Oh Yeah--Another Potty Training Thread

[augustmom]

Hi Moms, I need help. My 3.5 year old refuses to go on the potty. At times her will, but for the most part, he is perfectly content walking around w/a wet poopy pull-up (which of course, I change).

I've tried rewards--I'll give him a favorite treat if he goes
I've made charts--he could care less and in fact, he'll say, no I don't want to to do that (put a sticker on his chart)

What do I do? When I say, lets go on the potty, he says NO! Sometimes he's willing, but how can I get hin to consistently want to go, even better, to tell me he has to go???

TIA, moms,

Augustmom

[sapphire_chan]

Have you tried a non-waterproof training pant? So that you don't get sprays of pee but he still ends up with pee going down his legs and is maybe then more aware?

I assume you've already looked into medical/physical factors (I don't know what they are, but I know they can exist)?

And tried toys and books at the potty?

[augustmom]

Hi, no medical issues at all. I don't understand about the toys and books at the potty. Can you explain? thank you : )

[DeerMother]

Originally Posted by augustmom

Hi, no medical issues at all. I don't understand about the toys and books at the potty. Can you explain? thank you : )

I imagine she means ds sitting on the potty while you are reading books or allowing him special potty toys. For example, dd plays w/ my old barrettes sometimes on the potty but only on the potty. We also do coloring on the potty.

I ditto lose the pull ups. I've read that from a child's perspective they are no different than a diaper and this makes total sense to me.

[sapphire_chan]

Just make going to the potty fun. He sits on the potty or on the big toilet with a seat reducer (Hey, good point, have you tried more than one potty place?) and you read him a book or you play with a toy. "It's potty time! Choose a story!"

Whereas changing the pull up isn't made unpleasant or anything, it's just boring. No toys no playing little chatter, just matter of fact and business like.


The odd thing I've heard of working is one little girl I know hadn't realized that other people weren't born knowing how to use the potty. It turned out that she'd been feeling like there was no point in trying because obviously it was too hard since she couldn't get it right away, but as soon as she learned that her mommy and daddy and grandparents had all had potties and had to learn when they had to go, too, she was willing to try and potty learned in like three days.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by esaesa

I imagine she means ds sitting on the potty while you are reading books or allowing him special potty toys. For example, dd plays w/ my old barrettes sometimes on the potty but only on the potty. We also do coloring on the potty.

I ditto lose the pull ups. I've read that from a child's perspective they are no different than a diaper and this makes total sense to me.

Or I could've just posted

[sapphire_chan]

Bubbles! Someone in another thread uses them to reward using the toilet, but they'd make an awesome toy for sitting on the toilet.

[jecombs]

My DD was also completely unsuccessful with pull-ups. She liked them, but had no issue pooping and peeing in them. About a week ago I asked her if she wanted to try big-girl panties and she said yes! This made the experience of wetting herself unpleasant enough that she wanted to try the potty. I think it also helped her connect the feeling of "I have to go" to actually peeing. The pull-ups are so abosorbent that I think sometimes she didn't even realize she had peed in it.

She also has a choice of which potty to use: the big potty in the bathroom with an insert or her own little potty, which we keep in the living room. Part of the reason DD didn't want to go potty was that she didn't want to miss out on what was going on outside the bathroom, so moving her potty to the main area of the house really helped.

[BunniMummi]

Each kid is different so it's hard to really give advice. At around the same age we simply stopped putting DS1 in diapers as soon as the weather warmed up a bit (potty training and snowsuits don't mix). It took a couple days of accidents but by the end of the week he was pretty much set. We used pullups at night for a couple months after that but those phased out quickly by his choice.

For what it's worth he had shown 0 interest in potty training up until that point. He knew where it was and what it was for, he just didn't care. What he didn't like was suddenly having wet pants. We didn't do it in the frame of punishment for anything, just went out and picked up a couple bags of underpants and made the change.

We use pullups here for DS2 now (who shows a lot more interest in potty training thank goodness). The advantage is that he can pull them up/down on his own and we can treat them more like underpants in that respect than regular "baby" diapers.

[Hannahkatiebell]

We made it funny for DS. We put foam bath tub letters in the potty and asked if he wanted to go pee-pee on them. "Yea!" he said and sat right down. He thinks it's hilarious and we just wash them off with bathroom cleaner afterwards to get them ready for next time. We started off with one letter in the potty and know it's like half the alphabet but it works for him!