Helpful Potty Training Tips For Girls

When it comes to potty training tips for girls, I’m pretty sure I tried all of them.

No one wants to talk about it, but potty training is one of the worst and harder phases of toddlerhood.

When our littles ones are babies, we understand that changing diapers frequently comes along with it because they have no control over their bowels.

But when you have a toddler who can communicate with you and can recognize when a bowel movement is about to occur, you would think it would be automatic for them to go to the bathroom.

Like many moms, including myself, we find out that is just not the case.

My toddler was perfectly content using the bathroom on herself and could care less about going to the bathroom.

As I stated in a previous post, we had a few goals going into my pregnancy that we wanted to accomplish before I gave birth to our second child.

The first was transitioning my child into a toddler bed.

The second was to get rid of the pacifier which we did after our second daughter was born.

And the last goal was to get our daughter potty trained so we would not be buying diapers for two kids.

Which we were able to do during my pregnancy and currently our daughter is still doing really good despite a few accidents she has had since her little sister was born,

Accidents are completely normal during big transitions and transitioning from one to two kids is a really big transition.

Now that she is fully potty trained during the day, night, and out in public, I thought this would be a good time to share what tips worked for us with our toddler.

Here are some helpful potty training tips for girls.

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Signs Your Child Is Not Ready For Potty Training

Before I get into those tips for potty training toddler girls, let’s talk about if your child is even ready for potty training.

So most parents want to know what age should they start potty training their children.

This is valid because you want to make sure your child is not behind in their development and potty training is a huge milestone that many parents are looking forward to.

But is your child ready for potty training?

I know many parents are eager to start potty training as soon as their child turns one, but that might be too early.

Usually, most children show an interest in potty training when they turn 2, but may not be fully ready for potty training until they are 2 and a half or even closer to 3.

It really depends on the child.

The writers from Potty Genius say that these are the following signs that your child is ready for potty training:

• Showing interest in the toilet or potty chair.
• Wanting to wear “big-kid” underwear.
• Able to follow simple directions.
• Able to communicate that they need to go to the bathroom, either through words, facial expressions, or body language.
• Staying dry for periods of two hours or longer during the day.
• Able to pull down his or her pants and pull them up again.

If your child isn’t doing any of the things mentioned above, then they probably are not ready.

My daughter started showing an interest in the potty when turned 2, but she was not fully potty trained until she was 2 and a half years old.

Now that you know whether your child is ready or not to be potty-trained, let’s discuss some helpful tips for potty training toddler girls.

Helpful Potty Training Tips For Girls

Commit To Potty Training

So my first tip for potty training is to commit to potty training.

Potty training reminds me a lot of what it is like breastfeeding a newborn.

No one understands the type of commitment you have to have when you are breastfeeding because you are the primary feeding source whether your baby is latching directly or you are pumping.

You have to commit to your breastfeeding journey in order to make it work.

Potty training is a lot like this.

You have to commit to working with your child on using the bathroom which will consist of you constantly taking them to the bathroom and getting up with them at night to use it as well.

I know many blogs talk about potty training your child in 3 days which is great if you are able to do that,

But I can say from my experience that it took more than 3 days, so be prepared in case your potty training journey last a lot longer than 3 days like ours did.

Get A Potty Seat

Once you feel ready to start potty training your little one, it is time to get a potty seat.

You can either get a small children’s potty that you can place in the bathroom for them to access or a potty seat that you can place on the toilet along with a stool.

We got the Summer Infant 3-in-1 Toddler Potty and Stepstool.

I loved the multifunctional aspect of this potty.

Once my daughter got done using the bathroom, we would dump the contents into the toilet, and then she would close the lid and move it over to the sink to wash her hands.

We still currently use it as a step stool for her to wash her hands now she uses the big potty now.

Read Potty Training Books

After you introduce the potty to your little one, it is time to start teaching them about using the potty and this can easily be done through books.

While you are reading you can actually grab a doll and have them act out using the potty.

My favorite potty training book that I read with my daughter is Time To Pee by Mo Willems.

This book makes learning about the potty fun and my daughter enjoys looking at the pictures as we read the book.

I noticed that she started repeating what the book says when she goes to the bathroom so I knew that it was working for her.

Start With Pull-Ups

I know a lot of moms say to skip the pull-ups and go straight to underwear, but I was just not comfortable with that until I knew for a fact that my daughter was ready.

We started with pull-ups before my daughter turned 2 and worked on the motion of pulling her pull-up up and down.

After she turned 2 is when we transitioned her into underwear during the day and used the pull-ups at night until she was staying dry consistently through the night.

She started staying dry when she was about 2 and about 3 months so that was when we started having her wear panties at night.

We used the Huggies Pull-Ups Training Underwear.

Have Them Help Pick Out Panties

While on the subject of underwear, when our daughter turned 2, we took her and let her pick out her first set of panties.

My daughter was so excited when she picked out her panties because she felt like mama and wanted to wear her big girl panties.

The point of this is to let them pick out some cute underwear that hopefully, they will not soil.

But it is ok if they do.

Most kids don’t like the feeling of soiled undies so they will probably learn to hold their bowel movement before doing it on themselves.

I know my daughter did.

Let Them Watch Mom

Like I was saying above, my daughter was excited to get her panties because she sees me use panties when I go to the bathroom.

Since I am a girl and have a daughter, I actually encouraged my daughter to watch me use the bathroom.

Children learn through watching so by her watching me go to the bathroom, use the toilet, wipe, flush, and wash my hands after, she is learning proper bathroom etiquette.

This really helped my daughter in her potty training journey so if you are comfortable with your little one watching you, then I say do it.

Praise Them When They Do Potty

Whenever your little one does pee in the potty, praise them when they do so.

I mean make a really big deal of it.

You want your toddler to feel really good about themselves when they do go to the potty because it is progress in the right direction.

Whenever my daughter would pee in the potty, I would start cheering and giving her high-fives to make her feel good about peeing in the potty

Reward Them When They Go Number #2

Notice how I didn’t say to reward them when they peed in the potty, but only when they pooped.

When I started potty training my daughter, I noticed that she was comfortable peeing in the potty, but would not poop in there.

In fact, when she had to poop, she would just sit there and try to hold in as long as she could.

She would start to shake and cry when she had poop but refused to poop in the potty.

This is really common for young children because pooping is a much different bowel movement from peeing so it makes some kids scared to poop.

And my daughter was terrified of pooping.

We helped ease her anxiety by holding her hand when pooped and giving her a sucker whenever she did it.

By us doing this, she wasn’t getting suckers all day for just using the potty, but only one or two a day for the times she pooped.

If All Else Fails, Take A Break And Restart Potty Training Later

And my last helpful tip for potty training girls is to take a break and restart potty training if your child is still showing signs that they are not ready.

I know my first tip is to commit to potty training but if your mental health is suffering from trying to potty train your little one, then it is time to take a break.

I had actually tried to start potty training my daughter a little after she turned 2 but that was when I found out that I was pregnant.

And if you had been following along my pregnancy journey on the blog, then you know that the first trimester was a struggle for me.

I knew then that I needed to step back from potty training and pick it back up when I was feeling better.

Which I did in the third trimester and was able to have success with potty training my daughter.

Taking a break does not mean that you are quitting potty training, you are just tabling it for another time.

Your Turn

Now that I have dropped all of my helpful potty training tips for girls, I want to hear from you all now. What did you do with your toddler girls to help them get potty trained? I would love to hear from you in the comment below and while you are still here, check out my previous post below. Until next time!

• Read More: How It Has Been Going From One From Two Children

Love,

Just Jass