Daughter 2yrs 10 months. We really only started seriously working on using the potty this week.
Here are some pitfalls:
She actively holds it until nap time and bed time, when we put a diaper on her.
She will sit on the potty until the cows come home, but won’t wee. Since Thursday, we’ve had three wees in the potty and two accidents (it’s now Sunday morning). No poops, in the potty OR in the diaper. She’s actually not pooped since Wednesday at noon. (I know b/c they told me at her creche).
Tell me it’ll all be ok and I won’t spend the next few months both worrying, trying to not look worried and wanting to ask if she has wee or poo, but not wanting to pressure either.
Just please tell me your success stories to give me motivation!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–chocolate. As soon as 3 yr old paidhi boy figured out the “potty=chocolate” thing, I couldn’t get him off the potty.
You might also consider getting a waterproof mattress cover ($10 at Walmart, or wherever). Then, stop with the naptime diapers. Sure, there’ll be accidents, but the mattress will be safe, and everything else is washable.
Oh, and you have to be really, really patient. But you knew that already.
Success stories: I have two kids who are successfully potty trained. Really. They never have accidents anymore. They are 15 and 16.
Seriously, it’ll be OK. You’re in early days yet and seem to be doing fine. If you don’t object to bribing, that might help things along. I kept a jar of Skittles in the bathroom when I was training mine – they got a couple with each pee or poop. This works better if candy is a rare treat for them, BTW. My friend has a kid the same age as my youngest and he could never be bribed with candy because they had a “candy drawer” in their kitchen and he had free access to it from the time he could reach it. Another thing – I recommend avoiding those Pullup training pants/diaper things. They are too comfortable for the kids and seem to delay full training in my opinion. If an accident means the kids are a little wet and uncomfortable and have to take time out from their play to change clothes they’ll train sooner. IMO.
Pretty, big girl panties worked for two of my daughters.
It’s hard to hold your tee tee if there is running water in the room. Have you thought about conveniently having to wash your hands or clean the bathroom sink whenever she’s sitting on the toilet?
We used gummy bears as a reward - one for #1, two for #2.
Father of six here. I agree with the bribery. Put a chart by the potty and make long term as well as short term goals.
And by all means, if she only goes in a diaper, stop using them. Get training pants, big-girl pants whatever (not pull-ups). Be prepared for them to get dirty Have a wet bucket with a bleach solution or something.
Have paitence and don’t power struggle. Let us know how it goes.
We used seasonal M&Ms and called them potty treats. The M is for Mommy. This way, if we go to the store, she can’t ask for more potty treats, 'cause they’re gone! She got one for pee, two for poop (she also had the ‘no pooping in the potty’ thing). That, plus pretty panties and Taro Gomi’s Everyone poops, and some patience and laundry, seemed to work pretty well.
When I was in middle school, I potty trained 6 kids. All at the same time. We had little charts with everyone’s name, and boxes. After a successful potty use, they got a star in the box. After the chart was full, thye got a roll of Smarties. As far as I know, they’re all still potty trained. Whoo.
Six kids…all at the same time, pammipoo I am confused. Please explain.
Meanwhile.
My son didn’t grasp the concept at all of using the toilet until about a month before his 4th birthday. I didn’t pressure him at all.
One day, he woke up and said he wanted to be a big boy and wear his underpants. And that was that. He’s only had two accidents and that was from falling asleep in the van. I’ve never had to help him.
Our daughter, now 3.4 years of age is another story. She knows what to do, how to do it and what not. She refuses.
I just don’t want to be a mom to a supposedly potty trained kid that says, " I gotta go potty" every 9 seconds. That is not potty training, that is ‘yankin’ mama’s chain’.
My mom was another briber, only she used Tootsie Rolls. I think there was just something about the similarity in looks that hooked our brains into that reward system. My younger brother swears he can’t go into the candy store at the mall without needing to use the bathroom.
Well, it’s begging for candy, at least. And it only lasted two days, at least in my house. After that, we got bored with it and focused on other things. But when he had to go pee, he used the potty instead of the floor.
It helped, though, that we were using a training potty, and going naked, so that instead of asking me to help him go potty, he would produce a sample, pull the bucket out of the seat, and present it to me as proof that he deserved his reward. I didn’t have to do anything but rinse it and get the chocolate. (And yes, he did try pouring water into the training potty, but it’s a small house and I heard the sink running and caught him at it.)
My advice? They’ve got to want it. Either for social reasons (being a big girl), or personal reasons (sense of pride), or bribery (getting a bike, or chocolate, or pierced ears… that being the 3-year old daughter of our friends, who up and told her mom she’d start using the potty if she could get her ears pierced).
Without that internal reason, it doesn’t seem to work very well.
