If you're a grandparent, aunt, uncle, nanny, teacher, or family friend who's been asked to help with a child's toilet routine while their parents are away, thank you. This is a small thing that means a lot to the family.

Here's a quick guide so you can support the routine without accidentally undoing months of work.

What the routine is trying to do

Most kids with a daily toilet-sit routine are working through something specific, encopresis, fear of pooping, constipation recovery, or just a stuck patch in ordinary potty training. The details matter less than the pattern:

The child has scheduled sit times at specific moments in the day
Each sit has a set length (usually 3–5 minutes)
During the sit, the child sits calmly on the toilet
After the sit, everyone moves on, no evaluation, no debrief

The goal is daily consistency without pressure. The routine works when it's boring, predictable, and low-stakes.

What "helping" looks like

The most helpful thing you can do is run the routine exactly the way the family runs it, in the same tone, without adding anything.

Not "let's try really hard today." Not "you can do it." Not "here's a special treat if you go."

Just: at the scheduled time, "Sit time," a five-minute sit, and "Nice sit," moving on.

That's it. That's the whole thing.

The four things not to do

If you take nothing else from this, take these:

1. Don't turn sit time into a special occasion. No extra encouragement, no big-deal tone, no "grandma's rooting for you." Whatever unusual attention you add gets absorbed as pressure, and the child will feel it. The routine works because it's neutral.

2. Don't ask what happened afterward. Ever. If they want to tell you, they will. If they don't, don't ask. "Did it work?" is a hard sentence to hear when you already feel exposed. The parent almost certainly avoids that sentence too.

3. Don't add new rules. If the family lets the child watch a specific thing on a tablet during the sit, that's the thing. Don't sub in something else because you think it's better. If the sit is 5 minutes, don't stretch it to 10 because "let's really give it a chance today." Keep everything identical.

4. Don't respond to accidents as a big deal. If there's a leak or an accident, treat it exactly like a spilled cup of juice: a small mess, clean it up, move on. No lecture. No "why didn't you tell someone." The child's body sometimes doesn't send them the signal, that's part of the medical picture. The child is already embarrassed. Adding disappointment on top of embarrassment makes the whole cycle worse for the parents to manage when they come back.

The four things to do

1. Do keep the schedule. If the family's routine is "sit after breakfast and after dinner," those are the two sits. Not more. Not less. Not "instead of after breakfast, let's do after lunch." Predictability is doing most of the work.

2. Do use the same tone every time. Same words at the start of the sit ("Sit time"), same words at the end ("Nice sit"). Kids notice tone shifts. Boring is what you're going for.

3. Do respect their privacy during the sit. Set the timer, hand them their book or the app or whatever they use, and step away or turn around. Watching a kid on the toilet is uncomfortable for everyone, especially a kid who's already sensitive about this stuff.

4. Do check in with the parents beforehand. Ask what to say if the child protests. Ask what to do if there's an accident. Ask which sits are non-negotiable and which can flex. Every family has slightly different rules; the parents know theirs.

Special note if the child protests

Kids test whether the routine really applies with new people. This is normal.

If your grandchild says "I don't have to do sit time when I'm at your house," they're probably testing. Your call is to say, same tone as everything else, "We're doing sit time. Just like at home. Then we'll [whatever's next]." And move on.

If they escalate, don't escalate back. Sit time is not something to fight over. If they're genuinely too upset, skip today's sit and mention it to the parents. One skip won't unravel months of work; a big fight might.

Skipping when needed is part of the routine, not a failure of it.

If they're using an app

Some families use apps like Quiet Sit to run the routine. If so, the app is doing most of the mechanics, timer, calm on-screen scene, quiet end-of-sit signal. Your job is to hand it over and step back. Don't narrate what the app is doing. Don't add commentary. Let the app be the app.

If the family is specifically in encopresis treatment, they may also be using our companion app EncoPath to track the medical side, dose, cleanout dates, weekly check-ins. That's a parent-side tool. Not something you need to touch or ask about.

The bigger picture

This routine, whatever specific tools it uses, is quietly holding together a lot for the family. Toilet stuff is one of the most tender parts of a young child's life, and helping them through it, over months, sometimes years, is exhausting. When you show up for a weekend or a week and run the routine calmly, without introducing new pressure, you're giving the parents a real break and giving the child a signal that their routine is stable no matter who's in charge that day.

That's the whole gift. Thanks for showing up.