potty training methods

[Snapdragon]

My 2.75 yr old son is still not potty trained and I am beginning to feel like dh and I are doing the wrong thing by being so lazy and casual about it.

I got the three day potty training method and read it and planned to do it- in which you totally take away all their diapers and just go for broke with the potty training I guess- an I am home with ds all day anyway so that isn't that hard part.

It just felt wrong or hard or something and I never did it.

Generally I try to parent by insticnt and I know it is not uber late for a boy to still be in diapers at 2.75 but I Am starting to feel like maybe the three day potty training and other similar methods are right- that it is the parents jobto teach the kid sooner than later.

HE is wearing underwear a lot more now- and for a while was pretty good about peeing in the potty. he even pulled his own pants and underwear down a few times on the potty and pooped twice (in the last few months) in the pottyand I thought we were progressing.

But now being a stubborn toddler sometimes he doesn't want to pee in the potty- and anyway whn he needs to poop we pu a diaper on him as he wont sit on the potty to poop.

so what have you moms of toddlers found-

is it fine to keep showing him the potty, putting on underwear and gently encouraging him to use it?

or do dh and I need to shift into a higher gear with this to get it done- and if so do we really need to take away all the diapers and deal with messes on the floor- etcetra/

and even if we do the more aggressive approach I Am stil unclear bout how. about how to get a 2.75 yr old to sit on the potty and pee even if they dont want to.

so generally- keep in gentel or step it up and if step it up thenhow?

[colsxjack]

With our DD, we first read a couple of books about pottying with her. There is Calliou and others.

Then we bought both a potty chair and a seat for the toilet. We then just let her go diaper free. Sometimes she pee'd on the floor. But we have hard wood floors, so it wasn't a big deal to clean up. If she pee'd on the floor we didn't make a big deal out of it. Just said "oh no, an accident. That's OK, everyone has accidents sometimes"

It helped that a friend of hers had a potty. She liked that idea and wanted one herself.

We tried to make going on the potty fun for her. We would put her on it and read to her. Reading is one of her favourite activities.

Any time she did pee in the potty we would dance and sing. She thought that was hilarious and loved it.

I would just try going naked in the house and dealing with it. If he has any issue with it then you can step back a bit.

edited to add that she actually hated the potty and would rather go on the toilet.

[sageowl]

No advice but I'm having the same problem you are. 

I'm in the third trimester of pregnancy and do NOT feel like having any more daily power struggles over toileting or cleaning up accidents, so I've decided to just back the F&$# off for now, and let it go for awhile.  Yeah, it would have been nice to get this kid out of diapers by 3, but he clearly IS not that interested or motivated in using the toilet, so I'm just going to leave it alone for awhile--with another baby on the way, I figure I'm gonna be changing diapers for years anyway, so I figure at some point, he'll decide he's over it, and if not, there's worse things in the universe.     
 

[skycheattraffic]

My one big caution is ditch the disposables (as much as possible; definitely at home during the day). I put DD in disposables when the first trimester was at its worst and I had trouble just crawling out of bed. She's 21 months but we started part time EC at 11 months so this kid used to potty anytime anywhere. She used to say "bum" or "potty" every time she needed to poop (and a few times to pee) but she was still in cloth full time because she peed a lot and very frequently. Two weeks in sposies and she COMPLETELY stopped initiating! I have her back in cloth (or just pants with nothing underneath) and she is slowly starting to initiate again. Every child is different, but disposable diapers make it impossible for them to know when they've peed. For any kids PLing on carpet without CD, a thick pair of sweatpants will soak up most of the mess and let them feel the wet sensation. Outings are another kettle of fish and I'm still using sposies as backup (can't have a soaked carseat in freezing temperatures) but around the house kids need to feel wet to put it all together. Good luck everyone!! Im right there with you!

[marsupial-mom]

My son is 3 and still isn't 100% there. He goes pee in the potty vritually all the time. But he as poopy accidents far too often.

But even just a month and a half ago he had all the skills but just wouldn't even go pee in the potty half the time. So we started using rewards and giving him things whenever he used the potty.

We found that the best way was to give him some serious motivation. We tried a variety of special treats and finally found a certain toy that does it. It's going to cost us a hundred dollars or so all said and done but we've decided that's OK. What we do is this - every day he goes the whole day without having an accident in his underwear he earns a special toy (usually costs about 2-4 bucks each toy).

We also have emphasized the whole "you're a big boy now and big boys keep their underwear clean" thing that makes him feel big and strong and powerful. But that wasn't enough. The toys really do it.

I figure that after a while we can up the ante and change it into "if you go the whole week without any accidents you get a really special toy" and then we'll set a goal date and have a big reward for going all that time without accidents. By then I expect he will be in preschool and being potty trained is a requirement there so I think he may maintain it without toys because his peers do it too.

[Snapdragon]

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Edited by Snapdragon - 1/20/13 at 2:03pm

[kayleesmom]

My son will be 4 in a few weeks and still won't poop on potty and has pretty much decided that he will just pee in his diaper too. I heard boys can take longer

[gumshoegirl007]

We're in the process of potty training our daughter who will be 22 months this week.  I say process, even though she's pretty much there after 2.5 weeks, but I don't want to jinx it ;)

I looked all over the internet for potty training info and tips, and then I stumbled upon Oh Crap. Potty Training.  Now I'm a total convert.  Have a look at it and see if it might work for you.

