Potty training is one of those milestone moments in your child's life. We have tips and some product suggestions to help you get the paperwork in order.
Do you use a potty or go straight to the toilet? Do cloth nappy kids potty train faster any why?
Transcription: Potty Training
Andrew: So, how are you Vashti?
Vashti: I'm good, thanks Andrew, how are you?
Andrew: Excellent. I'm excellent.
How are you doing, Vicki?
Vicki: Bit sick now. I've eaten a bit too much Christmas candy.
Vashti: Vicki's got a nice little [00:00:30] pile of chocolate wrappers in front over here.
If you hear any rustling, that's just us [crosstalk 00:00:37] you.
Vicki: Turkish Delight's all I can say, you know. Just...
Andrew: So, what are we gonna talk about today? Today, something that has popped up in my mind, is potty training. It seems to be this big hard thing but for me, it kind of wasn't because I had [crosstalk 00:00:50].
Vicki: Because you didn't do it.
Andrew: Is that it, or was it easy?
Vicki: A bit of both.
Andrew: A bit of both?
Vicki: A bit from column A, a bit from column [00:01:00] B.
Andrew: Because it seemed pretty easy. Gabriel hung on to wanting to poop in a nappy, but he toilet trained pretty quickly and after we got him to, you know.
Vicki: Technically, he was toilet trained because he'd asked for a nappy to poop in.
Andrew: Yeah, he knew he needed to poop.
Vicki: He just didn't wanna let it go in the toilet, it's a whole boy thing apparently.
Vashti: Exactly.
Vicki: If you've got a little boy that isn't pooping in the toilet, don't push it because he'll end up with constipation, and-
Vashti: [crosstalk 00:01:25].
Vicki: You know, the hold in. Yeah, it's nasty. We pushed, and [00:01:30] we shouldn't have. Soon as we let it go, he let it go.
Andrew: So to speak.
Vicki: So to speak.
Andrew: But I note there's a lot of, pull up pants and all that sort of stuff. Is that really helping with toilet training or is that just keeping him in the nappies.
Vashti: Yes and no.
I'm a big believer of toilet training pants. Purely because it allows you to leave home when your child isn't quite ready to be without [inaudible 00:01:57]. Look, I know some people will toilet train in a few days-
Vicki: [00:02:00] Like me.
Vashti: Yes. They'll just sit there and go, right, this week we are just at home, we're doing nothing but using the toilet and they can get it over and done with in less than a week. [Bray 00:02:10] perfect example, he was fully toilet trained before he was 18 months because I'd thought, right, enough, that's it, we're gonna do it, I'm gonna have him out of nappies before Michaela came along. Now admittedly, we did regress a bit when Michaela came along, which is really normal. If you're toilet training your older child because you're pregnant [00:02:30] or you're having a new baby join the house, or anything like that, it is really normal for [inaudible 00:02:35] any sort of, big change around that time. Regressing is very. But once we got back to everyone else out of the house and just gone and it was jut back to normality, he was back in undies. And he was only 18 months, well he was 21 months when Micheala-
Andrew: What are the secrets to toilet training? Because I remember with Gabriel, Gabriel just decided.
Vicki: No, well we did it completely differently with the three kinds and, again, we did the whole [00:03:00] summer thing. Generally for all the, I know definitely the girls were three days. The thing was, we did wait for them. They were that little be older. They were sitting the two, two years one month age and what we did is, not forgetting we did call [thumber 00:03:19] so, a child that is in cloth nappies is, by the time they're two, they're aware of what wetness is and that starts when they're a new born baby. Those pathways have already been [00:03:30] written so what we did is we went from nappies to nude to nickers. See, because what I've found is, if we put nickers on, we get a lot more accidents because there was still something touching their vagina. There was still fabric touching their vagina but when they were naked, it was all aired out and it felt different and I think that really helped.
We also found their trigger. Potties didn't work. I remember Arabella, trying to get her to pee in the potty, sitting [00:04:00] her in front of the toilet, in front of the TV and all that.
Andrew: I don't think we got any of them to pee in the potty.
Vashti: No.
Vicki: No. What worked for us was the ladder on the toilet because they were big girls. Then, of course, Abby, well, I mean she was three days but, Arabella wanted to be a big girl so seeing her big sister use the toilet was a huge trigger for her, still is. Oh my gosh. It's just the whole middle child thing. So I wanna do what my big sister is doing.
