When Is The Best Time To Start Potty Training?

Potty training is one of the important milestones in a toddler's life and in ours as well. It takes a fair amount of time for baby to be well trained and requires a lot of patience and creativity from our side to help our child be motivated to use the seat and stop wetting himself. But before starting, we should understand more about the bladder and the bowel movement development.

The bladder

The adult bladder can hold about 280 ml of urine before the urge to urinate is felt. Urine is made in the kidneys. The kidneys work all the time to regulate the water and salt content of the body, and they maintain the right balance in order to prevent illness.
In a small baby, the physiology of urination is similar; though the kidneys are comparatively immature in their functioning, and aren't designed to cope with a high salt intake or to withstand dehydration. Urine is stored in the bladder in much the same way as in the aduly, thoufh the capasicy of the bladder starts off very small, and grows throughout infance and childhood.
In a baby, the emptying of the bladder is a totally involuntary action, and the sphincter opens in response to the fullness of the bladder; though the reflex can be conditioned to respond to other stimulation like the rim of the potty being placed on the baby's bottom. the frequency of peeing seems to decrease as the months go on, and parents will notice that as their baby grows her diaper is less to be wet. At some point, the child becomes aware that he has passed urine. The next phase is when the child he knows he needs to go in the next second or so. Little by little the child will learn to hold for longer by deliberately controlling the sphincter muscle by not releasing it. this ability increases with physical and social maturity, and with the growing capacity of the bladder.

The Bowel

The function of the bowel in human beings is to complete the digestion and absorption of food begun earlier in the digestive tract, and to send waste material to the rectum where it is stored and later excreted as faeces.
the baby's first bowel motion is called meconium, over the next few days, in average 3 days, the stool changes they will be very loose and daffodil-yellow if breastfed or pale brown and firmer if formula fed.
Again on the pattern of bladder control, the knowledge that she's about to pass a motion is the next stage reached by the child and from there she gets to a phase were passing isn't too urgent.

When is the best time to begin potty training? 18 months? 24 months? or even later?
How to be super mom made all the research needed to give you a helpful answer.

Many parent worry that early training could harm the baby emotionally and mentally; this idea has been promoted by pediatricians and child care professionals and it goes back to the bad training methods. Parents in 1920's used harmful and abusive techniques that leaded to emotional side effects upon children.  Pediatricians, like Benjamin Spock and T. Berry Brazelton, argued that pushing children may cause a variety of troubles, including stool withholding, stool toileting refusal, regression, and bed wetting. On the other hand, the few scientific studies on potty training revealed that early training does not cause any problems.


To be ready for potty training a child should develop certain skills.

1- As we have mentioned before the first thing to be achieved is the bladder and bowel development
2- The second sign of readiness is motor skills. On the average, children will walk around the age of 12 months. Once your child has mastered walking and running, then s/he may be interested in acquiring other "grown up" skills and will start developing other gross and fine motor skills required for potty training. The main motor skill is having enough finger & hand coordination skills to dress and undress and more specifically to pull his/her underpants down and up.

3- Cognitive and verbal skills: the potty training process reuqires a complexe combination of verbal and physical actions. A chid should be able to pull down/up his underwear, stay long enough to finish emptying and all this requires certain amount of concentration for him to understand your explanations and responses and to be able to put them together to understand the whole training process.

4- Emotional growth and social awarness: This is probably the hardest readiness to achieve, especially since children go through phases. The components that will help in determining your child's emotional and social readiness are self mastery manifested by "I can do it" or "I am a big boy/girl now", desire for approval, and social awareness.

In average, kids will have achieved those development around 24 months then, I believe is the best time to start taking potty training seriously.
Follow us everyday to find more articles about potty training.


Reference:
D.G. Vulliamy (1982 edition), The New Born Child (Churchill livingstone)
G.H. Lowrey (1973 edition) Growth and Development of Children (Yearbook Medical Publishers)
http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com

Related Posts

Early potty Training Pros and Cons

Late Potty Training Pros and Cons

Step by Step Potty Training Program