LET'S GET THIS POTTY STARTED

Now that your child is physically and emotionally ready - and you are, too - it's time to get the ​potty started!

This process will take time - from weeks to months - and there will be accidents along the way. So be patient... and stay positive! Remember, you are teaching a new skill, one your child has yet to acquire. As the "teacher," you must be encouraging. When accidents happen - and they will - keep your disappointment in check. Try to maintain a neutral or even positive demeanor. Don't raise your voice or yell. You don't want to add any more stress to the situation or have your child lose interest or become fearful.

When training starts, there are three things to always remember. They're not hard to forget, as they all start with "P":

• Pampers and Pull-ups
  To avoid lengthening the training process and undermining the whole effort, your child must go "cold turkey" on Pampers and Pull-Ups (except at bedtime). The reason for the cold-turkey approach is simple: Pampers and Pull-Ups are essentially wearable toilets, and your child won't see much need for using the one in your home when he can much more easily use the one he's wearing.
• Prompting (Tell, don't ask)
  You will need to prompt your child to go to the bathroom and sit for a few minutes multiple times a day. Tell, don't ask. Asking a young child if she has to go to the bathroom is unproductive. So instead of asking, just say it's time to go and then escort her to the potty chair.
• Practice
  You want your child to have lots of opportunities to practice on the potty chair, so increasing fluids is helpful. Provide extra water or more of a favorite beverage. Just know, however, this can mean more "spills." Still, having multiple opportunities to reinforce your child's successes certainly increases the likelihood that you'll reach your goal more quickly.

During the training phase, a good strategy is to put your child on the potty chair every hour or so. If he wets himself in between trips to the bathroom, make the visits more frequent. If he's able to stay dry for two or three hours, the visits can be less frequent. Taking your child to the potty chair ten or twenty minutes after eating also gives him a greater opportunity to have a successful experience.