Andrew: Yeah, where's [00:04:30] my phone?
Vicki: Yeah, she gets so [crosstalk 00:04:32] and already she's nine. It like, where's my phone.
Andrew: Where's my laptop.
Vicki: When you get to high school, darling.
Andrew: [inaudible 00:04:34] where's my laptop.
Vicki: So yeah, we found that and with Gabriel it was the same, he was happy to, he wanted to wee like dad. I remember saying to you, you've got to take him into the toilet with you so he can see, and Andrew hates the fact that I taught him to use toilet paper to wipe. That was my gift to my future daughter-in-law. Andrew hates it, you know. It's actually got to the stage, I think [00:05:00] he's growing out of it a bit, but he wouldn't actually do a bush wee. At all. Because it's like, well there's no toilet paper, so I think Andrew has taught him how to shake now.
Andrew: [crosstalk 00:05:11].
Vicki: But I know that was part of the process, was getting him to go, and watch you go to the toilet, as embarrassed as you were about it. I don't know, as moms we have-
Andrew: Because he compares sizes.
Vicki: Well we're fucked that you have a size issue. Comparison with your five year old, with your [00:05:30] three year old son.
Andrew: He saw, daddy you're, you know. I don't need that from my son. It was okay to hear it from the nurses. Oh, wow, your son. I thought they were just trying to chat me up but nah they said it was-
Vicki: As moms, we're very used to children coming in and toilet time is never...
Vashti: You're never alone. Never.
Vicki: Never get a break. But yet, I know for Andrew it was very much a struggle for you to like, oh [00:06:00] I don't want him to watch me wee, but it was such an important thing because I sat on the toilet. So, it was easy to teach the girls to do that, that's not what Gabriel was, and as soon as you did that, he toilet trained really quickly. Those poo's though.
Andrew: True.
Vicki: Those poo's just took a lot longer. He just-
Andrew: He just- He didn't want to something to leave his body.
Vicki: Yeah. It scared him.
Vashti: It's the void. Because there's a big drop, for a little child, there's a big drop from the seat down to the water.
Vicki: And the splash.
Vashti: And it splashes back up and water touches [00:06:30] their bottom.
Andrew: I kept saying to him, mate you don't need it anymore.
Vicki: [crosstalk 00:06:34] but when you think of the psychology of that, the child poo's in their nappy and it's pressed against their bottom, so they feel it. So it's still a part of them. So even though it's stinky and dirty and makes them feel uncomfortable or what have you, that whole psychology of it. Poo's are very different to a wee. So, it's so common for kids not to want to poo on the toilet.
So with all of them, we just went, nappies, [00:07:00] naked and then into nickers and jocks and look, to be perfectly honest, and I actually feel a bit guilty saying this. We had next to no accidents. We didn't use training pants. It's why I've never personally developed one.
Andrew: [crosstalk 00:07:15].
Vicki: We don't know how. But it's not, this whole episode is not really my forte because I just. It would be like me talking about how many accidents you're having in disposables [00:07:30] and stuff like that. I never used disposables. I used them once with Gabriel when he had a staph infection for a week. That's all I've ever used disposable nappies.
Vashti: See, for us it was really different because [Bray 00:07:41] was so easy to toilet train. We did that whole nappies, nude, nickers. Michaela on the other hand, and I wonder if it was partly, if it relates back to her allergy to disposables when she was just born, like a newborn, but she was really difficult to toilet train and I was really quite surprised because everyone says, [00:08:00] girls are easier to train than boys and I thought I would have more success training her because she'd just do what I did. But she took a long time to toilet train and she would get this whole, it would come on very quickly. She would be going along no dramas and then all of a sudden she'd be like, need to do a wee mama, and it was that. So, she wasn't getting those pre-cursing warnings, so toilet training pants for her were a really good thing because it meant that, with the training pants on, I could still go out and do the grocery shopping, and even if I did [00:08:30] take her to the toilet before we started the grocery shop, more often than not, we would get halfway through or we'd get to the cold section, towards the end of the shop, and she'll be like-
Vicki: Cold section.
