Potty Training Boys

It is funny why most parents who go on the internet to search for potty training problems or potty training tips often do a search for potty training boys or toilet training boys. Why not girls?

Are boys harder to potty train than girls?

I am a mother of both a boy and a girl and I am about to share with you why potty training boys is not any harder than potty training girls. As a matter of fact, in my case, it was actually easier. It took me more than a year to potty train my girl while it only took 10 days to potty train my boy.

It is all about the right timing and readiness. It is not about age or gender. Every child is different.

I would like to add that every parent is different too. Do not let others dictate how you should potty train your child.


Potty train your child when both your child and you are ready, not when others say you or he should be ready.


Potty Training - When to Start

As I have mentioned before, it is all about the right timing and readiness. Potty training is very easy when your child is ready. I have had friends who told me that their mothers or mothers in law potty trained their babies right from the time they were babies. Babies who have hardly mastered the art of sitting up. They made the babies sit in the potty each day and they were potty trained by the time they were xxxx months old or a year old.

That may be possible but that is hard work. To me, you should start your potty training when your child is ready. So how do you know when your child is ready? Trial and error. Try and if your child shows no sign of readiness, drop it and try again a few months down the road.

Potty Training Mistakes

It took me more than a year to potty train my girl. I did everything wrong. I yelled at her. I comforted her. I cried alone. It was madness. The nighttime potty training was even worse. She wet her bed every time. I would lay layers and layers of sheets but they would all get wet, even the pillows and blankets and the layers of layers of sheets. I was in despair.


She was just not ready. That was the biggest mistake of all.

We did it eventually but not without a lot of tears and frustration for the both of us.

Potty Training - When the time is right

It took me only 10 days to toilet train my boy. That is right. It was about 7 - 10 days. He was old enough to understand instructions. He could not only sit up on his own, he could walk around by then. I found that he was dry most nights. That was when I decided to start.

I was consistent with him. I explained things to him because he was old enough to understand. It took me only a week of wiping the floors and carpet accidents and tada.... we were done. Just like that. I never had to train him at night as well. He was dry most nights by then. So I just took off his diapers and reminded him not to pee in the night and he remained dry since.

I truly believe that when the time is right, and that time will come, potty training will be a breeze. With my boy, I had the benefit of experience so we had an easy, virtually no tears potty training. I did not have to sit him in the potty at the same time everyday as part of the "training" process.

Wait for the right time and do not be overly concerned about what others have to say.

Remember, every child is different. Some may take a little longer but it does not mean that your boy is any less smarter than the boy who was potty trained in less than a year. The boy who was toilet trained in less than a year may have taken 6 months to train whereas when the time is right, you will need just a week or two of stressless potty training.

Good luck!

Check out how I potty trained my boy in just slightly over a week in my Lazy Mum's Guide to Toilet Training. The rest of my articles on potty training are in my Toilet Training Category on my blog.

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