Potty Training Tips: How Essential Oils Can Help with Night Time Potty Training

February 20, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

Disclaimer: I am sharing my own personal experience, but I am not offering medical advice of any sort. Essential oils are very potent so PLEASE take great care when administering them to young children, be liberal with your dilution, and carefully research the brand you choose, as the vast majority of essential oils on the market contain synthetic fillers. Please consult your physician should you have any questions or concerns. Essential oils have not been tested by the FDA. Affiliate links included. I love promoting what rocks my world!

As I announced yesterday, we are officially all done with diapers in my home. People, this is such a beautiful moment in my life! And while my youngest isn’t even yet 3, her potty training journey was a year long, and so we have been working on this for a long time.

easy ideas for using essential oils while potty training

Why have we been working on this for so long? Well, her older sister was 100% trained by the time she was 20 months old, so we assumed that our second child would do the same. And she DID show signs of interest in the potty early on. But she never was really willing to fully commit to it, and we’d go back and forth between thinking we were almost done altogether, to being right back in diapers full-time. Long story short, we made a lot of mistakes and didn’t follow the child the way we probably should have.

Night Time Potty Training

BUT…now that is all behind us, and little Layah decided that she was ready to be in underwear full-time, so here we are! After we overcame the issue of pooping in the potty, tackling the overnight potty training was the toughest piece for us. Since I love essential oils and love to incorporate them into our lives, I started to do some research on potty training tips that integrate essential oils and I found some GREAT ideas that I want to share with you all!

Potty Training Tips

First and foremost, give diffusing the Young Living blend Peace & Calming a try. I use this blend with my kiddos, anyway, just to help them unwind and relax. This will be an especially helpful blend for any child who experiences anxiety about going to bed at night due to bed-wetting. I find that 2 drops is plenty in the diffuser for getting the little ones off to sleep!

The second thing I’d recommend is making a glass roller ball with a dilution of Cypress Oil and a carrier oil of your choice (we love grapeseed oil). While the bottle states the dilution is not required, I always dilute oils for use on children. For me, the roller ball has 1 drop of cypress for every 3 drops of carrier oil. That is what I am comfortable with, but you should do what you are comfortable with! If my child was older, I would probably drop down to 1:2 or even 1:1, just depending on age. Apply this mixture right over the lower abdomen just before getting into bed. Cypress does wonders for helping little ones make it through the night! If you don’t see results immediately, give it time (at least a week and up to 2 weeks) because everyone is different and some people just take a bit more time to adjust to it. You can also increase the ratio of essential oil to carrier oil if you aren’t seeing results after a few weeks.

Third, I would suggest incorporating the Young Living oil blend called Valor and the Young Living oil blend Melrose. I personally would make a second glass roller ball with this concoction, and for every drop of essential oil I would have 3 drops of carrier oil. I would take the roller ball and rub it on the bottom of your child’s feet, paying careful attention to cover the bottom of the big toe (this is a Vita Flex connector point to the brain).

As you experiment with essential oils to help your little one stay dry all night long, you might even want to consider starting with just one oil or oil blend and see how it helps. If you aren’t seeing the results you were hoping for within 2 weeks, you could add something else to the mix. I would suggest starting first with Cypress simply due to the high success rates I have read about from others.

Another Resource

And if you are working hard on potty training right now and need some help figuring out how to wrap it all up and be done, I highly recommend Potty Train in a Weekend by fellow blogger Becky Mansfield. It’s a great affordable resource that you can download as soon as you purchase it. It gets rave reviews from parents everywhere who aren’t sure how to keep potty training from going on and on forever! Good luck!

One Simple Change Made the Difference: How We Potty Trained with Pull-Ups®

February 19, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · 8 Comments

After going back and forth with Layah for over a year on a “laid back” potty training approach, I threw my hands in the air and decided to try something new: we just stopped using diapers cold turkey. I made peace with having a bit of a mess to clean up during this transition, and I also purchased some Pull-Ups® Training Pants for night-time, when I know it is harder for toddlers to go accident-free, at least in the beginning of the effort. Pull-Ups® had recently reached out to partner together for a post since they knew we were still in the midst of potty training, and I decided that now was as good a time as any to try a different approach since Layah wasn’t fully committing to being out of diapers. Want to hear about what happened when we simply removed diapers from the equation?

Short Answer: It Worked!

I kept my explanation of the changes we were making easy breezy with my daughter, and I had lots of very cool new things to show her, too. I laid out her super cool character underwear for day time and I also chose the so that she would be drawn to the designs on them, as well. Doc McStuffins and Ariel are some great new characters you’ll find on the designs for the girls, and the boys have Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Lightning McQueen. I explained that we would wear character underwear until we had an accident, and then if we had an accident, we would take a break and switch to underwear that didn’t have a design on it.

