potty training

[Anonymous]

I am so confused and done with potty training. I have tryed it all with Luke my almost 3 yr old. We started potty training at 6 months, we did the wait and see approach, we have a cool potty chart with stickers, m&m, he picked out his own underwear, told him he could have a party once he’s trained, had him sit on the potty every morning, he has his own potty, he has a potty seat for the toilet, we put justice on the potty each morning and he ended up with more stickers than Luke, we have gotten potty books and videos and on and on. Recently he has been sitting on the potty every morning. He went the first few times and then would go a tiny bit and say he was done and needed a diaper. He did that again today and we told him he needed to stay and he was going to wear underwear all day. So, he finally went. I put the underwear on him and not 10 min later he peed on the floor. He screamed that he had pooped. So, I cleaned it up and told him accidents happen and that I needed to put a new pair of underwear on him. So, I had to chase him down to change him. He wanted to stay in the wet clothes and underwear. I got him changed and put underwear and plastic pants on. I didn’t want to deal with pee all over the house again. So, we go outside and play and I kept asking him if he needed to go and he said no. So, we came inside to take naps and I changed a very wet pair of pants, plastic pants and underwear. Now we only have one pair of underwear left. What am I supposed to do? Should I be consistent and make him wear the last pair of underwear? SHould I make him start wearing underwear all the time and no more diapers except for bed and naps? Do I give up and wait until he says he’s ready? Help, please! I feel like I have to be doing something wrong here.

Justice’smom2007-5-19 17:4:56

[Anonymous]

Kaelyn is almost 3 and we have been unsuccessful in our attempts to potty train her. Her daycare tried training her starting at 18 months, and I think that’s actually the root cause of our problem. It’s not interesting or exciting now because she’s been doing it for 17 months and she’d rather just pee in her diaper and keep playing. So… I’ve decided to wait until summer (I’m a teacher so I’ll be out of work)and then set aside a week for intense potty training. I plan to put the potty chair in our kitchen (for easy access) and then let her run around with nothing on the bottom, having her sit on the potty every 30 minutes or so. Nothing too stressful, just “okay time to sit on the potty again”. I have no idea if it will work, but a few of my friends have done it this way and they say that it works wonders. One of my friends said that her son peed on the carpet twice the first day and she didn’t make a big deal out of it, just said something like “oops, you forgot to pee pee on the potty”. After the first day she didn’t have any issues. Most of the space that I’m planning to limit Kaelyn to is tile and then I’m willing to take the chance that she’ll pee on the carpet if it will end the potty issue. We have a carpet cleaner, urine is sterile, and heaven knows there has been plenty of spit up sprayed all over that carpet.

[Anonymous]

The best advice I got when training Claire was to just let her take it at her own pace. Potty training is one of those things that kids figure out early on that they have the upper hand. They are totally in control of it, and if you push at all, they will take over and not give you the control back.

I started trying with Claire before she was 2, and she was so excited to sit on the potty, read books, etc., but eventually it really backfired. She would cry whenever I would ask her to sit on the potty, sit there, and then get up and pee… made me so mad.

I ended up just leaving it all alone for about a month. We left the potty seat in the bathroom but didn’t ask her about it, didn’t even talk about it for a whole month. She gets a short bath every night as part of her bedtime routine, so we started to undress her before her bath in the bathroom. Then I would ask her to sit on the potty and wait while I put the water in the tub. Lo and behold, she started to go pee.. the sound of the water helped I’m sure. We would always really get excited and praise her for going, but sometimes she would go and others she wouldn’t. We would just try to really encourage and praise he when she did and not make it a big deal when she didn’t. When she started to go fairly consistently, we started to talk more about it and offer treats for going (one M&M).

After quite some time of the bathtime routine being the ONLY time to go, I started asking her if she would like to try to sit on the potty and go pee pee to get a candy (not sure how you feel about the bribe idea, but it worked for us ). If she said yes, GREAT, if she said no, I would ask, are you sure, and then let it go.

Eventually, she just started saying yes, more and more often and it went from there.

I think the main thing was to just let her go with it and not push. If she felt like I was pushing at all, she would dig her heels in and refuse totally.

Best of luck. I had a girl first and “they” say that girls are easier, so maybe I’m in for it with Ben!

[Anonymous]

Don’t panic!! I thought I knew exactly how to potty train a toddler since I had so much expeience as a nanny before having my own children. But my firstborn threw me for a loop when it came to potty training. I was mortified when her third birthday came and went and she was still not trained. However, just a few days to a week after her 3rd birthday she seemed to make a decision that she wanted to be trained and, there you go – she was trained! Just like that!! Once she decided she wanted it, it was a done deal!

