How to Make Potty Training More Comfortable

Is your little one showing interest in the potty? Have they figured out how to take off their own diaper? Do you want to start potty training, but not sure where to start? Let us help guide you through this process. With the right mindset and supplies, you can make helping your little one learn to use the potty more enjoyable for everyone.

Now that your little one is ready to begin potty training, it’s time to make this as easy for everyone as possible. Take the time to organize your space to ensure that your little one has everything needed and so do you! Nothing is worse then needing to grab something while your little one makes a huge mess or gets hurt.

Setting Up Your Home for Potty Training

You’ve decided to start the potty training journey with your little one. That’s awesome! Congratulations on entering this new phase of your child’s life and beginning the trek to ridding your home of diapers. Let’s just get one thing clear now, go buy another big box of diapers. So many people speak about the 1 weekend and done method. Does this work, for some. However, for most children there will be set backs and times when they still need a diaper. Not to mention nap and bedtime potty training too.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you will want to get a few additional supplies to help make the most of potty training time. We like to think of potty training time similarly to bath time. This is additional time throughout your day that is dedicated to your child. While you may spend a shorter amount of time each bathroom visit than bath time, you will make more frequent visits to the bathroom. It’s best to make this area as comfortable as possible and wrap your mind around the extra time with your child.

Which Potty?

First, decide where you will teach your little one to go potty. Will you use a simple potty chair somewhere in your house, will you move the potty chair into your bathroom, or will you use a potty seat reductor on your bigger potty? There is no wrong choice, but each of the options does have some positives and negatives.

Standalone Potty Seat

We love a simple potty chair that can be used in any room of your house or as an additional potty in your bathroom. These are great because most are appropriately sized for your child so you don’t need a stool. They can go anywhere! And we mean anywhere! Cooking dinner, put the potty chair in the kitchen. Want to watch a movie, bring the potty chair into the room. Going on vacation, pack up the potty chair. Out at a baseball tournament, bring along the potty chair. These are especially great for roap trips and the emergency potty when you are on the highway.

Now the downside. These potty seats need to be cleaned often. After each potty, you will need to empty the toilet bowl. Since you’ve already got it out, you might as well give it a good cleaning too. Their portability can also be a downside, your little one might decide to go play in her bedroom and carry her potty seat up. She may even decide to go potty while up there but not tell you. Yikes if you don’t discover this for a few hours, say after naptime. And of course, all the pieces come apart. This is great for cleaning but not so great for a curious toddler who loves to take his new chair apart.

Potty Seat Reductor

We actually prefer a potty seat reductor in our home. Why? Well, these fit most regular size toilet seats. Simply place on the toilet seat and your little one now has a smaller seat to sit upon. They are super easy to clean because you simply flush the toilet and wipe down the seat when you clean your toilet. Takes a few extra moments, but not after every potty. They are small enough to bring with you when you travel and cheap enough to buy one for each toilet in your home. Plus, these help teach your little one that we use the bathroom to go potty since these only work on a toilet.

The downsides include portability and ease of use. These potty seats may work on many different toilets but it’s not the same as having an all in one chair. You will need to take your little one to the bathroom, not just go potty in the kitchen or family room. Plus, when you need the emergency potty on the highway, you will need to find a place with a bathroom.

Moreover, many toilets are rather big for young children. So, with the reductor, you will most likely need a stool. We have never minded using a stool, but your little one might need help balancing on the stool at first, especially when getting on and off the potty. And we have found that our young children need help putting the potty reductor onto the toilet as well. In the beginning, you will need to help set up the potty each time your little one needs to go.

Why Not Have the Best of Both?

If you aren’t sure, try Summer’s 3-in-1 Train with me potty. This potty actually works as both a stand-a-lone potty seat and a potty seat reductor. If you decide you like the ease of clean up with the seat reductor, great. If you love the portability of the stand-a-lone seat, that’s great too. And if you find, like we did, that we need both depending on the time and family life, then you’ve got that too. Once you know where you will set everything up, it’s time to brainstorm the different things that you might need in that area and how you will organize it for easy.

Make the Potty Training Area Comfortable

Now that you’ve got the potty seat situation taken care of, you will want to add additional comforts to your bathroom. We all think of the things our child will need, but we also need to consider items we may need as well.