The main thing Layah was struggling with up to this point was pooping in the potty. This is a major sticking point for a lot of kids. She would ask for a diaper and we would often cave and give her one because let’s be real: who wants to clean poop out of underwear? It’s not high on my list of things I’m interested in doing.

So this time I explained to her that mommy and daddy and big sister were here to help her all day long and to get her to the potty any time she wanted to try, and that it was totally fine to try and not get the poop out on the first try. We could try again and again, no problem! BUT...if she pooped in her character underwear, unfortunately they would get so dirty that we would have to throw them away. I was VERY careful with my explanation of this because I did not want to make Layah feel any sort of shame. I was simply experimenting with a different consequence, as the previous consequence for pooping in her underwear, which was to help us clean it up, didn’t seem to be having much of an impact. And to be honest, I wasn’t so sure that she would care at all whether or not her character underwear got tossed in the garbage.

But guess what? She NEVER pooped in her pants again. She even took herself to the potty several times that first day until she was successful. And OH MY GOSH did we throw an impromptu party for that kid once she pooped in the potty. You would have thought that we had won the lottery by the level of celebration happening!

To further boost Layah’s confidence once she conquered her big hurdle of pooping in the potty, we made use of Pull-Ups® Training Pants at bedtime. We simply called them night time underwear and showed her that you put them on and take them off the same way. We talked about how it would be fine to take trips to the potty during the night and how she could call for us if she needed help. For the first few nights, we were getting up to do a few potty sessions with her and she did wake up a few times having gone potty in her sleep. But she very quickly started to shift to waking herself up and going potty all by herself.

And now? More nights than not, she makes it through the entire night completely dry, and she is good about taking herself potty first thing in the morning. Our youngest is now potty trained.

photo credit: BLUE SKY2 via photopin (license)

It took forever and a day, but once we changed the tactic around and simply removed the crutch (diapers), the process wrapped up very quickly. If you are just getting started with potty training instead of being in the thick of it, you might want to think about starting with Pull-Ups® full-time while your child adjusts to learning how to start using the potty. Then you can gradually start introducing underwear during the day time until your child is in underwear 100% of the day, and after that, tackling night time potty training will likely not take very long, either. Pull-Ups® are a great addition to the potty training experience because they get kids started right away with training on how to be independent by taking their underwear off and putting it back on (thanks to those nice, stretchy sides) while also offering a level of protection against those accidents that are frequent in the beginning.

Special Coupon Offer

If you are ready to ditch diapers and give this approach to potty training a try, be sure to get the awesome coupon for (size Jumbo or higher) currently being offered. You can take $2 off, which is great, and if you share the coupon via social media, you get an upgrade to a $3 off coupon! .

The Pull-Ups® Big Kid Academy

If you want a customized road map for your potty training journey, be sure to enroll in the Big Kid Academy at . It’s totally free, and totally helpful, as you’ll find activities and advice perfect for wherever you may find yourself on the road to potty training. Parents can find expert advice there, too! And don’t miss out on the Pull Ups® Time to Potty App! Your toddler probably already wants to play with your phone, so you might as well bring in some helpful potty training resources during phone time!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Pull-Ups®.

Another Resource

If you are in need of a resource to help you kick potty training into high gear, I have heard RAVE reviews for blogger Becky Mansfield’s ebook, Potty Train in a Weekend. Definitely check that out if you have a feeling that with the right approach, your little one can finish up potty training quickly!

When Potty Training Doesn’t Go As Planned: Huggies to the Rescue

September 8, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 5 Comments

This post brought to you by Huggies and Kleenex. All opinions are 100% mine.

You guys, I have a confession to make: Layah, who is now 2 years and 4 months old, is still not fully potty trained. That may not sounds like anything strange until you hear that we have been working with her on learning to use the potty for over a year now.

But here’t the thing: our first child was 100% out of diapers by 20 months. We never even bought training pants. I actually wrote a post about how we potty trained so early, and it is one of my all-time most popular posts. Google basically thinks I’m an expert on how to get your toddler to give up diapers at a really young age.

And you know what? I sort of thought I was an expert at that, too! That is, until Layah had her own ideas about how potty training would go down. She knows how to the use the potty, and she will typically successfully use the potty anywhere from 1-3 times per day. But if she doesn’t feel like doing it, then guess what? SHE WON’T!!!

I can’t tell you how many times I have declared that we are through with diapers. At least half a dozen. Just when I think we’re all done, she decides that she isn’t quite done, after all.

So once again I found myself picking up some Huggies® at Sam’s Club. These are great to send it to school with her because they are roomy (I bought size 5 diapers…a true first for us!) and because they have a VERY cool double-grip feature. I always liked Huggies Little Movers when I used them with Darah, but this is a new and improved version, and it’s really great! We haven’t had any problems with it overnight and because it grips in two places, Layah doesn’t try too much to take them off, either. She will sometimes get past the first grip, and then she gives up when she realizes that the diaper didn’t fall off. Score!!!

