Potty Training.. Should I be doing something different?

[dejagerw]

My first son was so easy... sigh.

I'm currently attempting to train my 23 month old. He's been poop trained for something like 6 months. I figure if he's able to tell me he's got to go potty for poop he should be able to figure out peeing right? My oldest trained himself with little assistance from me at age 22 months, but he still had a month or so of poop trouble. This one definitely has poop down, it's just the pee. I've tried setting a timer so he can try often. But he totally resists and throws a fit if I try to tell him he's got to sit on the potty. Should I insist or just let it go? He's had some days of training that have been great, maybe only one accident. But then there are other days where he doesn't get any pee in the potty. Often he'll say "I've got to go potty", I'll get so excited, but then I realized he's already wet his pants. He really wants to wear underwear. He doesn't want to wear diapers. (I do put him in a diaper at night though). Sometimes I get him on the potty, only to sit there for awhile, have him get up and 2 minutes later pee his pants. Should I stick with this? I know he'll learn eventually, but am I looking at weeks here of changing wet undies and pants or months?

[skycheattraffic]

I'm right there with you! 20 month old DD is completely good to go with poop but has a ton of pee misses. I still have her in diapers (mostly cloth) because I just can't handle the cleanup right now. I'm 8 weeks pregnant, completely exhausted and have strong smell aversions for now. She does take herself pee about once a day but has a ton of wet diaps too. I find the more I push, the worse it gets so I just let her be. I remind her to tell me "potty" and that pee goes in the potty. Occasionally I ask if she has to go but respect her "no" and let her carry on. It does take accidents to learn for most kids and I'm determined to roll up my sleeves and get messy once I feel better. My advice to you is to stay the course: make the potty easily accessible and let him keep his undies. I think he probably needs more experience and yeah, that means more messes.

[Mama4life14]

My son had pee down but not pooping.. Kinda opposite but kinda the same. I basically just tried my best not to force him, I wanted him to think that it was mostly his idea. It seems to work with most other things. So I just tried to do things that were fun to make him wanna go. It sounds ridiculous, but he absolutely LOVED when I sang a song.. Pooping on the potty, now you get a smartie.... (He would get a smartie after pooping) Over and over.. I looked crazy. But it made it so much fun. I only did it after he pooped though. It kinda just happened easily from there. All of a sudden he was in underwear, and he wanted to do it every step of the way. The only downside, was that it seemed slow to me, but I wanted him to want to. So I feel it was a stress free experience for both of us this way. good luck to you both! It will happen!

[dejagerw]

My son has started to do better! Yesterday he stayed dry all day! I was able to get him to go on the potty a bunch of times so that he never had an accident. I think he's starting to be able to realize how to make himself pee. So, that when I put him on, he can more easily go. Where as before, he'd just sit there and then 5 minutes later pee his pants. Today he had one accident. I'm still not sure he can recognize when he needs to go.

Do you think it's better to take them to the potty often so that they don't have an accident? Or should I leave him alone to try and figure it out himself?

[newmamalizzy]

I think your last question depends on the kid.  Mine does much better if she's completely in control of her potty experience. Until we started leaving the house in undies I never sat her on the potty at all.  We used the nakey-butt method with a little potty that she could easily access by herself.  When we started going out more, I started putting her on the potty more often, and she stopped telling me when she had to go.  We went back to the naked thing for awhile and she got the hang of it again. 
 

[akcowgirl]

We are also doing the naked butt routine with our 21 month DD. it is going pretty well. The one thing I have noticed is me getting down on her level when she is on the potty and "showing" her that she needs to "push" ( I squish my face up and grunt a little) seems to have made a huge difference. Now she knows she needs to push a little to make things happen. Good luck.

[milk monster]

Yeah, our 20-m.o. is the opposite--has had pee more or less down for months, but poops everywhere but the potty. Either way, I haven't had much of a choice between "offering the potty often" and having him go in his undies and know what it feels like--we try to offer frequent potty opps, but accidents still happen

Sounds like your little one is getting the hang of it. Also, I've found that our DS will sometimes, ahem, inaccurately claim he doesn't need to go (or hasn't already gone) because when he's busy doing something he really enjoys and doesn't want to be interrupted. So we try to give him potty opps jut before such activities.