Vashti: I need to do a wee. It was always, I would get to the cold section, and she's like, I got to wee mum. I've had enough time to dump the trolley at the service desk, and get down to the toilet, and quite often, she would have had a little bit come out but I was much more comfortable having that bit come out into the toilet training pants, rather than there being a trail all the way through the [00:09:00] supermarket. Or regrettably, puddle in the trolley all over my groceries that I hadn't even paid for yet.
Andrew: Bet you wouldn't pay for them though, would ya?
Vashti: Well, that's not very fair, really.
Andrew: That's called waste [inaudible 00:09:11].
Vashti: Kyle has been the same. Kyle has been really hard to toilet train. He's three and a half now and he's only just, a few months ago, fully got it. So, once again we've-
Vicki: Do you find its a switch though?
Vashti: There is. It was definitely a switch, it was-
Vicki: So the day, with [Kylin 00:09:27], you've been trying to toilet train the entire, and [00:09:30] then just one day he gets it.
Vashti: Yeah, no. It was definite. And we were sure. We waited for the kids to show signs. [Kylin 00:09:38], he was around about 18 months and he was interested in using the toilet. He was interested in going and stuff like that and he was trying to take his nappy off.
Vicki: But is that like the same sort of, interest in vegetables. Its like, oh I think I like these but, you know. I'll give it a go but I'm not gonna sit with it.
Vashti: It was that whole, he was trying to take his nappy off as soon as he'd done a wee or something like that so we were like okay, [00:10:00] yes. He's ready. Lets start toilet training.
Vicki: See, I waited until after that.
Vashti: Yeah.
Vicki: Maybe that's it, I don't know.
Or all kids are just different. I think that's probably.
Vashti: Yeah, I definitely think that's it.
Andrew: [inaudible 00:10:12] why the babies don't come with a manual, they're all different.
Vashti: They are.
Vicki: And they certainly don't tell you about 13 year olds, in the manual. When you take these baby home, they don't tell you that, one day you're gonna have a teenager.
Andrew: So, is there a cloth nappy training pants?
Vashti: There are. There [00:10:30] are many cloth nappy training pants out there. Most of them, are very similar to undies but they've got some absorbency in them and it's only a small amount of absorbency, they're not designed to hold a full wee, they're designed to catch a small wee.
Andrew: Catch a mistake, is that a good job?
Vashti: Yeah, a lot of them will have a layer of PUL in them as well so it gives you that water proof layer.
Vicki: So what if they do, do a full wee? It's gonna leak?
Vashti: It's gonna leak.
Andrew: Damn them leaks.
Vashti: Well, yes.
Andrew: That'll teach them.
Definitely leaks into their shoes.
Vicki: Is it the same with [00:11:00] disposable ones too?
Vashti: Most disposable toilet training pants, yeah. They're not designed to catch a full wee. They're just designed to catch that first bit or just to hold it for five minutes. Just enough time for you to realise that they've done a wee, or enough time for them to realise that they've done a wee and let you know and you can get it straight off. Its not designed, hold the wee like a nappy is.
Vicki: Okay. So I really wasn't kidding when I said that this is so not my forte.
Andrew: Yeah, I've [00:11:30] never experienced it.
Vashti: No, look. I'm a massive fan of trainers. As I said, it allows you to get out of the house when your child is in that toilet training phase but not quite there yet or if you're going for a long drive in the car or something like that and, we've had it, when we moved from Victoria back to Brisbane, we tried to do the drive like, put the kids in their pyjamas and throw them in the car straight after dinner and get on the road and drive through the night. Well, [00:12:00] sure enough, I was driving and decided I needed to go to the toilet so I pulled over at a service station and while I-
Vicki: Put on your training pants.
Vashti: No, but the minute I pulled out of the service station, I opened the door and brave Michaela and Bray were all dead to the world, put open the door and the truck next to me decided to start up, which woke everyone in the car up so they were all awake from that point forward. Now, if I hadn't had the training pants for [Bray 00:12:29], halfway up the road, [00:12:30] well, an hour up the road and then we took him to the toilet then and there and hour up the road and he needed to go again and we were on a very narrow stretch of the freeway, where we couldn't pull over to the sides. It gave us that little bit of a buffer zone that meant that he had an accident, because we couldn't pull over, but it didn't destroy his seat. He didn't have a fully wet car seat which would have really stunk. Like [crosstalk 00:12:53]-
Vicki: Get towels in the car. You know, we should do an episode on the toolkit for any mom. And the towels. Towels [00:13:00] in the car they're great for wee, they're great for vomit-
Vashti: Well, that's where your terry flats come in.
