Potty training advice needed (non-parents, beware)

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’re in the midst of potty-training, and have finally gotten to a pretty good point–that is, she mostly stays dry as long as I’m vigilant. She has to be talked into it (“You’re sad when you’re wet, so let’s go potty, and you’ll be dry and happy!”), but is capable all right.

But she won’t poop on the potty. She says she wants to, but won’t do it. She’ll pee, and 5 minutes later announce that she needs her diaper changed.

I know this isn’t all that uncommon and a lot of kids do it. So does anyone have any suggestions for getting her to poop on the potty? I’ve been putting the contents of her diaper into the toilet and letting her flush. I don’t get negative about poop–we have a poopoo song, and we talk about how it’s the body’s way of taking out the trash and getting rid of stuff it doesn’t need–but she says it’s yucky anyway.

Help!

2

Read “Everyone Poops” by Taro Gomi
It’s a kids classic. Sounds like you’re on the right track, just don’t make a big deal over it. My dad said kids grow up in spite of you.

3

I never ever thought I’d resort to this as a parent, but…

Bribery.

When the Skeezling was a month or so past her second birthday, we decided to try and persue potty-training a bit more aggressively. She’d used the potty seat a few times successfully, but wasn’t interested enough to want to use it every time. We figured we’d try a little bribery, for a month, and see how it went. One M&M for pee, two for poop.

In the span of a week or so, the kid dirtied exactly two diapers, and we ended up giving away most of the last package of diapers we’d bought.

There was another incentive, which worked wonders for us. Panties. She’s crazy about the Hundred Acre Wood gang (Tigger, Pooh, and that bunch) so we found some Pooh-Bear panties, and talked 'em up in a big way. Big girl undies, with the sacred bear all over them, which she could only wear if she could use the potty-seat regularly.

A week. I was floored. We had prepared ourselves for a month of candy (and the subsequent hyperactivity) and having to go back to diapers for a while before trying again.

And if, like me, you’re not all that comfortable with the sugar bribery, after three days or so, start “forgetting” the M&Ms as often as you can get away with it. If the kid doesn’t mention them, you’ve scored. She used the potty-seat, on her own initiative, and without candy. Win-win. After the second week, there was no mention of them at all.

By the same token, we also had the problem you describe genie, with one form of elimination being more acceptable to the kid than the other. She got over it fairly quickly, but some kids don’t. Patience is, as always, your best weapon here.

A Digression:
If, right now, you think I’m full of shit (no pun, really) or you believe me, but hate me anyway, it’s cool. Our pediatrician suggested to us at the kid’s two-year-old checkup visit this idea, and bragged to us about how she had potty-trained her son in about a week. We were convinced she had to be pulling our legs, or had some secret pediatrician’s knowledge of potty-training that mere civilians would never understand. But it works (for some kids, at least.)

Good luck, in any case.

4

Some people swear by the 2-day, $200 method. You let them run around the house naked for 2 days. When they poop it runs down their leg and they don’t like it. Also, you may consider doing something that is uncomfortable for them when they poop themselves, like wash them off with cold water. The $200? For the carpet cleaner.

As a father of three little ones, I must say that when it came down to it, when they were ready, they were ready. We did all sorts of bribes, rewards, tricks, praise, etc. But I must say that I feel that any result we saw was truly just a coincidence of time. They were ready to poop on the toilet, so they did.

Here’s some advice: Beware advice! Mostly, beware advice from anyone whose youngest child is older than 10. They’ve lost all true memory of what happened and what worked, and how old their child was when they were potty trained.

Three years old seems to be the average, some start sooner, some later.

Funny story only parents will enjoy: When my youngest son was of the age to lose his diapers I told him I wanted to be potty trained. He said, “We’re going to ride the potty train?” I immediately said, “Yes, you can ride on the potty train once you don’t need diapers anymore.” It was a great incentive. I even showed him the commuter train and told him it was the Potty Train. A few weeks later he and I rode the Metrolink for 45 minutes and he was very proud and excited.