If you’d like to learn more about the new and improved Little Movers or about other Huggies® Products available, check out http://SamsClub.com/Huggies. There’s even a special photo offer you can check out, exclusive to Sam’s Club!

And if you want to know about early potty training, here’s my new advice on the topic: it’s 10% about what you are doing to train and 90% about when your child is ready. Good luck!

Another Resource

If you are working hard on potty training right now and need some help figuring out how to wrap it all up and be done, I highly recommend Potty Train in a Weekend by fellow blogger Becky Mansfield. It’s a great affordable resource that you can download as soon as you purchase it. It gets rave reviews from parents everywhere who aren’t sure how to keep potty training from going on and on forever! It’s not something I knew about when we were going through all of this, but based on what I’ve heard from people who have used the book, it would have helped us! Good luck!

Potty Training: How I Get My Kids to Use the Potty So Early

September 3, 2013 · by Tiffany Merritt · 55 Comments

Potty training is happening in my home once again. Layah has been working on how to use the potty for a month, now. I should probably mention for all the new readers out there that Layah is just shy of 16 months old.

Do you think I’m crazy/silly/delusional for potty training such a young toddler? It’s cool. You wouldn’t be the first!

But the fact of the matter is this: our first child was 100% potty trained by 20 months using the same method that we are using now, and so far, so good with the second one. So for those of you out there who are interested in potty training tips, especially for younger toddlers, I’d love to share with you what we do!

How to Potty Train

Let me preface by saying this: every child is different. I am not claiming to have a method that will work for every child. But I don’t think my children are exceptionally gifted or exceptionally rare when it comes to potty training abilities. I think that early potty training is a possibility for many children if they are given the opportunity to try it out! I also think that parents need to read up on different approaches and develop a strategy BEFORE their child is ready to potty train. You want to be prepared so that if your child starts to show readiness for using the potty, even before you thought they might, that you are ready to get started!

I would call our approach “laid-back” early potty training. This is not the method for anyone who wants to be all done in 3 days or 24 hours or anything like that. We worked on potty training with our first starting at 13 months and while she was all done by 20 months, you can see now that the process of potty training took 7 months. But it also came without any tears and with remarkably few accidents. Here’s what it did take: LOTS AND LOTS of time in the bathroom, sitting on the potty. Reading books. Waiting.

What you need:

1. an infant potty seat. We have a two-story house, so we actually have two! Our current favorite is one Prince Lionheart recently sent our way, the pottyPOD Basix (I always shop at Amazon, but JCPenney also carries this particular seat). It is very important for a child to have a seat that they can hop on and off that is at their level. It gives them more of a sense of control, and also rapidly increases their comfort level with potty training. We had the potty seat out for a few weeks before we even talked about it with Layah, giving her time to get used to seeing it and to develop her curiosity about it, without feeling stressed.

2. sign language. Communication is a key part of potty training, no matter the age. Your child needs to be able to tell you when s/he needs to use the bathroom, or when s/he just used the bathroom (either in a diaper or in the potty). We started teaching baby sign language potty training terms to Layah at the same time that we introduced the potty seat. Since she already uses sign language, she was very quick to pick up on the sign for “potty” and within a month, was using the sign gleefully any time she sat on the potty. She also started telling us when she just went potty in her diaper. That’s a HUGE step forward for potty training, as a child has to be aware of her bodily functions before she can exercise control over them.

3. a potty schedule. Currently we are in the phase of potty training where we put her on the potty as soon as she wakes up in the morning, as well as right before bed. We have a pile of books in the bathroom to read to her while she sits (be sure to have a potty time book in the pile!). The longer we can get her to sit there, the more likely she will go potty. But we don’t force it. If she is adamant about being all done with her potty time, we tell her that we are going to put a diaper on her now, and then we go on about our day. Currently, she is using the potty about 25% of the time that we put her on it, which isn’t too bad!

After your child gets very used to morning and evening potty sessions, begin to incorporate potty time 10 minutes after every meal that you are together. I am just about to get started with this phase, and it will involve setting the timer so that I don’t forget! You will notice your potty success rate go up dramatically when you add this step in, and along with that success, please do heap on the praise for your child for using the potty. This will build their confidence and their own joy about using the potty instead of their diaper.

4. a plan for wrapping things up. We knew that our first was ready to totally finish her potty training once she started going to a corner and hiding when she pooped. So at that point, I told her all about big girl underwear and how she was ready to start wearing it because she knew when she needed to potty, she knew how to tell us, and she even knew how to sit on her potty seat. Over a 2 day period, we gave Darah lots of water and juice and put her on the potty every 2o minutes on day one, and every 30 minutes on day 2. She wore big girl underwear all day. And she had 2 accidents on the first day. She actually told me about them, believe it or not! She was accident-free the second day.