Comfort for Your Child

Next, make the potty area comfortable for your little one. They will need things to do while sitting on the potty to encourage waiting until their body is ready. We love to stash some books and bubbles in our area. You may even want to print out a few songs or fingerplays to keep nearby too. Plus, a tablet or smartphone is always nice when nothing else seems to work. Having access to streaming services makes potty training so much more enjoyable for your little one.

They may also need a stool to reach the potty or the sink depending on your set up. Possibly a place to store their potty seat which can be as simple as under the sink or a shelf or hook on the wall. Finally, they need all the materials to take care of the paperwork. We always keep wet wipes nearby as well as pre-torn toilet paper in the appropriate size. Otherwise you may find a toilet paper avalanche on your bathroom floor. With time you can teach your little one to tear their own toilet paper.

You Will Want to Have a Comfortable Area Too

After, make sure the potty area is comfortable for you. While your little one learns to use the potty, you will be spending A LOT more time in the bathroom than normal. I always love having a place to sit during this time. If you have the room, a nice chair or stool can be a life saver. Especially if you can get something with a little back support. Figure out how you will multitask while waiting in the bathroom. Reading, singing, playing with your child is great, but sometimes we need a break too! We love to add a couple of logic puzzle books and bring along our phone.

You can also use potty training time for cleaning, exercise, or meditation. Maybe take the time to clean the sink/mirrors, the shower/tub, or even organize under the cabinets. Your bathrooms have never been cleaner! You can talk with your little one while you work and you usually have all the cleaners there anyways. Find a quick work out you can do in a small space: wall sits (especially if you don’t have a chair), squats, curls, etc. You can always encourage your child to count with you! A little mindfulness or meditation never hurts either. Remind yourself how amazing you are and what a great parent you are.

Keep paper and pens nearby (or even your smartphone) to write your shopping or to-do list, maybe even plan your meals. Potty training is great for lots of little tasks, anything that takes less than 5 minutes. Sometimes children need a little longer, so I love to have a few 10 minute tasks ready as well. Looking for some tips, read our post on Taking the Stress from Making a Shopping List.

Encouraging Your Child While Potty Training

Finally, decide how you will encourage your child to use the potty. There are so many little things you can do. Praise is amazing! High fives, video calls to favorite people, silly dances, even a special hat. Then there are sticker charts to earn something bigger. These can be a plain piece of paper or even a coloring page that your child adds stickers on or you can create or buy sticker charts. If I use paper or coloring pages, I like to add dots to show how many stickers they need to earn for the prize. This can be as simple as placing a sticker on each box.

Time Between Rewards

You can always use a small treat or toy that they earn after using the potty a certain number of times. And of course, in the beginning, they may get something after each potty but then might have to go 3 or 5 times to earn something. Go slowly as you increase the expectation and clearly communicate to your little one. When children are used to getting a reward for each use of the potty and then don’t get anything for an entire day, we sometimes see setbacks and more accidents. So be sure to talk with your little one about the new expectations.

We have found that moving from every potty to once a day is too much for most young children. Instead, try moving to two or three check-ins a day. You could easily do one with each meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Or try rewards with each sleep break: nap and bed-time or when your child wakes from each. Once your child gets used to the new system, you can move to once a day and slowly lengthen that time. And of course, if you notice a setback, increase your praise and check-ins again.

Do I Have to Reward My Child For Using the Potty?

Absolutely not. If you choose to use rewards, that’s okay. However, you definitely don’t have to use them. Instead you can work on building your child’s internal motivation and drive. A little personal and specific praise can go a long way. Talking with your child about the benefits of using the potty can help too. We love to share with our children how we feel better when we aren’t wet. Talk about how much faster using the potty is verse changing their diaper and how they can use the potty all by themselves.

Never be ashamed that you need to take a step back! So you started and need a break, that’s perfectly okay and so many children need one. Keep the area set up for your little one to start back up when ready but give them the diaper or pull up that they need. No pressure and they will get there when ready (even if they are stubborn, been there!). If you aren’t sure if your child is really ready, check out the first in the Potty Training Chronicles series.

If you loved any of these ideas, we’d love if you’d let us know in the comments. Looking for more practical solutions to real life problems, subscribe to our newsletter. We love to share freebies and reward charts are a favorite of ours.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.