5

I used the 2 day method, davejg, and it worked in a half day. My daughter was 2 and a few months, and was very attached to the diapers. We tried the bribery, the “every time you use the potty we’ll put a happy face sticker on the calendar” thing, the begging and pleading, and then I saw the light. My wife went to work one day and I just let the daughter streak around the house, which she thought was the greatest thing in the world, until she had to go potty. She asked me to put her diaper back on and I said she was too old for them. It quickly reached the condition critical point, and she ran into the bathroom and used the potty. Once she did it the first time she never looked back. Took half a day and there wasn’t any $200 cleaning involved.

6

We tried the 2 day method also, except we took my 2 year old niece to the store to pick panties and let her choose the ones she likes.

Took them home had her wear it around the house and she stopped using diapers that day.

She was afraid of messing up her pretty little panties.

Now if we can only get her to stop wearing the same ones all the time…

7

how old is your daughter? Our experience was real easy so I won’t go into it.

8

I used the M&M method. Every time they used the potty, they would get an M&M. Potty training was very easy for us.

9

I’ve always believed in letting my little ones potty-train themselves…they trained later, but with no problems at all.

Except the baby. She’s two now. I canNOT keep clothes, underwear, or diapers on this girl–I’ve tried pins, backwards-fastened diapers, duct tape, you name it, she can get out of it. And unfortunately, she’s not the least concerned about peeing down her leg or pooping on the floor.

Right now we’re trying putting her on the potty as often as we can. She likes to sit there, she just isn’t interested in actually using it yet. sigh

I’m sure you’ll have better luck, though. I think babypoet is just a little independent. Yeah, that’s it…Independent. Heh.

Best,
karol

10

Paidhi boy won’t poop in the potty, either.

We’ve had great success with hershey mini-bars and kisses. He never cared much if he peed on himself, or left a pile on the floor, but the chocolate did wonders for getting him to pee in the potty–if he’s naked. If he’s wearing underpants, he just pees in them. If he wears his pants without underpants, or his jammies without a diaper, he’ll unzip and hop on the potty.

The way I’m approaching the poop is to keep an eye out–he usually shows signs of pooping, often he’ll walk funny, and he’ll get distressed when he starts to poop, even in a diaper. If I catch it, I grab him and put him on the potty. Sometimes it takes a few tries, because he resists it, so I’ve found, bizzarely, that it works best if I catch him at the very last possible moment, when I see that poop starting to come out (partly for this reason, and partly because of his own preference, paidhi boy goes naked whenever we’re home). Then I whisk him off to the potty and applaud when I hear the splash, tell him he’s a big boy, and give him chocolate. Then we have a little farewell ceremony for the poop. It’s gotten better over the past few days, so I guess we’re getting somewhere. But my faith is still in nudity and chocolate. I guess we’ll see over the next few weeks whether that faith is misplaced or not.

11

Sorry, but this means that YOU’RE the one who is trained, though it does sound as though she’s coming along pretty well.

You’ve already received lots of good advice. I especially agree with the ‘run around naked all day’ method, which worked well with all 3 of our boys (current ages: 3, 7, 9). But the main thing I think is important is that the child needs to be ready and motivated and interested before training can happen. It’s ok if s/he doesn’t begin to show any interest even until 3. The longer you wait, the faster and easier it happens. All the work in the world on the parents’ part just doesn’t make it happen much sooner, rather, pushing the child too early or making too big a deal about it probably just makes it more likely that they’ll grow up with hangups about the whole process, IMHO.

We have several friends with kids about the same ages as ours were, and I recall some being quite proud of how early little johnny or susan started using the potty, but it turned out that little johnny and susan needed constant reminding, it was a high stress issue in the families, and little johnny and susan ended up continuing to have occasional accidents months and (in johnny’s case) even YEARS later. Even at 9-years-old now, little johnny still has an occasional accident (bowel movement) and his parents set a timer and MAKE him sit on the toilet for something like 10 minutes at a certain time every day. Imagine the neuroses he’ll have as an adult as a result of all this. :frowning:

But you already know all this, it seems. I’m just venting my spleen about some friends who are great people and great parents but completely missed the boat on potty-training.

