Reintroducing Clothes after potty training

Sometimes introducing clothes back into your child’s life after a few days spent naked can throw a wrench into the whole potty training process. 

Here are 5 things to keep in mind before and while introducing clothes into the potty training process. 

1. Prepare by practicing manipulating clothes!

• If your child isn’t dressing themselves, this is a great time to have them start!

• The first few times you will have to explain how you are putting on their clothes explicitly.  Break the princess down into small, doable, and repeatable steps. 

• Start by having your child sit on the ground or a bench. Point out which fingers are holding what part of the pants, and what body part you are dragging them over. 

•  Extra points if it’s in front of a mirror so your child can watch you show them how to put on their clothes, and they can watch themselves practice. 

• When your child begins to do this by themselves, have them pull up their own pants by having them hold the waistband with one hand in front and one hand in the back

2. Start them off by wearing only pants commando style. 

• Underwear can feel pretty similar to a diaper

• The body will feel pressure around the waist and a snugness around the bum. 

• With this feedback, it makes sense that when distracted the brain could interpret this feedback that they are wearing a diaper again

• When this happens, I cant expect them to do anything but fall back into old habits and wet themselves. 

• It takes 14 days to form a new habit. 

• Holding off on underwear for two weeks can ensure that a new habit of holding their waste until finally releasing on a potty is in place first. 

3. Stay Consistent.

• Wait to introduce clothing until your child has proven that they can recognize the feeling of needing to pee before it is already coming out of their body. 

• This can look like wither their ability to communicate that pee is coming or take themselves to the potty. 

• Once you have a few successful end-to-end pees in the potty, and a successful one or two poos land, then you are ready for clothing

• Once you’ve gone to clothes, give them a chance to adapt to the change. Don’t go right back to naked after the first few accidents.

• Going back and forth too much can create confusing and unclear expectations. 

4. They might need some extra reminders. 

• With the addition of clothes, you might also begin to leave the house. 

• With greater distractions outside the home, your child might need some extra reminders outside natural transition times to listen to their body and go pee when they need to. 

5. Bring extra clothes. 

• Bring two pairs of extra clothes in their bag wherever you go. 

• Don’t forget extra shoes and socks! Sometimes the pee travels all the way down their legs and makes their shoes wet as well. 

• You can pack each outfit in a reusable wet/dry bag or a ziplock bag so you can replace the contents with wet clothes when needed. 

Those are my suggested things to keep in mind before and while introducing clothes in your potty training journey! 

Like always, if you need additional support or troubleshooting– pass me a message!