We pretty much followed Jamie's method to a 'T' (with the exception that we had the potty out for months before we began potty training).  Our approach was much like yours, and we hoped that one day it would just click for our DD, and she'd start to go pee and poo in the potty all on her own.  That was a little too hopeful, now having been through the process.  We had lots of pees on the potty - some accidental and some DD initiated - and a few poops.

I was freaked out by the time investment of potty training being that it's the middle of winter and I would be cooped up with my daughter in the house if things didn't go quickly. Because of all our earlier potty work, our DD knew that she was to pee on the potty and knew how go pee when she sat on the potty. Our big area of learning was to recognize when she had to go pee or poop so we could make it to the potty in time.

Jamie's got a lot of tips, and loose approach (and I don't want to spell it out here cause the ebook is $15 and this must be how she makes her livelihood), but our kids sound so much alike.  Ditch the underwear and go commando cause underwear does feel too much like diapers. For the first few days you'll be catching your kid mid-pee/poop and getting them to the potty, or letting them know it's time to go, so you pretty much scoop them up and put them on the potty.  There's a delicate balance with overcueing, and it's important to let the kid fail a few times, so they know what it feels like to have an accident and they can make the correlation. 

The first poop accident was a total surprise for my DD.  The next one she wasn't done going yet, and let me know mid-way to the bathroom to empty the potty with the partial poop, and we didn't make it on time.  The third poop accident happened at daycare and she let them know she had to go but they didn't make it on time.  And I'm not quite sure what happened with the fourth time at daycare.  But a total of four poop accidents for a kid who poops two times a day in 2.5 weeks is pretty darn good!  We've had many more pee accidents, and equally as many accident free days.

For the first few weeks Jamie says you do a lot of cueing -- and you do!  Pottying is really all about you.  You recognize the signs and get your kid to the potty on time.  Then around week three, on average,she says that most start to let you know they have to go.  Our DD started self initiating around 2 weeks and now she just goes when she has to. Sometimes she yells out "poop" (cause pee and poop are both "poop!") or she just goes to her potty.  If your DS doesn't know how to work his pants, then I'd start teaching him how to push it down.  That's been key for us. 

Having had a successful potty training experience (hey, my kid STILL doesn't sleep through the night), I think that what you're calling the "gentle" approach isn't really effective.  We're changing the rules on our kids, and they don't really understand, and we're not setting them up for success.  Commit to ditching the diapers and go feet first into potty training.  I think your DS may surprise you.

[rubidoux]

I just waited until my boys were about 3 1/2 (one was exactly 3 1/2 to the day, the other a month shy) and I packed up the diapers and put them away and stayed home for a couple of days.  Neither one of them wanted to give up diapers.  If they had shown any interest in that at all, I would have run with that earlier.  But they were very certain they liked their diapers, so I didn't push it until I had to.  With my first it was because I just felt DONE with diapers and with my second it was because he was going to start school pretty soon.  But when I put the diapers away they were plenty old enough to be capable of using the bathroom and they didn't have almost any trouble at all.  My older pooped on the floor for a few days and then we had a tearful/scared pooping on the potty while I held his hand and talked him through it and after that he was totally fine.  My second was irritated at not having his dipes, but I don't think he even had any accidents until a few months later.  It was all pretty matter of fact.  

[Aufilia]

DS was interested in the potty right after he turned 2 and last year right before Christmas we did a lot of naked time and he learned how to pee intentionally.  Then he lost interest and spent the rest of the year freely pooping and peeing in his pull-ups.  I KNEW he COULD PT if he wanted to, so the week before Christmas break this year I started putting him in underwear and made a sticker chart. He quickly learned to hold his pee, and got lots of "peeing stickers" but was still pooping in the undies and avoiding mentioning it.  I was feeling like he would NEVER care and browsed the Internet, desperate for tips, and ended up trying 2 things that helped: I told him he could have privacy in the bathroom if he wanted it, and I started to make a big cheery deal about it if he TOLD me he'd pooped his pants, rather than hiding it.  So finally he started telling me when he was poopy, which was big progress, but he was still pooping himself.  A couple days after that he was making stinky farts one morning and I KNEW he had to poop, but he refused to sit on the toilet long enough, so in desperation I told him that he could play with the tablet computer as long as he would sit on the toilet. That was the last day he pooped his pants.  Now he's got a pretty firm schedule where at about 8am and about 1pm he sits on the toilet, plays the tablet, and poops.  Apparently I found his currency.

[Snapdragon]

we are getting much better with the peeing in the potty but still no pooping. I read an old thread the other day on mdc where someone suggested doing it in stages- he has always pooped in a diaper so he is used to it so the first step they said is when you know he has to poop tell him he can poop in his diaper but he has to be in the bathroom, because people poop in bathrooms. This seems lilke a good step, I am going to try it.

[~Adorkable~]

Originally Posted by gumshoegirl007 

We're in the process of potty training our daughter who will be 22 months this week.  I say process, even though she's pretty much there after 2.5 weeks, but I don't want to jinx it ;)

I looked all over the internet for potty training info and tips, and then I stumbled upon Oh Crap. Potty Training.  Now I'm a total convert.  Have a look at it and see if it might work for you.

i want to second this lady and her PDF book, she is really a great mind and a great attitude. i have spoken back and forth a tiny bit online with her and read the book a few times and I'm in the very first days of it with my 24m twins, her concepts are doable, common sense and she tells it like it is. she also really articulates well the pitfalls that catch folks up and the unhelpful myths that are out there.