My toddler will be three years old in 5 months time. My little baby. Tiny little Frog. She is now a fully walking, talking, feisty singing little girl, with bags of personality and a hatred of nappies. Or rather, a hatred of nappies that need to be changed. So it appears that, without even planning to, we have arrived at that dreaded stage – potty training.

The process so far has involved talking about using the toilet, sitting on the toilet, discarding nappies in favour of pants for a full day, going back to nappies and, now, occasionally sitting on the toilet with constant gentle encouragement. (I’m still talking about my toddler here.) Nothing has actually been “produced” on the toilet yet, so to speak. 

As with all things parenting related, I have ignored every book going. I’m following my instinct and my daughter, hoping that she’ll help guide me in my ignorant quest to get her out of nappies before she hits her teenage years.

I’ve waited until I’m sure she’s ready and I’ve listened to her when she says she’s not. We’re seeing the week of half-term, when she’s at home all week from nursery, as the week of the toilet. Without the pressure of a new nursery or lots of time out of the house, we hope Frog will feel more confident and ready to finally let go of those blasted nappies.

We have a few items ready to help us, which we’ve already trialled to a certain extent.

These potty training pants from Baba and Boo are like normal pants, but not. With a little bit of padding – but nowhere near the likes of what you’d get in a nappy – they contain the odd minor leak but not a full-blown waterfall.

Frog wore the ladybird pair for an entire day and when she did have an accident she immediately knew about it, coming to tell me and show me the wet patch on the carpet. (Lucky me.)

Incidentally, it’s not just cloth nappies or potty training pants you can get from Baba and Boo – they do cute tops too…

We also have a personalised reward chart from Kiddy Charts stuck to the wall in the bathroom, along with a pack of glittery stickers. Frog’s idea of heaven at the moment is sticking stickers onto walls, so once she we’re going to try a spot of celebratory sticker sticking with each successful toilet trip.

Of course, I’d planned to make my own chart from scratch, complete with bunting and scrap and glitter. But I’m a realist and I work more than full time hours, along part-time childcare, so don’t exactly have time on my hands at the moment.

Frog’s already excited about the stickers and the chart. The pants are right up there on her list of favourites too. Now here’s hoping it all goes smoothly in a couple of weeks.

Are your kids out of nappies yet? Any tried and tested titbits of advice you’d like to share?

The post We have arrived at the Stage of Doom – potty training appeared first on Mother's Always Right.