For interesting info on the process, try here (the info on sequence of behaviors is interesting - it isn’t necessarily what you’d expect!)
For Gabe, he knew how to use the potty, but chose for convenience to not use it unless it was simple and easy. Going naked for a while helped in the process of learning when he had to go (and he used a potty reliably when bare-bottomed). But clothed? He would insist on pullups when he thought he might be ‘too busy to be bothered’.
For him, it was freedom from the tyrrany of having someone else (in this case, a new teacher he didn’t like) have to help him with his pullups. He trained overnight, once he decided it was important to him. Few accidents (and all understandable ones) after that. And no requests to wear pullups unless he was sick.
I like the part about “being uncomfortable in a soiled diaper.” My daughter is 3 1/2 and will sit in a dirty diaper for hours. She hates having it changed - changing it is much worse than sitting in it.
We’ve tried bribes. We’ve tried pleading. We’ve tried letting her run around naked (which just means mom gets to clean the couch or the floor). She isn’t interested at this point in time.
I’m finally getting Cranky Jr potty trained. He’ll be four in a few weeks. He has shown little interest until a few weeks ago. Big Boy underwear didn’t entice him. He doesn’t like candy enough for bribes to work. Even stickers got old.
It was a combination of things that worked. One thing my day care provider started doing was putting a huge star in magic marker on his pull-up when he kept it dry. He was very proud of that. Once we switched him to underwear, she started making stars on his hand (in marker) for dry days. It was something he could show off to EVERYONE and be praised for.
We also got him a musical potty. He had been going in the toilet for a while (just not consistently) but he likes the little potty. It makes a fanfare noise when he pees. Yeah, it’s stupid. But he likes it. It announces to all of us that he’s been successful in listening to his body.
I can proudly say I’ve been potty trained for 46 years.
My son was a breeze. He was ready at about 17 months and had almost no accidents. He just decided he didn’t want to sit in icky diapers anymore. I let him straddle the toilet backwards rather than use a potty seat, which he wasn’t very interested in. We just waved bye-bye to whatever he dropped off at the pool and he was fine.
Another vote for the musical toilet. My daughter’s 2 1/2 and she’s just about done training, thanks to the happy music that thing makes whenever she makes a donation… that and Mommy Daddy gushing over her accomplishment.
My wife ran him through the intensive one-day-training thing with lots of drinks of water and practice sessions, so we knew he understood the mechanics, but he refused to stop with the diapers. We couldn’t figure out a decent bribe until we found out he couldn’t get swimming lessons if he was still in diapers. He was a total water baby–anything involving water and fire and he’s all over it.
Sorry, I realized after posting that wasn’t very clear. When I was 11, there was a woman down the street who ran an in-home daycare service. I spent my afternoons afterschool and days during the summer helping out. She had about 8 little ones running around, with 5-6 of them being in the 1-3 year old range. The parents were doing their part at home, but when it came down to the day-to-day aspects, we were the ones cleaning the carpets, etc. And one of her requests was that the parents use the same system at home, so as to keep consistency. So it wasn’t me entirely, but I like to give myself some credit
Well this is a great thread and I’m merrily taking notes. My daughter turns two on the 15th!
We got her a potty and put it in the bathroom. Whenever one of us needs to go she comes in with us (she will stop anything for the opportunity to see mommy pee) She opens the big toilet for me and the potty for her. She sits clothed and nods approvingly as I tell her all about the potty.
Just in the last two weeks she’s gotten very verbal. She’s started to tell me she has poopies after she goes. I wasn’t going to start undressing her for the potty until she could talk a little to help her be able to communicate to me what her needs are. Maybe I’ll start trying as soon as grandma goes home (she’s staying with us do to broken leg)
I’m actually not really optimistic about the whole training thing as I am pregnant again and due in October. I’ve heard so many stories about kids regressing that I can just see us completing training in time for her to get jealous and decide she needs diapers again. Any ideas for this??
Gummies worked well for my son. Just find what they really really like and make that a reward for going (just don’t give in like my SIL did and give it to them anyway.) Also waiting until they are ready (as opposed to when you are ready) is a big, big help. My mom tried to force my brother to learn at 2 and had years of crying and fits. I remember the screaming and swore that my son could be in diapers until he was 6 if that’s when he was ready. He trained in one week at 3 1/2 and has only had one or two accidents. Cloth diapers are helpful too as the child can tell when they are wet.
This way, if we go to the store, she can’t ask for more potty treats, 'cause they’re gone! She got one for pee, two for poop (she also had the ‘no pooping in the potty’ thing). That, plus pretty panties and Taro Gomi’s Everyone poops, and some patience and laundry, seemed to work pretty well.