Dress Your Child for Potty-Training Success

Along with a growing sense of independence, toddlers are just starting to hone their fine motor skills. Which means that all the fun (and sometimes frustrating!) stuff that comes with getting dressed and undressed— snapping, buttoning, zipping, pulling up and down—will take time to develop. And even more practice to get undressed in time to make a successful potty trip. So to minimize your toddler's frustration, there are ways to help your child get a grip as he becomes a master of the stripdown.

Here's how to help your kid's dressing and undressing skills

• Dress for success. Say bye-bye to onesies, overalls and foofy dresses for a while. Dress your potty trainee in two-piece outfits with a t-shirt and an elastic-waisted pants or skirt.
  
  
• Help hone fine motor skills: Today, do one activity that'll give your child's fine motor skills a workout: Have them practice writing their name or try to color a picture staying inside the lines, or cut with safety scissors. Need more ideas? Try stringing cheerios onto licorice strings or buttons onto pipe cleaners.
  
  
• Dress when not pressed. Practice makes perfect. But when your kid is doing the pee-pee dance is not a good time to practice undressing. So take the extra time (after going potty) in the morning to practice pulling pants on and off. And at night, putting on PJs is certainly a nice bedtime routine to get into.

Remember: Obviously, in the beginning stages of potty training, you'll be doing most of the dressing and undressing. But as your potty trainee gets more confident, you'll start hearing, "Mommy, I do it myself!" So when she does say it, let her! Even if it takes four times as long, getting dressed and undressed herself is a big step toward your child's potty independence.

Bottoms up!

How's your kid doing with dressing and undressing? Share your answers in the comments below!

For more potty training advice from Teri Crane, check out her potty training tips.

Talk to other potty training parents who are also in the pee-pee & poo-poo trenches on our Toddlers & Preschoolers Message Board!