Using underwear to potty train? - Page 2

[Devaskyla]

For those who had success with this method, did you wait until they let you know they needed to go or did you get them to use the potty after it had been awhile since they went? I'm still trying to figure out how to help him realize that he needs to go, since he constantly says he doesn't, but he goes every time I get him to sit on the potty.

[AngelBee]

We have been doing it for 3 days (I think) and it is working fine as long as I am consistent with reminding and bringing her to the potty.

[DaughterOfKali]

My son always says he doesn't have to go even when he does. Also, he tries to hold it as long as possible and that tends to lead to accidents. I have to be matter of fact with him.

[Purple Cat]

I did that.

I talked for about a month how soon my daughter would get to wear just panties and put her pee pee in teh potty. We made a big production out of her choosing some panties.

I found a few days were we could just stay inside. I started off putting her on teh potty every 30 minutes. I would say within 2 hours she was going over on her own. By the end of the day, she was adequately pee-pee trained. Caveat: My daughter was very OBVIOUSly ready for potty training. She whisked off wet diapers and poopy diapers as soon as she soiled/wet them and demanded new diapers.

Note my careful choice of words. Poop was another story. She steadfastly pooped in her panties every time for about a week. I was just dying. I held by my choice not to use pull ups and just to use panties trying to communicate an expectation that she now uses panties. (I think pull ups send a confusing message: It's a panty that you can poop and pee in if you have to.)

I tried repeatedly asking her if she had to poop, placing her on teh potty when I knew she was around the time I would expect a BM. Nothing worked. She left hte potty and immediately pooped in her panties, telling me "it fell out."

I figured she was scared to poop on teh potty. To overcome it, I went and bought scads of gel pens, paints, markers, cute notebooks, etc. I told her if she tried she pooped on teh potty she got to pick one and when she went pooped five times on the potty she got the coveted lady bug hairbrush and comb set. I wanted her to get instantaneous rewards. She pooped once ont the potty and then the next time pooped in her panties. I then very sympathetically told her that was too bad and showed her all the treats and told her she could have picked one. She immediately demanded one. I reassured she would get lots of chances and that I was confident she would remember to go poop in the potty next time and would get on. She was poop trained within 2 days of getting the treat bag.

My son is a different story, with hypotonia that makes it really hard for him to know when he has to pee/poop and control it. I don't think we'll go this route for him. (I let him have stuff from teh treat bag for doing other things.)

[Elizabeth2008]

At the suggestion of the teachers at DS's school, he went cold turkey. Straight from diapers to underwear. No pull-ups, as they said that is confusing to them as it's too much like diapers. He was 2 and a half. The key is to make sure that your child is interesting in potty learning and is going on the potty occasionally. If the interest is there, then make a plan for a weekend when you know you'll be home the whole time and won't need to go out really at all. Talk it up all week: "this weekend you're going to start wearing your big boy/big girl pants", etc. My DS had like 9 accidents the first day! It was like a constant spicket. But by Day 2 he only had 4 accidents, and Day 3 he had 1. By Day 4 he had none! They are quick learners! Just treat accidents matter-of-factly and don't make them feel bad. Ask them often if they feel like they could pee and encourage them to try even at regular times (before and after meals, before nap, etc.)

[Elizabeth2008]

Oh and I should add that he never had pooped on the potty prior to transitioning to underwear. That concerned me, but his teachers say most kids don't poop on the potty before and that usually takes longer. Sure enough he didn't want to poop on the potty initially and he saved it up for nap time or would sometimes poop in his underwear. For a while he would tell me he needed to poop and ask me to put on a diaper. I did that reluctantly (was tired of washing out undies!), but after 2 months he started pooping on the potty. I think I bribed him by offering to make his favorite treat the first time he pooped on the potty.

[lizabird]

For my 2 kids, a transition to underwear right after diapers didn't work. What DID work was a naked bottom. It's pretty obvious what's going on when they can see what's going on, rather than just "gee, this diaper doesn't seem to be working". I know it's cold out, buy my 2 yr old still prefers to run around naked and he's a lot less likely to pee on the floor if he's naked than when wearing anything. If he does wear something, I just put him in pants, with no underwear, and that seems to be going pretty well.