Vicki: Yes. Terry flats.
Andrew: The trick is to keep them with the spare tyre. Don't...
Vicki: We just shove ours in the spare tyre.
Andrew: Shove them in the spare tyre and then you don't have to worry about somebody taking them out of the car. They're always in the car.
Vicki: Exactly.
Andrew: So there's gadgets out there, probably going to help with this sort of thing. What are your favourite gadgets to help with toilet training?
Vashti: We love the wee man. The wee man is just-
Vicki: I wasn't to get one of those.
Vashti: Weren't you?
Vicki: No.
Andrew: Because I thought it would stink.
Vashti: [crosstalk 00:13:28] loved it.
No, it's fantastic. [00:13:30] It's a little plastic thing-
Vicki: Urinal.
Vashti: It's a urinal, but it actually hangs off your toilet bowl on the outside, so it brings it down low enough for your toddler boy to stand up to wee. If you're getting to the point where you-
Vicki: Where they're hanging it over the edge and you go, oh, it would be really awful if that toilet seat fell on him.
Andrew: I know. That's the worst thing [crosstalk 00:13:53].
Vicki: He's said that multiple times.
Andrew: That's the first thing I thought when I saw Gabriel weeing, because he's.
Vicki: He's trying to stand there and they try to hang [00:14:00] it over the edge and they're not quite tall enough-
Vashti: And he'd refuse to touch it, he'd try to hold it by the foreskin. Like pinch it. It's like, sweet heart it's okay. You can.
Andrew: You explain he doesn't want to touch it when he's weeing but he touches is all the other time.
Vicki: He won't take his hand off at any other time.
Vashti: Yeah, no, but we love the wee man and the great thing about it is, it's got this little clip that hooks on to the lip of your toilet and it's almost hinged so when they do wee, you can pick it up, and flick it into the toilet so you don't [00:14:30] have to take it off and you don't have to touch the wee or anything. You just flick it over, and then you flush. And the flush will actually clean the wee man out as well.
Vicki: I guess so, so it kind of ah.
Andrew: Alright, so that goes all the way in.
Vashti: Yeah, it goes all the way into the bowl of your toilet.
Andrew: And then gets washed off.
Vashti: As soon as you flush it-
Vicki: I know, wouldn't it have been a great idea?
Andrew: That's a great idea.
Vashti: It is awesome. Absolutely fantastic.
Andrew: It's too late for us, though.
Vicki: We could always have another child.
Andrew: It's too late for us.
Vashti: You're not having another child.
Vicki: [00:15:00] Yes, Andrew.
Andrew: Taps been turned off. Not opening.
Vashti: So, we had one for [Bray 00:15:08] and I actually passed it on to one of my friends for her little boy because he's a couple of years younger than Bray and she was having trouble, he wanted to stand up to wee but he wasn't quite tall enough to be able to be comfortable, and standing on a stool, there was always drips on the stool and stuff like that because they never get close enough or they're a bit wobbly or whatever.
Vicki: Oh that [00:15:30] goes from kids.
Vashti: Yeah.
Vicki: Happens pretty [inaudible 00:15:33] for us.
Vashti: But yeah, no definitely.
Andrew: She's been the dog.
Vashti: I loved wee man. It was fantastic. So if you get to the point where your little boy wants to stand up and pee like daddy, then I would definitely recommend looking at one of those.
Andrew: Because we used steps.
Vicki: The steps door one.
Andrew: The steps door one. And Gabriel would take it off and he'd put it up against the wall and put it there and it was basically a seat with some steps and you could pop up the seats and sit down.
Vicki: It was all about [00:16:00] making him, not so much independent, but giving him that control. And we found that's why it worked for all of our kids. [crosstalk 00:16:07].
Vashti: Well, see we've got control. We've got the little IKEA step stool. We've got the two sizes, the really small one, which allows you to climb up but we've also got the bigger one which allows him to get up to the sink and be at a good height to wash his hands.
Andrew: This one also made the bowl smaller too.