Also, if he goes off in a corner by himself for a few minutes--rush him to the potty!

[LeighPF]

I found with mine, going to the potty together made a big difference. I had the potty next to the toilet and it was very mummy & me.

[Catholic Mama]

When I brought up toilet training with our family doctor, he was encouraging: he reminded us that the child isn't late potty training until he or she is 4 years old. So that helped me relax a little with my 3-year-old DS.

Several months ago (maybe the beginning of summer 2012), I was getting frustrated and discouraged with toilet training so I decided to make a sticker chart. I made one for both my 3-year-old DS and his 2-year-old sister. There are four headings across the top: Morning, After Lunch, Wakeup from Nap, and Bedtime. Along the side I wrote down the days of the week, from top loft to bottom left. My system for putting stickers on it goes like this: if the child sits on the toilet and nothing goes into the toilet, he gets one sticker; if he pees, he gets two stickers; if he poops; he gets three stickers; if he does both, he gets four stickers. I am thinking about stopping the sticker charts for both children because they have done so little in the bathroom to earn stickers. But it worked for a little while because some weeks, they (or at least one of them) earned lots of stickers, especially for pooping. I like this approach better than candy (but please don't take that as a criticism if you use candy with your child). Also, for a short time it helped when I directed my son to go straight into the bathroom to pee when he woke up from his nap; these days he tells me he doesn't need to so I have to wait for the wet diaper to come off.

One very annoying thing that used to happen is when I would finish changing a diaper, one of my toddlers - usually my 2-year-old daughter - would suddenly decide (right before I put the clean diaper on) that she had to go use the toilet. So I had to let her go to the toilet, and she would usually only want to be on it for a second, and then I would put her diaper on.

dejagerw, may I ask how you poop trained your son? I need ideas for my son. Thanks!

[dejagerw]

Things are going pretty well for my DS now. He's telling me when he has to go and will usually go when I put him on. He's averaging about 1 or less accidents a day! I have him go in the morning, before nap, before bed, and before we go anywhere in the car. (Or if we're out and about, I might put him on more often so that he doesn't have an accident when we're out somewhere.) His diaper is still soaked in the morning, but I won't worry about night training yet.

One time he even peed a little in his undies and said he had to go to potty and then went more in the potty. I was impressed that he was able to stop.

As far poop training him. I started having him poop in the potty from infancy. (Kinda like EC, but he still wore diapers and mostly peed in them). As he got older, whenever I noticed him about to poo, I ran him to his potty and put him on. That way he got used to it early on. Over time, he would just tell me he had to go potty and I'd take him and he'd poop.

Thanks for the support everyone!
 

[akind1]

We are in the naked butt club. Our issue is trying to get 3 year old DS to wear underwear and not pee in them - he thinks anything that goes on your bottom is a diaper. *sigh*

Personally, I think the urge to poop, and the urge to pee are very different and it might take a while between the two.

I haven't pushed going to the potty lately, and I never have done the "every 30 minutes" method. I watch my son, and he is one that doesn't seem to need to pee frequently. He will, if he gets rewarded, but I want him to listen to his own cues. He pees 4-6 times a day. Poop somehow never needs to happen until he has a diaper on. (for bedtime, or while we are out) He has had NO poop accidents while naked. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but poop is one of those things that you really can't force - you can pee a dribble if you really try most of the time, but not poop.

I think I'm just going to have to start underwear and do lots of changes, until he gets the idea that he shouldn't pee in them. I can tell now with him that peeing is a concious thing, except maybe at night, and that's a big deal.

[skycheattraffic]

Akind1, you can also try jogging pants without underwear. It feels more like a naked accident with pee running down the legs and feels less snug on the bum (like undies/diapers). I've heard of many toddlers successfully transitioning to undies using this method. I'm taking a little break with DD from full on PL (need to work on pee) until I get out oft first trimester yuckiness. I plan on getting 2 or 3 more potties and going naked once I feel a little better.