Potty Learning tips??

[MamaChick]

My DD just turned 3, and is very bright. She is certainly capable of being out of diapers. I guess she just doesn't want to. She's a bit of a strong willed gal, and I never make her do anything she doesn't want to do. Also not comfortable with pressuring, bribing, etc. It's just, she's 3 now and with another baby on the way it would be nice to get this done.  Any ideas? I've always let her do everything in her own time so I don't want to push, I just know she's completely capable. I'm kind of stumped and looking for advice!

[MacKinnon]

Let's see... Have you bought fun new big girl undies? A fun little potty?

When I felt my kids were ready, I took them with me to the store to pick out fun new underpants, what ever they wanted. We set up a little potty in the living room, and a potty seat on the big potty. We bought flushable wipes, and fun soap. And then, we counted down diapers until they were gone (I was using mostly sposies then). And off we went! We initially did just nakey butt time at home, adding undies seemed to vastly increase the number of accidents. We committed to giving it a go. My daughter didn't show signs of being very stressed about it, and was quickly day time dry. My son was quickly dry but asked to please have some time longer to poop in a pull-up. We had battled constipation, and I wasn't going to fight that again, so we waited a while longer before trying again. I bought waterproof cloth trainers to wear out in public, to avoid big flooding accidents.

Now, a year later, when my son began to be ready to give up his pull up habit, we offered to get him whatever he wanted when he started pooping on the potty. This was flat out bribery. But he was four, and it was time. So, he wanted this wooden treasure chest more than anything... And he pooped on the potty, got the treasure chest! For a while after, I had a bin of pooping prizes he got when he pooped. Things like little dinosaurs, matchbox cars.. All little items that he enjoyed. It was bribery, although I prefer to call it an incentive. He needed an incentive to break the habit, a reason to make that big step. I was MORE than happy to find something to encourage him and I don't feel one bit badly about it!

[cloudbutterfly]

Here are a few things that have been especially successful for us.  I'm not sure what all would translate to an older toddler, especially if you're going right to the "big potty".  We started potty learning off and on at around 6 months old, so we've had to mostly focus on motivating him to do what he already knows how to do.

- The best thing has been a little table for him to play with his trains on, pulled up right to the potty.  I can put interesting combinations of toys on it and often that is enough enticement on its own.

- I read somewhere never to ask if they need to go, because the answer is often going to be "no" even when they don't mean to be resistant.  Just tell them that now is a good time to go to the potty.

- If that doesn't get him on the potty, rather than trying to entice/coerce him onto the potty since that rarely works out, I sit down on the floor and start reading a book, holding it so that he'd have to sit on the potty to see it.  Or I start playing with his toys on his table and telling a story.  Sticker books are especially good because we can read the stories and place a few stickers and that's very exciting.

- Special undies worked even better than I imagined.  DS naturally led us toward doing a lot of naked time when he decided he was ready to commit to using the potty, so he got to a point where he was mostly potty trained but unsure about wearing undies...until I got him a pack of Thomas undies.  The rule is that he gets to wear Thomas undies until they get wet, and then it's either a diaper/training pants or plain white undies.  So I'm able to talk about how he doesn't want to get his Thomas undies wet, and it allows there to be a natural negative consequence without necessarily always putting him back in a diaper (and thus maybe giving the message that I think he's backsliding back to diapers).

- When he's really engrossed in something, I move the potty to where he is so he can keep playing while sitting on it.

[bluedaisy]

I also started earlier - we kind of tried EC'ing but I mostly just took her to the potty first thing in the morning adn after naps when I knew she had to go.

You could try to start there - get a little potty and just sit her on it as soon as she wakes up from naps or in the morning.  We let DD run around naked a lot with a potty in the room where we were playing - as soon as she started to go (if she didn't head to the potty), I put her on the potty so she would get used to the feeling of peeing on the potty.  When she got better, we would have her naked or in underwear all the time when we were at home, and only used diapers for going out.

It was very low stress for all of us and in less than a month she was in underwear all the time. 

[sunnygir1]

Originally Posted by bluedaisy 

I also started earlier - we kind of tried EC'ing but I mostly just took her to the potty first thing in the morning adn after naps when I knew she had to go.

You could try to start there - get a little potty and just sit her on it as soon as she wakes up from naps or in the morning.  We let DD run around naked a lot with a potty in the room where we were playing - as soon as she started to go (if she didn't head to the potty), I put her on the potty so she would get used to the feeling of peeing on the potty.  When she got better, we would have her naked or in underwear all the time when we were at home, and only used diapers for going out.

It was very low stress for all of us and in less than a month she was in underwear all the time. 

That's how I did it with dd, started taking her to the toilet at prime peeing times around 6 or 8 months.  We did it how you described and she was out of daytime diapers by 2.

Ds is another story.  From the get-go (6 or 8 months) he would scream in protest every time I put him on the toilet.  He still doesn't like it, but will occasionally sit on it.  He has had one pee success (months ago) and one poop success (last week) but is very uninterested in using the toilet.  He goes diaper free and pees on the floor all the time when I snatch him up to take him to the toilet he doesn't stop peeing, so there's a trail of pee from wherever he was, totally doesn't encourage me to use that method with him.  I really hope that he gets interested relatively soon -- I can identify with the op in that if he's still like this at 3 I will definitely be pulling out all the stops!