Vicki: So they didn't have the whole fear of falling in.
Andrew: They didn't have the whole fear of falling in the toilet because-
Vashti: We've got the... [00:16:30] I would love to get the toilet seat that has two seats. So you can actually have your normal toilet seat and then you can fold down a child toilet seat that sticks over the top.
Andrew: Oh wow, that's pretty.
Vashti: But they're a little bit expensive. So what we've got is just a moulded plastic one that sits on the top. We used to have the soft cushy one, I definitely don't recommend the soft cushy toilet seat because the plastic-
Vicki: I can imagine, that bacteria.
Vashti: Well, the plastic tends to crack slightly after it's been around the house for [00:17:00] a couple of years. It's foam on the inside, and wee gets in there. It really does, it's gross. It's foul. So if you've, getting a toilet seat for your little one, get a moulded plastic one that can be washed.
Vicki: Washed in the shower.
Vashti: In the shower.
Vicki: Do you know what else you can was in the shower? High chairs. High chairs are amazing to wash in the shower.
Vashti: See, we've got the stogy trip trap this time round. We made that mistake the first time round.
Vicki: [crosstalk 00:17:23] we had and IKEA one.
Vashti: The first time round we got the.
Vicki: Fancy dancy.
Vashti: The fish price that's got the soft cushy [00:17:30] padding and it was foul, it was disgusting. This time round, I got stogy trip trap when got the baby set to go on it. Gumtree. Fantastic.
Vicki: See, we did the whole IKEA. Second time around, we did the IKEA one.
Vashti: But, my kids are still using their stogy trip trap so it's fantastic. It's...
Andrew: Well, the reason we had to buy another one is because we got rid of the first one because we planned children. Gabriel was done.
Vashti: Well, neither was Kyle. Actually, neither were any of my children.
Andrew: But we only found out after we'd got rid of everything.
Vashti: So [00:18:00] yeah, moulded toilet seat.
If you're toiled training and you're still heading out and about and stuff like that and your child will use a potty, having a potty in the car, and you can line it a with plastic bag if you want. So that you don't actually have to touch the wee or poo or whatever.
Andrew: What about if you put kitty litter in the bottom of it.
Vicki: You know what, you're laughing but that's not the worst idea you've ever had.
Andrew: Although kitty litter, they encapsulates [00:18:30] the smell a bit.
Vashti: So, having a potty in the back of your car. I mean, you could do it a couple of ways. You can have a large wet bag with the potty in there and some toe flats [inaudible 00:18:44] and some toilet paper, plastic bag and stuff like that. If it's just a wee, throw it into the bush somewhere and give it a wipe out and the pop it back in the wet bag and clean it out when you get home. But if it's a poo, you've got to actually use your plastic bag to pick poo up and contain the poo in it.
Andrew: Or you dig a hole.
Vashti: You could [00:19:00] dig a hole, but it's probably not a good idea to dig a hole at your local park.
Andrew: It's hard to get through that grass.
Vashti: But, and then you can deal with that when you get home. But yeah, toe flats [inaudible 00:19:17] are really awesome. Especially if you have accidents in the car seat or something like that, you can line the car seat up.
I have a car seat protector, which actually saved me a couple of weeks ago. Karlin's [inaudible 00:19:27] still likes to have a sleep in the car and I knew it was way [00:19:30] too early for him to go to sleep and sure enough, he had an accident and it was a huge one because I wasn't gonna wake, [inaudible 00:19:36] gonna have to deal with it. But the car seat protector saved the car seat. The car seat protector was for wee, but it hadn't actually leaked through onto the car seat itself.
Andrew: What Vicki did with her last car is she went and bought a car with leather seats. Sounds like, oh plush, leather seats, but she had leather seats for her accidents for the kids.
Vashti: Wipe it down.
But there's your terry flats [inaudible 00:19:59]. Awesome. Keep [00:20:00] them in the back of your car, set up a little emergency kit, and that way you can just change them as needed. Always have a couple of spare pair of undies and a couple changes of pants and stuff so you can get out and about still while you...
Andrew: Is there a difference of toilet training at night time? You're moving from night time nappies to toilet training?
