Stepmom needs help!!!

[aleckn04]

So I have been dating my boyfriend about a year and a half and we live together, he has a 20month old son from a previous relationship. We have him about one or twice a week. She told us that he has peed in the potty once but she is not the sharing type with us and we have no clue how she is going about potty training him. Last he was over and i tried to get him to sit on our toddler potty and he freaked out as soon as i took of his diaper. Latter i Tried and i tried to make him more comfortable by playing in the bathroom and very slowly step by step getting him to sit with his diaper off but again as soon as he realized he was sitting on the potty he freaked. is there any tips some one can gave give me to help him be more comfortable or should i just not try to help with potty training at my house? And going to her is out of the question we had to fight for set days to see him and when i first moved in with my boyfriend she tried to keep her son from being around me, so she is not all that open with us sadly.

[nilatti]

My son really enjoyed reading books about children using the potty (though he's been ECed since he was tiny, so he was sort of used to the idea). We had a "potty pause" at around 19 months, and got over it by reading Once Upon a Potty and some Sesame Street book where Baby Grover "has to go." It just normalized it.

Latest favorite around here is Everybody Poops. 

So, maybe you could try just reading those books to him for a couple weeks and then see if he wants to use the potty.

Oh, and also, my DS's latest thing is putting his lovey on the "potty"--we get a short fat cup--one of his stackers--and put the toy on it when we put him on the potty. He likes to tell us "Shelly go potty? Shelly go poop?" and that means that both he AND the doll need to use the facilities. Again, maybe play at putting a toy on the potty every now and then for a few weeks before you try to put HIM on it.