I think with some strong willed children (like mine!) you just have to back off and let them make the decision.

Oh, and this is what really worked with her. Forget about diapers and pull ups. Diapers and pull ups make it too easy for them to be comfortable in wet pants. I fianlly stopped buying pull ups and started using the two in one training pants by gerber (they are cloth on the inside and plastic on the outside). I didn’t press her to potty train but I stopped making it easy for her to walk around with pee in her pants! I think that helps with some kids, so yes I think you should stick with underpants and stop putting diapers on him during the day. Just don’t press the issue. If he pees in them, he pees in them. Let him decide when he wants to stop walking around in wet pants. I did this when I trained Ellie, too. No diapers, no pull ups during the day.

Also, with some kids it helps to make them somewhat responsible for the clean up when they wet their pants. Don’t be angry or scold him or tell him he’s done wrong, but tell him it’s his job to go get clean underpants, change himself, etc. (whatever he’s capable of doing) whenever he wets. He may begin to get the idea that he’ll have a lot more time to play if he pees in the pot instead of in his pants.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much! I think we have decided to start on Monday. We are going to have him go around the house naked and leave the potty out for him to use. I also really like the idea of him helping to clean up the mess. I’m afraid that will backfire, but really he should clean it up. Not sure why I didn’t think of that today. Also, he is going to wear underwear and plastic pants when we go out. NO MORE DIAPERS! Oh, I hope this doesn’t take too long. Dh doesn’t want to buy anything extra and we only have 3 pairs of underwear and 3 pairs of plastic pants. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

[Anonymous]

You know, Isaac wasn’t potty trained until he was 3 1/2. He was just really stubborn about it until then. Letting him run around with out pants on helped a lot and we’d give him a little treat each time he went poo poo in the potty. At one point we told him he could go to the zoo if he went poo poo for 10 days in a row. We had a calendar with stickers to record it.

[Anonymous]

Shelby, did you say that you started potty training Luke when he was 6 months old?

I really wouldn’t push things too much or it can become a battle of wills. I think that the important thing with potty training is to wait until they show some interest in the potty and for a time when you think that they’re ready. Otherwise it won’t work. Then once go for it, to commit to it. And praise like crazy for a job well done or even a good effort. We used to give Sarah a sticker (which was a moderate sized reward to her b/c she loved stickers back then) for sitting and trying, a treat which I can’t remember if she actually peed in there, and a bowl of ice cream (her favourite) if she made a poo.

With Sarah, we did the platic underwear over regular underwear and we had a regular potty schedule where we put her on the toilet every 30 minutes regardless of whether she said she had to go or not. I once read somewhere that you can expect a child without bladder control to have to pee about 20 minutes after you give them a drink. So if you use that as a guide, then you can set them up for success. Sarah had TONS of pee accidents when we first started- I think about 10-12 a day for the first few days, then it went down a bit over the first week, and by two weeks we were down to the occassional accident. I think it’s important to make the child understand that learning to go in the potty is like learning anything else and there are going to be accidents that go along with that, until they get good at it. When an accident happens, I might have him help like Christine suggested in getting a new pair of underwear etc, but I’d be careful of making him clean up the mess… he might interpret it as having done something wrong or bad.

The other thing is that I really think that you need to get more than 3 pairs of underwear and plastic pants! You need to be prepared for a lot of accidents when it first starts. Maybe you can also take him out and have him pick out a new potty that he’s excited about- they have cute 3 year old things now, like spiderman etc.

My nephew was a slow potty trainer no matter what my sister did. When he turned 3 and went for his well baby visit, the doctor told him that he was 3 and it was time to start using the potty etc. Because he heard it from the doctor, for some reason it meant more then coming from my sister.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

UGH!!!!!!!!!!! I am even more confused today. We started out the day with no underwear. Luke decided he would rather sit on the potty all day then to go play with nothing on. So, he sat on the potty until it was time to go to the store. I put underwear and plastic pants on him. We went to the store and came home and he was soaked. So, I changed him and put a diaper on for nap time. He got up from nap, I took the diaper off and he freaked out. I mean freaked out. Mommy I’m going to go pee pee on the floor. No mommy! So, once again he decided instead of playing he wants to sit on the potty. Is this normal? I forgot to ever mention that he has a lot of fears. One for example is he is afraid he is going to poop in the tub. One night he had dirreah(sp) and he pooped in the tub. We didn’t freak out, we just took him out , cleaned him up, cleaned the tub and put him back in. Now he hates taking baths. We have to tell him the night before he is going to take a bath and all day long and I do mean all day long, he says, ” mommy will you wash me first? Mommy do we have to take baths. ” Then he screams and is upset the whole way to the bathroom. I am so afraid I am damaging him by making him go without anything on. At the same time though he doesn’t care about going in the underwear. I AM SO CONFUSED!