The training time for my first was a couple of weeks; for the second and third, it was basically done in one day, and there were only very minor slips over the next couple weeks. It’s fun to have a completely naked child running around for a few days. :slight_smile:

Oh, one last, crucial tip: don’t resort to ‘training pants’ under any circumstances. They delay the whole process. Their primary purpose, as far as I can tell, is to earn more money for Pampers and Huggies and to make parents think their child is getting ‘closer’ to being trained.

12

Oh you people had life too easy…the potty training issue is why I decided No More Kids!

We started with both girls at 2 - 2 1/2 years. They’d shown interest and readiness but how did I luck out with the stubborn streak from both sides showing up in both kids and it seems to have more than doubled!

It took 9 months with the youngest, we tried bribery (m&m’s, suckers, skittles you name it), stickers (daddy made a potty train out of construction paper to put them on), new pretty panties, cold water wash offs, timing between where they’d have to sit on the potty every 20 minutes for about 3 minutes, and I hate to admit–spankings.

The worst part was that during the summer, the sitter wanted her to come in pull-ups instead of panties. (this with both kids) And I really believe that was the mistake. Once the sitter decided it was time to make it or break it with panties, not pull-ups, both girls trained within a week–and the youngest had maybe 2 night-time accidents and has only had about 4 accidents (usually after forgetting to “go” before putting on snowpants and going out to sled).

My best advice is Don’t Use Pull-ups!

13

Big girl undies worked for the WeePundits as well. They were both ~3 and were trained in one day. Never forced the issue, but would occasionally ask, “Are you ready to wear big girl underwear?”

My 2 year old niece was just potty trained using Trident Kids’ gum as incentive.

Also, don’t sabotage the kid by giving her a bunch of milk or juice right before bedtime. 9 oz. of any liquid would cause an adult to have to pee in the middle of the night. Cut off the liquids about 2 hours before bedtime.

14

You an’ me both, honey.

15

My son trained by himself at 3 1/2.

Til that point we’d tried everything. 2 days $200 was four days and $600. Chocolate - no go. Stickers, nope. Scheduled potty times, nope. At around 3 he started to change his own pull ups. At three and a half he started to use the potty, and just started to wear the underwear we’d bought months ago.

My daughter is now 3 1/2 - and nothing we’ve tried with her has worked either. She will sit in a soiled diaper for hours if you let her. She is unmoved by bribes. Scheduled potty trips bring tantrums. And she is more than happy to pee or poop on the floor. She just recently has started to want to sit and has started to produce - both pee and poop - on the potty, but it isn’t at all consistant yet. She has a thing about not growing up - so any mention of big girl anything brings wails of “I want to be a baby!”

The only thing I’ve discovered that works dependably is patience. Few kids reach kindergarten still wearing their diapers.

16

This is right where my son is at the moment, except he’ll fill up the diaper first and then rootch out of it while his pants are still on. Then he’ll hide under the table or something. Love cleaning up that one… LOVE it.

17

TurboPuppy had a severe stubborn streak we didn’t know about. We started the potty game a little late with him, just after his little sister was born. He was 3 at the time. We let him play with a special toy everytime he went potty. Then we made the tragic mistake of letting my mom watch him for a day on about the 3rd or 4th day of even starting to train. That day, whenever he had an accident she began taking away his stuff, movies, juice, etc. He told her point blank he didn’t care what she took, he was wearing the diaper. So we waited, bringing up the subject every few months, bought him a musical potty chair, books, anything we could think of. Nothing. No interest at all. Suddenly, he’s 5 years old and I am holding him back from going to Kindergarten. One day I snapped, told him he WAS a big kid and if he wanted to wear a diaper he’d have to put it on himself. He used the potty after that.

18

My daughter trained herself in a week, with no work on our part whatsoever. We brought home a kid potty, and she started using it.

My son, OTOH… Aye. NOTHING worked. Especially not the running around naked routine. He would specifically seek out his toys to poop/pee on them! Why? I have no clue. We tried for a YEAR to potty train him. Then, one day shortly after he turned three, he just started using the potty all on his lonesome.

I do agree that pull-ups do not help. Pull-Ups SUCK. They only encourage kids to stay in diapers longer.

19

Jesus! I didn’t think they could even hold their heads up at that age!

20

we are potty training our puppies using the crate method…would this work for kiddos?? :smiley: