Another Potty Training Thread

[Preschool/daycare teacher]

Right now we have 6 children we're working on to potty train. Aaaah! There's only so much time in the day and only 2 people. When one person is busy making lunch, or something else, and the other is in the bathroom with the potty trainers, it can get VERY difficult because the others are running around with little supervision. the ones in the bathroom are flushing the toilet over and over, someone else is playing in the sink making a mess, someone else is unrolling the toilet paper and throwing it in the toilet, someone else is pushing someone down, then of course you have the one actually on the toilet and at the same time trying to change someone else. And it takes WAAAY too long if we do it one at a time beause you have to waste time going to get the other child, pulling them away from their play, which they DON'T like of course and throw a fit over it, which makes them hate going potty. So it's best to do everyone at once, but there's so many in such a small bathroom. A person can't even turn around without tripping over one of the. And after they get done on the potty they want to stick around and we're too busy to make them leave, other than TELLING them, which does no good.
Soo, my point is, does anyone have any easy potty training tips? this group has been "in the process" for months now with no more improvement at daycare. All the parents say they do well at home. So why aren't we having any sucess? I really believe the kids ARE doing well at home for their parents, but they sure aren't here for us! A couple of them only have 1 or 2 accidents at home, but here it's all the time! I know we must be doing something wrong, but I don't know what. How would you potty train 6 at once?

[missnikki]

with more than one toilet, for starters. I guess I would buy one per girl or one per boy, whichever you have more of (or 6 toilets) and do two 'sessions'- boys and girls.

[Unregistered]

Oh boy. I'm a little worried to read that it's taken you months. We just started training 4 out of a group of around 12 and we are experiencing the same craziness as you. We have 2 bathrooms and do potty breaks every few hours. Most of them are doing pretty good, but we can depend on 1 or 2 to have accidents each day. We were hoping a few weeks or so will be all we need..... not months! Like you, all our parents are saying that the kids are doing quite well at home BUT 2 of these 4 moms keep bringing their children in diapers every morning! We keep telling them to put them in undies - and as of today (Friday) these 2 moms promised that they will try over the weekend. I think it's harder on the kids if we are doing one thing in school, but they are free to wear diapers at home. How can they learn to control their bodily functions just half the time?

[gkids09]

I had the same problem just last year...with 8 kids. 8 out of the 12 were potty training. It was horrible. We have two bathrooms. I don't have any potty chairs, just the regular potty. I ended up setting a timer for 40-50 minutes. I would take the potty training kids one at a time to the bathroom, let them do their business, and then get another. They always went in the same order, so it was always basically the same amount of time between each potty break. Does that make sense? It was hard. I have one assistant, and we would usually take turns with the potty breaks. It was tough. But it worked. And they are now alllll potty trained. It took us about 2 months to get it down to about 3 kids potty training, and then we felt like it was a breeze. After 8, 3 is NOTHING. Good luck!!

[Preschool/daycare teacher]

I had the same problem just last year...with 8 kids. 8 out of the 12 were potty training. It was horrible. We have two bathrooms. I don't have any potty chairs, just the regular potty. I ended up setting a timer for 40-50 minutes. I would take the potty training kids one at a time to the bathroom, let them do their business, and then get another. They always went in the same order, so it was always basically the same amount of time between each potty break. Does that make sense? It was hard. I have one assistant, and we would usually take turns with the potty breaks. It was tough. But it worked. And they are now alllll potty trained. It took us about 2 months to get it down to about 3 kids potty training, and then we felt like it was a breeze. After 8, 3 is NOTHING. Good luck!!

Thanks for the encouragement! Question, though: How did you get the children one at a time? Did they not mind dropping their play to "go potty", or would they kick up a fuss? Our's usually kick up a fuss if everyone else is playing and they're told it's time to "go potty". And sometimes another in the process hears us tell another child and then they say THEY have to go potty. Immediately everyone has to "go potty", so it's like it's all or nothing!
Also, where did you fit in the extra time for potty breaks for that many? We would have to either cut out outdoor play or a meal or snack for the potty trainers for us to do that. Or something else equally important. We also do preschool for 2 hrs each morning. And in the afternoons after nap there is only one of us here because some of the children leave before wake-up time, but that still leaves 4 potty goers, plus the older children. So potty time is really difficult then, with no one to watch the other children while that person is in the bathroom. Could you give me your schedule, with when your potty breaks were, included? Maybe we need to re-do our schedule.