Vashti: Every child does it differently. Some children will toilet train all in one hit, other kids will take longer to night train. I used to do the whole midnight wee's or before [00:20:30] I went to bed so it was normally around 10:30, 11 o' clock mark. I do the dream wee so-
Vicki: Yeah, dream wee. Bit like the dream feed.
Vashti: Yeah. I'd get my kids out of bed. I put them to bed without any nappy on or anything like that. Get them out of bed and I'd carry them down and pop them on the toilet and they'd be asleep and they'd wee-
Vicki: You have to talk to them. You're on the toilet now, it's time to wee. It's okay. Mummy's here.
Andrew: I remember doing that.
Vicki: You used to say mummy's here too, did you?
Andrew: Yeah. Because he wouldn't do it from daddy. So I had to say mummy's here and I had to change my voice too.
Vicki: Mummy's here.
Andrew: That's right. Or get you to call out from [00:21:00] the lounge room. Mummy's here. Better get back to our stories now.
Vashti: I was definitely a scaredy cat with the big two. Well, with the biggest one, he stayed in night nappies a lot longer than he probably should have but I would pop a nappy on them at that dream wee and that would get us through until morning and nine times out of ten the nappy was dry the next. Michaela, [00:21:30] I took out of night nappies a lot earlier, and my best suggestion to you there is get yourself a really good wet nap, and double make your bed. So, have two mattras protectors, so you have your matress, a matress protector with sheet, matress protector sheet and then a wet mat [inaudible 00:21:46] over the top so if you have any accidents. First time, you pull the wet mat off [inaudible 00:21:50] and then they've got the sheet and the matress protector. If there's another accident, you pull the top layer off and they've got another sheet and matress protectot. And that saves you having to remake beds [00:22:00] in the middle of the night because remaking beds in the middle of the night it sucks.
Vicki: Well, if you're just not quite that organised, you wouldn't be the first mother to ever just put a towel down and go back to bed.
Vashti: We have done that as well.
Vicki: Just to be fair.
Vashti: When they've wet our bed. When they've climbed [crosstalk 00:22:17] and then they've [crosstalk 00:22:19].
Vicki: Oh god.
Andrew: [inaudible 00:22:19].
Vicki: And they only ever wet the bed when the matress protector isn't on there.
Remember Arabella was our worst bed wetter.
Andrew: And you wonder why I didn't want the kids in our bed.
Vashti: [00:22:30] We ended up having. This is great, us having [inaudible 00:22:34], because we were done with children and once both of them were fully out of nappies I said right, lets get a new matress. And you know-
Vicki: We did that and then had another baby.
Vashti: Yeah. Now I have a very good quality matress protector and it never comes off the bed.
Andrew: It's funny, it was a baby show that we got our matress from. We went down to melville [inaudible 00:22:54] for a baby show and the matress that was in the hotel room was fantastic so we got ahead and we went and bought one.
Vashti: Oh, nice.
[00:23:00] No, mine was a latex one. It came in a tall box.
Vicki: Oh, one of the bed in the box things.
Vashti: It was wound up. I'm sitting there, looking at this box that's 30 by 30 but it was tall and I'm like, how did my kind size matress fit in there and I sliced open the box and bang, there's my matress taking up all my dining room and I'm like, how am I gonna get this into my bedroom.
Andrew: It's lucky ordered the right thing, you might have had a canoe.
Vashti: [00:23:30] Yeah, that's true.
Andrew: [inaudible 00:23:32] In your living room.
Vashti: So, but definitely, as Vicki said, no you won't be the first mother who's thrown a towel on the bed and go back to sleep.
Andrew: It doesn't make you a bad mother.
Vashti: No.
Andrew: It makes you a bad father, it doesn't make you a bad mother.
Vicki: Because they just snore through it.
Andrew: That's right, yes.
Vicki: Post-natal rage. Let's talk about post natal rage when you're husband is snoring like a fake train and you're there settling the baby for two hours. Middle of the night.
Andrew: I don't do that.
Vicki: [00:24:00] It's a real thing. Post-natal rage.
Andrew: [crosstalk 00:24:06] good night's sleep every night.
So, anything else you wanna cover on any other gadgets that? Is there much technology in the way of potties? Do potties talk to you?
Vicki: They've got the singing, weeing potty or something.
Andrew: Oh really? [crosstalk 00:24:18]. That's a real thing.
