all over the bathroom floor and wall. I found that they didn’t work well with my son-since he had trouble getting on the potty with it there. But as I said each child is different!!
Check out the Toddler Craft Store for some great Potty Training supplies I picked out!!
Stay Tuned tomorrow for more Potty training tips!!
Did you find training your boy different? Are you Potty training your child? How is it going? What techniques are you using? Already trained your child? How did you do it? Please share your experiences below!
7 Comments
This one is going to be interesting; my son is 20 months old and I am not entirely sure when the right time is to start with training.
But I make an effort as much as possible to show him, although the perfect opportunity was lost when I was getting him ready for bath and he was standing close to the open toilet and he started his deed – I put him straight in the bath instead of over the toilet – ha ha ha.
At least he knows that toilet paper is for the toilet and the toilet must be flushed afterwards – and he is adement that he must do it.
lol
Phill
Phillip Gibb’s last blog post..Freedom Day & the Freedom of a Child
Phill- Sounds like he is getting the idea of the toilet and what it is for and that’s the first step!! At 20 months most kids are just beginning to understand about the potty.
I am sure that was quite the moment when he started going on the floor!! I probably would have stuck my son in the tub too!! Hard to get a boy on the potty at that point. If you can do it it’s great because they start to make the connection-but who wants pee all over the bathroom!! LOL. Just pointing out that he went pee pee will help with him connecting it in his mind.
Great articles on potty training! You should join Potty Time Tuesdays on Healthy Moms.
I found your blog at Mom Blogger’s Club.
Cascia @ Healthy Moms’s last blog post..Say It Forward Follow Me Friday Week 14
Cascia- Thanks for stopping by- I will check it out!!
You are so right in that each child is different when it comes to potty training (or for anything else, actually!). My son was potty trained very early on (at 11 months for poo-poo, pee-pee took longer) and was totally off diapers by 27 months.
Now we are potty training our girl (just turned 2) . We’re using the Baby Signs(r) Potty Training Program and she was accident-free the whole of last week –no diapers at all, except at bedtime. I was happily telling hubby about it over the phone (he was away on a biz trip) and the day he came back, she had 3 ‘accidents’!
Buckeroomama – isn’t that always the way!! As soon as we say it we jinx ourselves!! Hope she get’s back to the progress she had made!
My son’s old is 5 months. I want to give this training to him but he is not able to get it in this age. I think i have to wait for 6 to 7 months to give potty training to him. But however your post guided me a lot. Thanks for the tutorial.
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