Potty Training - How We Did It

Across generations, one of the quietest yet most emotionally loaded transitions in early childhood has been learning how to listen to the body. Potty training is often treated like a logistical milestone, but for toddlers it is deeply emotional, neurological and relational all at once. Children are not simply learning where to go to the bathroom — they are building body awareness, confidence, communication and trust within the parent-child relationship.

In a nutshell, it is rebuilding a neural network in the toddler’s brain about the steps involved in going to the bathroom. I think of potty training as a combination of physical, emotional and mental processes, with tremendous potential for shame, guilt and under-confidence to seep in if the process is not handled thoughtfully by the adults. There is a huge emotional element to this process, so we intentionally chose to err on the side of being extra soft and comforting.

Usual brain circuitry:

Step 1 - Realizing the body needs to go

Step 2 - Going into the diaper

The potty training process is teaching them to INSERT two steps between 1 and 2 above:

Step 1 - Realizing the body needs to go

Step 2 - Speak up: “I need to go” OR take oneself to the bathroom

Step 3 - Take off bottoms, underwear and climb up to the toilet

Step 4 - Go into the toilet

As with anything that requires rewiring habit structures and building new neural pathways, this takes time. If you dedicate your entire being to it for the first three days, you are already 80% of the way there. The role of the adults matters enormously in this process.

What we did was read the book (3 Day Potty Training) and come prepared to genuinely make this fun for the adults too.

Adults have to self-discipline for this to be a success. Keep a three-day stretch at home where you are hyper-focused on the child so that YOU are essentially overlaying a new brain circuitry by DISALLOWING the previous brain circuits to continue firing and wiring.

In other words, the adults cannot:

• Look at your phone for longer than 30 seconds
• Lose sight of the toddler
• Leave the house with the toddler
• Bring work home

Every opportunity to go to the bathroom becomes a chance to slowly but surely reinforce the new habit structure in their brain.

You watch them like a hawk and gently help them practice the “new habit.” Then comes the most important part — you get genuinely excited and proud of them, so they become intrinsically motivated to repeat the behavior.

Like any new habit: repeat, repeat, repeat — and eventually the brain builds an entirely new neural network.

Day 1 — REALLY make it fun for the adults. If the adults are having a good time, the toddler naturally mirrors the excitement and enthusiasm. We created a station on the kitchen counter where Margot stood on her wooden stool while I placed six see-through glass cups and four drinking cups nearby.

The glass cups held four kinds of drinks and two kinds of snacks. REALLY exciting drinks — honey milk lattes, coconut water, fresh apple juice and fresh orange juice. Snacks included gluten-free crackers and plantain chips. Music was on, Mom and Dad were happy, present and dancing, and naturally Margot began feeling, “This is a party!”

Verbiage that was repeated gently and playfully — never annoyingly:

“Listen to your body.”
“Let us know when you need to go to the bathroom.”
“We don’t like yuckies in our underwear.”

We also created a little jingle:

“Steps, underwear, top!”

This helped teach her the sequence once she entered the bathroom.

Margot would say, “I need to go potty!” and run toward the bathroom.

She would repeat: “Steps, underwear, top!” then sit down, pee successfully, and Mama would shriek with excitement and celebration.

Treat time: We used dates, pitted and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 date treat for pee
• 2 date treats for poop

Accidents were intentionally kept emotionally neutral. We would calmly say, “Margot, look, this is an accident. We don’t want yuckies in our underwear,” and move on immediately. No guilting, no shame, no visible frustration, no lecturing.

By the end of Day 1, we had zero accidents and approximately fifteen successful bathroom trips.

Days 2 and 3 were very similar. By then, it became obvious why many adults dread potty training — not because it is hard for the child, but because it requires intense presence, monotony and consistency from the adults. No phones. No work. No mental escape.

Days 4–8 — preschool week. We prepped her constantly in the car:

“Margot, you did SO good listening to your body. Now when you need to go at school, you tell the teachers and they’ll take you to the bathroom.”

We also shared our exact language and philosophy with her teachers, and thankfully our school strongly values parent-teacher collaboration. She successfully alerted teachers almost every single time during that first week.

Days 9–30 — We still repeated “Listen to your body, Margot” multiple times each day. The biggest triggers for accidents seemed to be deep play, overstimulation or emotional disruption. Once, she had an accident when the car suddenly braked hard on the way to school. There is clearly an emotional component woven throughout this entire process.

Day 15 — We stopped using diapers for naps because they had consistently been dry.

Day 25 — Overnight diapers were dry too.

Now Margot proudly says, “Mama, I had no yuckies in my underwear ALL DAY!” and everyone rejoices — Dadda, Mama, Nani, Marley, all of us. It truly felt like such a meaningful milestone: teaching her an entirely new skill while staying emotionally steady and connected through the frustrating moments too.

After all, isn’t this the crux of parenting? Parenting truly feels like a fast-track to enlightenment.

Looking back, what feels most meaningful is not simply that Margot learned to use the bathroom independently, but the emotional safety surrounding the process itself. Children learn best when they feel calm, connected and unashamed. And perhaps that is one of the deepest invitations within parenting: to slow ourselves down enough to meet childhood with patience, presence and gentleness.