Week 8 Potty Project: Transitioning to Underwear!

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First read this week's potty lesson, then move on to the project below.

Your Week 8 Assignment

When you sense that most of your child’s readiness signs are in place, put the diapers away and put your child in disposable training pants. Also, find two hours a day to put your child in lightweight cotton underwear. After the first hour, take your child to the potty, encourage him to go.

If he goes, that’s great—offer lots of praise and congratulations! If he doesn’t go, that’s fine too. If a few minutes later, he has an accident in his underwear, clean him up and put on another pair of underwear to complete the two-hour period of panty time. After the two hours, put him back in his disposable training pants.

Keep up these two-hour underwear-wearing sessions. Once your child has had continued successes on the potty, extend the time to three hours or more in underwear. Soon you can establish the routine of wearing underwear when you’re both at home.

It won’t be too long until your child will be in underwear full-time. You and he will be there! He’ll be potty trained!

Toilet Training Tip

The official advice for this last lesson is to cultivate patience. Most children learn to use the potty somewhere between ages two and three. Although you’ve adequately prepped your child for potty training, you can’t hurry the process particularly when it comes to making the connection between the child’s mind and body that tells him his bladder or bowel is full, that he needs to walk in the bathroom and release his pee or poop into the potty. Until that time occurs, keep up with all the prepping process until the day arrives when your child says, “I need to go potty.”

Click here to review all eight weeks of potty lessons and projects for this challenge.

Then, discuss your child's potty successes and failures here!