As a mum of an almost 2 year old, I gotta say toilet training has gotta be the most difficult thing to do so far! Worse than sleep training. Ok maybe they are on par. I think I am managing better with cleaning up pee and poo compared to sitting outside the room listening to Sophie cry. But as with everything else, it’s so shiok once they are done with the training! It’s all worth it!
Ok I’m going to share how we did it but I do not in anyway recommend what we did simply coz I’m so haphazard. I read a couple (ok.. just 2) of books and anything that was more than a chapter long, I junked it. How can anyone read or even write a whole book on potty training?!? I found one which i liked (Toddlerwise by Gary Ezzo) and used my gut feel as we went along.
Erm… I need to admit, we didn’t start toilet training because Sophie showed any signs that she was ready e.g running to hide when she need to do a poo/pee, etc. I started because i wanted her to be toilet trained by the time we went on our trip. The only sign I had was that she was dry most days during her naptime. I thought that was a pretty good sign that she could control her bladder. How did I know? She bathes before she naps so she always had on a clean diaper and I checked once she woke up. That meant that she could hold her bladder for at least 2 hrs.
Here’s how I see it in stages:
Stage 1 - Introduction to the Potty
Sophie refused to have anything to do with the potty when we first started. I’m not sure how she developed a phobia for it but I’m quite sure it was a phobia. We had to bribe her with stickers, then it progressed to marshmallows, then to Yakult! Terrible ah? But since it was suggested by the book, I thought I’d try it and it worked like magic! After a day or so, she was willing to sit on it.
Stage 2 - Business in the Potty on my demand
Once she was willing to sit on the potty, I quickly moved onto training pants/shorts sans diapers through the day. We made it a point to stay home for 2-3 days in a row. But I couldn’t tahan and our training became adhoc. I think this was my mistake but I cannot stay home for too long cleaning up after Sophie. We decided to just take it slow.
I would make her go on the potty every 1/2 hr to 1 hr. If she peed in potty, she got a reward (one of those mentioned above). And after a while, whenever I put her on the potty, she peed. Once she was ok with it, we dropped the rewards.
Ok here’s when it got complicated coz I think I started too early. She didn’t know how to tell me she needed to go for at least 3 weeks so if I wasn’t paying attention, I’d had to clean up her accidents thru the day. At this point, I almost gave up. But there was a breakthrough in about wk 4. SO LONG!
Stage 3 - Business in the Potty when she needs to
Suddenly she started telling me that she needed to pee. She just got it! Patience really paid off in this case. Once she told me she wanted to "she she" and I brought her to the toilet and she said "no no I want sushi!" No wonder! Normally she says "pee pee" not "she she". Once she started telling me, it was so much easier.
Stage 4 - Business in the Toilet Bowl using a toddler seat
I thought we would have difficulty here like how we had to convince her to use the potty but she was totally fine. She transitted to using the toilet bowl in a day. I think it’s coz it’s a novelty to flush the toilet and Maisy does it too. The constant reference to cartoon characters/books helped.
Stage 5 - Diaper free out of the house
Once she was ok with it, we tried going out without diapers. She also did very well here. She told us when she had to go and she was ok going on the toilet bowl even without the seat.
We have done this for a few days already and so far so good! Yay!
Stage 6 - Staying dry thru the night
We’ll leave this for when she is developmentally ready, prob closer to 3 or older.
All in all, I’m really thankful even though it was painful month of endless washing and cleaning, I’m SOOOOOOO glad we’re quite done with it. So glad you cannot imagine. 
It turned out REALLY nice. We had our little corner at Crystal Jade and had a leisure yum cha (dim sum) right up till lunch time. Sophie ate everything we ate (I love THIS stage!). The only problem was that she kept finishing my barley drink before I could get to it.
