Both Kidlets were headed to pre-K at 22mo, so they had to be potty-trained: it was ok if they had to have diapers on for naps, but so long as the kids were awake, no diapers. The boy was trained to do it sitting down: they’re not expected to start doing it in the toilet standing up until 1st grade or so, and even then, being able to do it sitting down comes in handy when Mom takes them to the bathroom and the toilet is full-size; at age 5, he’s still too short to get anything near decent aim on a full-size toilet.
His instinct when he felt the pee coming was to stand up and do the peepee dance (you know, the one you do when you’re trying to keep it in?), getting him to understand that doing it with diapers off so long as he was sitting down on the potty was the hard part. Mom got both a toilet babyseat and a potty: he was allowed to choose which one to try, chose the potty at first and later the babyseat. The potty Mom has looks like a duck, the kid can grab the head and scoot around while on it. His biggest problem was realizing when he needed to go: often he’d be caught up on something and have an oops, or you’d ask “do you need to go”, he’d say no and a minute later he’d be peepee-jitterbugging. Getting angry “I asked whether you needed to go!” was counterproductive: explaining “you know, I’ve got a pretty good idea of when you need to go, maybe if you only need to go a little it’s better to go than not” worked better.
The Kidlette was a lot easier, she’d actually been trying to get rid of the diapers already by the time they finally sat her on a potty (I understand this is relatively common with girls). A demonstration by her mother on the full-size toilet got her peeing and pooing like a champion; she took a few weeks to figure out how to get the grown-up’s attention when she needed to go, but she already noticed it.
Both got trained at the end of the summer; the lack of clothes helps.
I’m not going to go on too much about our own experiences because they are just that…our own.
If there is one piece of advice I’d offer it is this, Be patient. and expect to have lots of accidents and be prepared for it to test your sanity.
There is no single correct way and no correct age. People will regale you with tales of angelic cherubs fully trained at 9 months and others will fill your head with torment of the soggy years to come.
Both are right and wrong. Experiment and find a way that works for you, that helps you and your little ones to progress without stressing you both to breaking point and remember. Pretty much everything will wipe off or wash. No one dies.
Bah. My daughter is 30 months and steadfastly refuses to use her potty. She has the control (indeed, she often wakes up dry) and knows when she’s going, but is usually far too interested in whatever she’s doing to tell us or to go herself. The problem is almost certainly our approach; I suspect that whenever we get it right she’ll come around quickly.
I may look into child seats for the toilet as this may appeal more than the potty approach.
My older child (who has mild autism and therefore wasn’t training in ANY way on a normal schedule) developed encopresis pretty much as soon as we got him out of daytime diapers. That was a treat and a half… required quite a few years before that completely resolved.
My younger child was dry during the daytime by age 3.5… but would take a dump pretty much the minute we put her in her nighttime pullups. Consistently.
Then we caught her going to her room to put on a pullup by herself so she could poop.
The third or fourth time she did this, we suggested that maybe if she knew she needed to poop, she try the toilet. Clearly she had the awareness and the control, just didn’t connect all the dots mentally.
Her reaction was sort of :smack:.
I have NO idea why she was so bent on using the pullup vs. the toilet.
If it helps any (and it might not at this age given the age difference (my son was 3 when he potty trained)), but what really got my son potty trained was putting it in his hands.
I had been struggling to get him to poop in the potty and pee there consistently for about six months, maybe more, when I finally threw up my hands. I said, “You know what? I’m not going to ask you anymore. I love you and I trust that you’ll know when you’re ready. If you go poop and pee in the potty all the time, here’s what you get: you can go to pre-K, you can ride the school bus sometimes and go on field trips with your friends. If you don’t want to use the potty all the time now, though, that’s okay, too. You just tell me when you’re ready.” The darn kid potty trained himself and was done with diapers four days later.
If you start to potty-train your child at 12 months, it is going to take you a year and a half before you’re done. If you start at 30 months you can do it in a couple of days.
Seriously.
One caveat is do not try when the child is in that “terrible twos” stage when they say no to everything. That’s a setup for a bad battle and a losing one. Do it before or after that.
One method, if you’re home and can devote the time to it, is toilet training in ONE day. The child has to be old enough to have the control of his/her bladder. You take off the diaper. And the pants. Explain the process. You have to stay with the child ALL DAY, every minute. Every time he/she goes in the toilet/potty, he gets a a bribe of something he/she does not ordinarily get. Candy, for example. One day, maybe two, of bribes and a willing and able child will learn. Now that he/she knows it’s possible, and can explain the logical benefits (no diaper-changing, big gir/boy pants, no stink, etc.) praise can substitute for the candy. Sounds crazy, but it works. Obviously not an option if you don’t have the time to devote to it, though.
And good God, please don’t teach your son to pee sitting down. He won’t get it. When he’s about 2 1/2 let his father start teaching him standing up. Drop a couple of cheerios in the toilet and let target practice begin. Waiting for him to just go and hope he’s sitting on the potty is not an effective way to potty train.
If toys don’t work, then I would try reading to him or playing a game. Give yourself a set amount of time to try, like 2 minutes, and if he doesn’t go, then try again in 10 or 20 minutes. I would also try setting him on the potty right after his morning wake up, if he wakes up dry. Or after naps. That was what I started with with my daughter. He needs to form the association between peeing and the potty. My babe will only get off the potty if she doesn’t have to go or if she is done, but she already has the association between peeing and the potty because we started at 5 months. Just keep trying, eventually peeing on the potty will be normal to him.
In China, most kids are potty trained between 1 and 2 and usually in the summer. as a poster above pointed out, generally the parents/grandparents/nannies are all on the same page and consistently set them on the pot and wait with the kidlings until they go. Pre-school starts around 2 and they have to be potty trained for that although accidents are planned for.
I think the key that if the kid is consistently coached every day and every time, potty training happens at an earlier age.
Your son sounds like he wants the big seat instead of a potty. The kiddie insert seat is a great way to go IMHO.
Apparently it works similarly in a lot of the world. Although there are significant variations. A girlfriend adopted from Eastern Europe. Her daughter was potty trained when she arrived at about fifteen months. But the way they solved that “staying put” issue was to tie her down, when she went, she was free until the next time to tie her down. That wouldn’t be acceptable to most U.S. parents (but appears to have done her daughter no harm and she did get a potty trained toddler).
Also, you’ve hit on something else - the idea of accidents and the definition of “trained.” I knew a woman (another message board, so use the word ‘know’ in the furtherest possible from the biblical sense) - who insisted that her child was potty trained - I remember the child being about 24 months. But she did have two or three accidents PER DAY. I didn’t consider my kids trained until we could reliably leave the house for the day in underwear without a change of clothes - and if I sent them on a playdate at someone else’s house, their trips to the bathroom could be self directed - no Mommy saying “honey, do you have to go potty?” If potty training was “once in a while my kid can put his pee in the potty if I set them on it” mine were done at fifteen months too. My son had one accident post potty training ever (and he had a fever of 103), my daughter had one (a year later she got so involved in something that she just forgot to stop).
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