Travel and Toilet Training

by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Toilet Training: The Brazelton Way

Whenever you travel with a child who is just beginning to understand the idea of urinating and moving his bowels in a certain place, you are likely to disrupt his learning. As he first grasps the idea of toilet training he is likely to think that only his own potty (or the toilets in his home) will do: "This is where I go poo and pee. Like mommy. Like daddy." He is proud of his successful imitation of those he looks up to most.

But when you travel with a child who has not yet been fully toilet trained, you are introducing a whole new idea. To master it, he will need to wonder, "Do mommy and daddy go to a different place to do their poo? I'm scared to try that. What if I can't do it?" The routine he has learned at home—of fitting into his parents' patterns—is likely to break down. He will be likely to fail, at first—and to be surprised and vulnerable when he loses their newfound approval for all he has learned at home.

Many children need the reassuring familiarity of a routine or ritual to go with their early efforts to use the potty. Going to the potty each time in the same place, with the same teddy bear to hold, or the same book to read, makes it easier for them to concentrate on this new task. Initially, a young child is likely to hold on to these rituals rigidly, insisting: "I need to go in the same place. In my potty. Like my daddy. At my house." It may have taken awhile for him to learn to give up his poops to the potty. Asking him to produce his important excretions outside of his ritual spots may be difficult at first. Don't push. Let him decide where and when he will cooperate. It must be kept as his achievement, not yours.

What To Do—If You Must Travel During Toilet Training

1. Prepare the child ahead of time, "We're going to a special new place. There will be new toilets there. But don't worry. We can bring your own potty, and some diapers too, if you need them."
2. Take along a potty he has used before.
3. Let him know that you understand that the important bathroom rituals you and he have set up will be disrupted. He is bound to feel stressed by the changes in the routine that he has tried hard to conform to.
4. "You can wear your training pants for this big trip if you want. Then you won't have to worry about whether you always make it to the toilet or not." Permission to "fail"—and recognition of the big adjustment you are asking him to make—are both important.
5. Let him know you are confident, and that there is plenty of time: "When we come back, we can start over again."
6. Be sure to respect the fact that his productions—his bowel movements and urine—need to be treated as if they were precious. Your child may not be ready for you to flush them away in a new place—like grandma's toilet or a hotel bathroom. Instead, praise him when he urinates or after a bowel movement, and ask him whether he wants to wait to flush it way. Once he's ready he can be proud that now he can flush new toilets wherever he goes.

Before going off to school, or on a trip, or to visit others, you may gently suggest that he try his potty first, even mentioning that you know how much he likes to use his own. You could try picking out a "travel" potty with him for him to take to school and on trips. Help him feel that it is as special as his "home" potty. Or encourage him to take his favorite potty time book with him to read, or his favorite teddy bear who can go poo too when he needs to go away from home.

Don't be surprised when a child who has already mastered toilet training has an accident on a trip. He may not be sure where the toilet is. He may not know how much time to leave himself to get there before it is too late. Or when he gets there, he may be uncomfortable about sitting on a strange new toilet, and flushing his productions to some strange new place. He's bound to hold back, and then go later, in his pants. He may also regress with an accident as a reaction to the changes—different people, place, and schedule—that come with travel.

Don't make a fuss about it. Instead, your child will need your reassurance that "accidents happen to everybody."

Excerpted from:

Excerpted from Toilet Training: The Brazelton Way © 2004 by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Perseus.

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