Overnight Potty Training Tips

After she was fully potty trained during the day, we immediately began potty training for night-time. She has been receiving a bottle before bed, so over a 4 day period, we reduced the amount of milk she got in her bottle. And I’m going to tell you the truth, folks. She was cool with it for the first 2 days, but by day 3 she was NOT happy with how little milk she was getting. This was the only time in the whole potty training experience that crying happened, and it wasn’t because of having to use the potty, but rather, because of giving up her bottle. BUT…the drama was over fairly quickly, and because she was no longer drinking 6 ounces of fluids right before bed, she pretty much stopped using the bathroom at night! I do brag about the fact that we never purchased a single package of Pull-Ups. Our checking account was SO thankful! I will say that at 20 months, Darah did sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and ask to go potty (we could hear her thanks to the monitor). So be prepared for possible middle of the night potty breaks.

So that’s how we potty trained our first by 20 months, and it is the path we are currently on for our second. It definitely takes a lot of time, but it is a powerful example of just what little ones can accomplish if you give them the chance!

Looking for a Different Approach?

I fully understand that the approach we took with potty training isn’t right for everyone. If you are looking for something a little different (perhaps for an older toddler who might be ready to train quickly). In this case, I’ve heard rave reviews about blogger Becky Mansfield’s ebook, Potty Train in a Weekend. It’s definitely worth a look to see if that’s a better option for you!

Other Resources

Essential Oils and Overnight Potty Training

Affiliate links may be included, always at no cost to you!

The Answer To How I Potty Trained My Child So Early (And Kept My Sanity)

July 24, 2011 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

Darah was 100% potty trained by the time she was 20 months old. Wanna hear all my secrets? Come visit me at Family Focus Blog where I’m giving you the scoop on the “laid-back” early potty training approach we took! While you are there, poke around Scarlet’s site. I’m a blog reader of hers and love her posts! You might, too!

Does Darah Prefer Boxers or Briefs? (GIVEAWAY!!!)

June 15, 2011 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned this a few times in recent posts, but in case you missed it, Darah is officially 100% potty trained (even overnight!). She has been in underwear full time for about 7 weeks now. Overall, it has been AWESOME (said by the person who does most of the cloth diaper laundry!).

But let me tell you about what has NOT been awesome: the search for underwear that fits and that stays put.

Yeah, pretty much that has been a disaster. Darah is on the young end for being potty trained, and she is also on the small end for kids her age. She can still wear 12-18 month clothes. There’s just no such thing as that size underwear, at least not that I could find, and even size 18-24 months is really tough to find.

As a result, most of Darah’s underwear has to be rolled to stay put, and even then it is very big on her, and looks awkward under her fitted pants. There’s just too much material bunched up!

But then I heard about Girl Gotch, which was started by a fabulous mom named Rebecca who ran into similar problems when potty training her daughter in the summer of 2008. Her little one always was pulling and adjusting her underwear because it kept riding up on her. While having a playdate, her daughter had an accident but didn’t have a change of clothes. In a pinch, she borrowed some little boys’ underwear. They worked like magic, providing full coverage and staying put! Light bulb!!!!

So Rebecca designed a line of underwear modeled after those boy styles with the thicker elastic bands, but put a girly spin on it by offering them in bright, bold colors. She also created a line of little boxers for girls (I’d say they are close to boxer-briefs).

You guys. This underwear is SO STINKIN’ CUTE. And perhaps more importantly, it does exactly what it claims! It stays put! And Darah absolutely loves them. The day they came in the mail, she saw them and immediately took off the underwear she had on, right there on the spot, and asked for her, “new yellow underwear, please.” She knew they were going to rock, I guess!

Any time I give her a choice of which pair of underwear she wants to put on, she ALWAYS chooses a Girl Gotch, and since she has both the boxers and briefs, I can tell you that she picks the boxers first! 🙂

Buy it!: Girl Gotch underwear is available online. They are sold in packs of 3 for $15.99. Most size 2T underwear currently falls off Darah, but Girl Gotch 2T fits her perfectly, so that may mean that they run a little bit small. Sizes go from 2-6!

Win it!: One lucky winner will win a 3 pack of Girl Gotch underwear in your choice of briefs or boxers! The contest will run until June 25th at 11:49pm EST when a winner will be selected via Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to winning notification before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States and Canada. Limit one entrant per household, please.

Mandatory entry: Girl Gotch wants to be friends with you on Facebook, so follow them and then come back here and tell me you did!

Additional entries:

1. Sponsor love: Follow Girl Gotch on Twitter

2. Blogger love: Follow Stuff Parents Need on Twitter

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my homepage.

Disclosure: I received complimentary products for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.