My 26 month old is showing all the signs of being ready to get rid of the diapers. We started this morning by practicing pulling his new underwear up and down, climbing up and down off the toilet seat (he has a little miniature one that sits on top of the regular toilet) and getting all excited about big boy pants. He wore his underwear for about two hours before his nap and sat on the toilet twice, but he didn’t go to the bathroom at all. I asked him a few times if he needed to pee or poop and he said, in a really exasperated voice, “Noooooo, Mommy.” (I swear he rolled his eyes at me.) I put him in pull-ups for his nap (I’m not that brave) and I’m waiting for him to wake up, now.
Anyway, I’m pretty much going into this blind and want to know what your techniques were for toilet training your kids. Any tips or tricks? Ways to make it fun for them?
Okay, speaking as a mom that is going through this now, here is my advice.
Introduce it slowly. Let him sit on it whenever he wants. Ask him if he needs to go and if he does - big party.
I let my little’un run around naked for a while, whenever we were at home. I found when she was naked, she made the equation easier - naked=use the potty.
She has now graduated to big-girl panties whenever we are at home or on short jaunts, on longer jaunts it’s pull-ups. I just don’t want to take the chance we won’t be able to get to the potty in time. Overnight she is still in diapers, but woke up this morning dry.
Here’s the thing - when she goes pee on the potty she gets two gummi bears and a sticker. Poop gets four gummis and two stickers. Dora stickers are a big hit. She gets to pick out which ones she wants and it’s a big deal.
If she makes the day dry with no accidents she gets a sucker after supper. Once she goes a while I will start cutting down, first to just stickers, then just lots of hugs and kisses, then just congrats. We are on day four and only two accidents since the very first day in big girl panties.
Invest in some carpet spot remover, you may need it. The naked to underwear is not for everyone, and not for the faint at heart.
The biggest thing is no shame when there is an accident and no pressure to sit on the potty when they don’t feel like it. My girl showed interest in the potty a lot before she actually went. The other thing I felt worked was letting her be in the room when I went.
FYI - most kids do not “get” potty training until around three, most closer to four, so don’t expect too much from your little man.
Ha! We’ve got the carpet thing covered - the floor in the house we rent is completely covered in linoleum that looks like hardwood (that sounds really ugly, but it actually looks decent). It’s the perfect house for people with a two year old and a dog.
We’ve been letting him do pretty close inspections of what goes on when we go to the bathroom for awhile. Last night, he came in while I peed and went running out, yelling, “DADDY! DADDY! Mommy PEED!!! YAAAAAAY!” It was hysterical. My brother and his wife gave their boys miniature candy bars when they had toilet successes. The youngest (3) saw my brother eating one a couple weeks ago and congratulated him on pooping.
My son isn’t too interested in stickers, so I’ve decided I’m going to go with chocolate chips, which are his favorite and not too horrible for him.
Pull-ups for excursions are a good idea. What do you do about the size of the toilet seats in public restrooms? Do you carry a little one around with you?
My daughter disappeared last night at the local restaurant with a play area. I was really quite worried for a few minutes. She’s two years 10 months. She finally reappeared a few minutes later not in the play area at all - but rather - from the disabled/parental toilets. She’d helped herself in through various doors, sat up on the big toilet and did a pee all by herself - no big deal at all.
I was relieved at first that she hadn’t been abducted or run away outside. Then, when I noticed her trousers were all loose I put two and two together. I was impressed. Some kids are timid, some kids are bullish. I asked her where she’d been and she was so nonchalant I didn’t even make a fuss.
I’m still not brave enough to let her sleep without a nappy though. But I’d say it’s close. She’s strictly panties all day now and never has accidents at all. Obviously, it can pan out without too much drama at all it would seem. I’m pretty sure my daughter started out at much the same age as the OP above. I’m pretty sure that the little fellow will be much the same as my daughter when he’s 2 years 10 months as well. I strongly recommed migrating from the potty to the big toilet as soon as possible.
We don’t have one of those little self-contained potty, just the seat that fits on top of the regular toilet so he doesn’t fall in (we tried him on just the normal seat by itself, but it made him panic a bit and he was scared to sit there without me holding him). He uses a step-stool to climb up on it.
If he is scared then you may have to hold off a bit, but for future reference, stick him on the toilet right to the back, with his back up against the the tank, and have him put his legs either side of the toilet bowl. That way he can hold on the seat in front of him, or onto your hands in a public toilet. They are so stable that way, they don’t even really need holding.
Also put the step stool to the side of the toilet and teach them to climb on from there, it’s easier.
At about that same age they did the same. They even used it a few times. For the next year and a half, we encouraged, bribed (peeing for presents), rewarded, cajoled, had parties, ran around naked, went through a gazillion stickers, bought new underwear - in short did everything anyone recommended and drove ourselves and our children nuts.
At 3 1/2 my son decided he was ready, took off the pullups and didn’t look back (we didn’t night train him for another year or so). At 3 1/2 my daughter - stubborn that she is - got a talking to from her peditrician and was put into diapers (not pull ups) after every accident. Two weeks later, she was done.
As much as parents want to take credit, it will be the last thing you try and in the end, they’ll train when they are good and ready.
At two, boys especially, really don’t have the control. They have the initial interest and you may even get him to go sometimes, but likely, he’ll lose interest or it will become a battle of wills. Let him go at his own pace and don’t push it.
My first I was probably most aggressive with and she was trained around 2.5 or 3. My second was stubborn and didn’t get trained until she cut off all of her hair and needed something to get herself out of trouble. I swear. She was at least 3 and a half, if not closer to 4, very smart and had the ability, but simply refused. The day after she cut her own hair, she started using the potty on her own and that was it for diapers, including nighttime. My little boy jumped out of the bathtub at the age of two (had just turned) said he needed to pee and went in the potty. Thankfully I had had two before him and knew it probably wouldn’t last. It didn’t. He really wasn’t ready til he was over three and then it wasn’t a big problem. It took a few months of a little pushing, some rewards and lots of reminders. The poops were more difficult than the pees. For him, it was peer pressure from the older (by a year or less) friends that were trained and using cool big boy underwear and weren’t “babies” any more -his observation, not mine- that really made the biggest impact.
It is one of the few things in their little worlds that they can control to an extent, which can become an issue even when they are physically ready. But at two, the physical control is just not generally developed.
I have three girls, and they all potty-trained a little after age three. If you wait until they’re ready, it only takes a couple of days (nighttime training may well take longer, as often, the urge to pee doesn’t wake them up). I used m&m’s as a reward, one for peeing, two for pooping.
Now, all this is not to say that you should discourage your son’s interest in using the potty. Just to say that it may be quite a while before he’s fully trained.
As for public toilets, I never carried a special seat around with me, just held onto them while they were on the potty.
The picture that accompanied this article was on the front page of the NY times on sunday. It nearly made me fall off my chair. New (old?) frontiers in potty training.
For those who can’t get the link, here is the first paragraph;
This sort of thing is extremely common in countries without our access to cheap disposable diapers. If you have a total of 2 cloth diapers to your name and lots of aunties who can be with the baby at all times the incentive to do this sort of operant conditioning is pretty strong.
When it was getting to be “that time” with my oldest I chanced upon a book titled “Toilet Training in One Day.” It’s a system devised for older kids who are mentally challenged. My MIL was hanging around waiting for number 2 to be born and got bored - so she toilet trained my oldest at 2 and a half using that system. It worked, although she had some accidents for another year. As is so often the case, by kids 2 and 3 toilet training was the last thing on my mind and they left diapers when they were ready -both at about 3 years of age.