[P-chan]

I did this with both my children--for my son it was his 3.5 birthday, and for my daughter it was her 3rd birthday. Well over a month in advance of the birthdays we talked a lot about how we wouldn't have diapers anymore, etc. etc. My son had never peed in the toilet before that day, and my daughter had only a couple of times. We went straight to underwear, although we had a few pair that had extra lining.

I was braced for days and weeks of accidents, but for both kids, there were hardly any. However, my kids could happily hold their pee all day, and so in our house it was less an issue of keeping it in and more an issue of letting it out in a timely fashion. We have set times where everyone at least TRIES to pee (e.g., before putting on daytime clothes, before bedtime, etc.). I would have offered a diaper for poop if one of the kids was going to get backed up in protest, but it never came to that.

For nighttime: my son gradually became dry all night soon after he turned four, and my daughter was dry at night well before she turned 3 and went to daytime panties.

[mama_mojo]

I am an occasional briber. It's not really in line with my overall philosophy, but I think incentivizing a behavior that is much more important to me than to my children is pretty fair. So, we first offered a reward for sitting on the potty every time we took them there, something very small, like a stamp on their hand. Then the bribe was only if they actually peed. As others have said, we had more trouble with poop. DS was offered a spectacular treat, like going out for ice cream. Both dds were too little for anything that removed from the moment. The trick with them was getting them to stay on the potty long enough that they would accidentally poop there. We used nail polish, markers and paper (markers are NEVER available at our house), long story books, and maternal persistence. With every one, once they had pooped twice on the potty, they were won over to this superior method of getting away from their waste.

[Devaskyla]

Just thought I'd update. We took a couple days off because I was getting so frustrated. Ds asked for underwear today, though, so I thought I'd give it a try again. He seems to have absolutely no awareness of needing to go & he honestly doesn't care if he's wet. One reason I was getting frustrated is not only was he not going when he needed to, he would outright lie to me when I asked if he was wet & needed some dry underwear.

I'm just feeling really discouraged & tired from constantly washing underwear.

[Devaskyla]

I'm done I can't take this anymore. He wins. I know I'm probably just hormonal, but this is the 4th time in as many days I've been in tears because of trying to do this. Why is it so hard?

[jillmamma]

I think they potty train when they are ready. Going to underwear did NOT work for DD either. She is doing a lot better than before, but still has accidents if I am not on top of things reminding her to go every 2 hours or so. We started underwear in July, and now 6 months later she is having a lot of days where she is dry and clean, but only with help of me saying it is time to go...if I leave it up to her, I have a lot of laundry to do. At first it was me ALWAYS telling her to go and still having accidents, then we started getting some dry all day days with me telling her all the time, and now she is sometimes telling me she has to go, and me telling her a lot (we get dry all day about 1/2 the time now). I decided to just ditch the diapers and deal with the accidents (except diapers at night...she is even dry all night about 1/2 the time). I bring a bag with 2-3 changes of clothes with me when we go out, and have lots of enzyme cleaner for the furniture/area rugs (we have mostly tile/hardwood), and run a load in the washing machine every couple of days. Having 12 or so pairs of the thicker training underwear helps too so you can get by without washing clothes 5 times a day. I figure the later potty learning comes from my side of the family...my mom said all 4 of us were at least 3-3.5 before we got it, and DS was 3y9m when he got it. I myself also had nighttime bedwetting issues till age 7 or so, so maybe something with bladder muscle development is going on for us too. Try and remember that they won't be going off to college in diapers!

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

We went straight from diapers to undies with both kids. BUT we waited until THEY asked for underwear. With DS that was just after age 3, with DD it was just after age 2. I confess that I started asking DS "wouldn't you like to wear underwear and use the potty like big kids" starting about 2 1/2.

For both kids it took about 3 days before the accidents tapered off, and several weeks before I could rely on few or no accidents all day. But I think it was so easy because they both wanted to make it work.

For DS we (well, we and preschool) definitely had a "its time to go potty" routine about every hour or two until he got the hang of things. DD was much easier, possibly because she just naturally followed DS's lead.

[moonyoungi]

I think my son took about a good year going back and forth with diaper wearing and undie until recently, before using potty consistently.