[Anonymous]

Shelby,

My middle child is like that. She has a lot of fears. She was afraid of pooping in the tub for while too because she did once and it scared her even though we did not yell at her or do anything but clean it up and put her back in. She peed on the floor once and she was much more upset than me! She’s just anxious by nature, probably inherited since both dh and I have anxious personalities.

I’m not sure what I would do about the underwear thing with Justice. Liza was like that – she didn’t give a hoot if her underwear was wet or even poopy – she’d just go on playing. Still I managed to train her using underwear. I’ve heard of people using the “naked” approach, but I didn’t do that with any of mine. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but if it’s freaking him out it may only delay training.

I think I’d just buy more underwear (I know this is an issue with dh, but three pairs isn’t even adequate if he was fully trained), put him in underwear everyday and just deal with the messes until he decides to use the potty. He will do it one day!

[Anonymous]

Shelby,

I have millions of pairs (well, not quite that many) but a lot of pairs of white undies that are size 3T I think. My dh hates white underwear and won’t wear them on Griffin. They are used, but clean! If buying more is an issue, we don’t use them and I would be happy to send them to you if you PM me your address.
Griffin was wearing underwear at just over 2 yrs even to bed, and 3 pairs is simply not enough! He would wait till the last minute to tell me and then they would be wet.
At least if you had enough pairs that would be one less stress!

[Anonymous]

Erica, Thank you so much. i will pm you.

Christine, what ended up happening as far as potty training with your girls? What worked? It makes me feel so much better to know that my child is not the only one with fears and also willing to walk around in pee all day long.

[Anonymous]

Hailey’s willing to walk around in poop all day long, so don’t feel bad. I really think they get it when they’re ready.

[Anonymous]

We had Alexis run around without a diaper on at home too. When we went out we had her in a pull up same with naps and bedtime. I had a little potty in the kitchen and step stools and seats in the bathroom. She also has a lot of fears, one of them is being too dirty so that played in my favor for being potty trained. Once she peed she wanted to be changed immediately so I told her if she used the toliet she would never have to wait for anyone to change her again! My friend’s twins are almost 3 and they too have no interest either. I guess just give him time, he knows what to do he will do it when he is ready unless you have a deadline like pre-school. The Ped MD told me many people try to potty train their child and the child knows exactly what to do but refuses to do so until “They” are ready not when “Mommy” is ready, she says a lot of kids surprise their parents by one day just saying I want to pee in the toliet. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Kaelyn will run away when we try to change her diaper – no matter what’s in it. She doesn’t want to slow down to change it.

[Anonymous]

Shelby,

With Liza what finally worked was that I threw up my hands in defeat and let her decide when (if ever!!) she wanted to be trained, BUT I simply refused to put her in diapers or pull ups (except at night), and I offered her a reward. I told her I’d take her to Dinosaur Land (a play land that she loves in a mall 100 miles away) and I’d buy her a Boo Doll (the little girl in the Monster’s Inc. Movie) once she was potty trained. Then I just said absolutely nothing when she wet herself or pooped in her pants except that she had to help clean up. So she had to change her pants, which she was perfectly capable of doing. Of course I cleaned her up if it was poop. Occassionally I reminded her that she would get the Dinosaur Land reward and the Boo Doll once she was trained, but I did not pressure her or let her know that I was disappointed when she wet or soiled her pants.

OH!! Now I remember one trick that really helped with her. Her big problem with potty training was that she can’t sit still and she felt she was missing out on fun if she was sitting on the pot waiting for pee or poop. So I made a little basket of toys that she could only play with when she was on the potty. Like a little bottle of bubbles, a tiny etch and sketch, a silly puddy, things like that. Books were not enough to keep her still, but the toys helped her stay on the pot long enough for something to happen.

And, I forgot this also…. With both girls I let them have a small treat if they actually peed or pooped. Animal crackers, m&m’s or junior mints. One for pee, 2 for poop.

For Ellie the treats were enough to train her. But she was the second child and she wanted to be a big girl like Liza, so she had much more incentive than Liza or Luke do.

Well, I hope that helps some.

[Author]

Posts