Vashti: It is. It's [crosstalk 00:24:21].
Vicki: Do you know what, if it works for your kids, great. Just, I can't.
Vashti: You can do reward systems. Some people have a rewards chart up there and every time [00:24:30] their child does a wee they pop a sticker on there and if it gets to ten stickers they get a treat.
Vicki: What did your mom do? Your mom-
Andrew: My mom had a reward thing. Mike, when Mike was potty training.
Vicki: He's the youngest.
Andrew: We'd get three smarties if we took him to the toilet.
Vashti: There you go.
Vicki: So reward the older children.
Andrew: We were the older children. He'd get three smarties if he did the wee and we'd get three smarties for taking him to the toilet.
Vashti: There you go.
Andrew: It's why I'm overweight now.
Vicki: Does he still get three smarties every time he does a wee? This is [00:25:00] why you go the toilet.
Andrew: That's right.
Vicki: [crosstalk 00:25:04] three smarties.
Andrew: Suffer for us. Don't tell my mother this, but some of them were phantom wee's. It's just the flush she was listening for, she wasn't listening to anything else.
Vashti: There's definitely high-tech potties out there but a good moulded toilet seat. They're gonna have to use the toilet sooner or later. And just follow your child's lead. Look for the cues that your child is interested. Don't make-
Vicki: Talk to them about it. [00:25:30] They can verbalise by that age. They may not have all of the words that they need but they've certainly got enough to be able to communicate with you, what's going on down there. Talk to them about it.
Vashti: And don't hide. As a mom, you're never gonna go to the toilet on your own. My 12 year old walked in on me on the toilet this morning.
Vicki: It's funny though, you try and walk in on a 12 year old, they don't appreciate it.
Vashti: No, they don't.
Vicki: No, I'm in here. It was like, [00:26:00] what, it's okay for you while I'm on the toilet, it's okay for you to walk into my bedroom and have a conversation with me but I can't do the same for you.
Vashti: Even while the toilet door is shut. My toilet door was shut. It was shut for a reason. That means that I don't want you to walk in.
Andrew: So, I don't mean to take this backwards a little bit but helping with when they know to do a wee. Is because with cloth nappies they feel when they wee in a sense? [00:26:30] What's triggering them to know when they have to wee?
Vicki: I think so. As I said, I think the pathways are built very early on. You're talking about single use nappies that draw all the moisture away so they never had, I'm wet, I'm uncomfortable, I don't like this feeling, I'm gonna cry kind of thing. But they have with cloth nappies. Even your micro-fleece liners and any of your stay dry fabrics and stuff like that, they don't do what the crystals or what a [00:27:00] single use nappy does. It literally is touch dry, whereas with a cloth nappy we can get [crosstalk 00:27:06] a dampness to it. I think, there are many studies that say that children in cloth nappies toilet train earlier.
Andrew: And it's because their body does something and they've got to physical trigger to know what they've done.
Vicki: And as I've said, because it's starting from when they're very very young, those signals are being, those pathways [00:27:30] are being built and it's a subconsious thing. The, all of a sudden, they get to the age where they do a wee and they're like, hang on a minute, and so they're actually starting to then make the connections of, I've done a wee, I'm wet, I'm uncomfortable, I don't cry, I need to go to the toilet. And then they start to understand the feelings. They go back a bit like, ah, hang on. I felt that funny feeling and then I was wet, and then I was uncomfortable. I think that's how it works but you know I'm not a scientist but [00:28:00] kind of just-
Vashti: Just a mom.
Vicki: Just a mom.
Andrew: Mom of three kids, mum of four kids.
Vicki: Three.
Vashti: Three.
Andrew: Three?
Vashti: Three.
Vicki: Four. Oh, [crosstalk 00:28:07].
Andrew: By the way you're talking, it feels like you've got four kids.
Vashti: No, there's only three, thanks very much.
Andrew: Mum of three kids, mum of three kids. Lots of experience. Anything else you guys want to add?
Vicki: No.
Vashti: I don't think so.
Vicki: Just follow your child's lead. Listen to your child and watch and when they're ready they'll let you know.
Andrew: Cool, thank you Vicki.
Vicki: Thanks Andrew.
Andrew: Thank you Vashti.
Vashti: Thanks Andrew.