How to Potty Train - Puyallup,WA

Do not ask her if she has to go.. she does not know.

Take her to the potty on a regular schedule.. every 30-45 minutes..

When she is consistently dry every 45 minutes increase the time to every 60 minutes. Do not ask.. say time to use the potty. take her to the potty.. it is not a choice.. time to go..

keep doing this for a long long time... months.. if it takes that long.. at some point.. she will get it... she will learn the body cues that she has to go.. but that takes time.. a long time...

Even once she is trained.. you will take her potty before you leave the house.. before she naps. before bed..

do not expect her to tell you.. you tell her time to go.. keep her in cotton undies full time except bedtime... no back and forth between diapers and undies..

Think you are doing fine. In my house, we got. Rid of diapers put on underwear. No turning back. No sticker charts. I think my husband and I expected them to go and they did. Good luck. Don't turn back for any reason.

I don't think you stop asking for a while. Like - a year :)

But you can gradually back way off. So instead of every 30 min, spread it out to every hour. If she's still dry between, then every 90 min. Then 2 hr. You get the idea. Eventually you'll end up with a 'schedule' that probably looks like this: at wake up, mid-mornig, after lunch, right after nap, after dinner, before bed. I reminded at those times of day for a long time, because I learned that if I didn't, those were the times when accidents were most likely to happen.

Why so many stickers for so many things? That sounds confusing.
If she is really motivated by and enjoys stickers, then only give her a sticker when she goes and has success on the potty. Period. Let her earn something for X number of stickers if you want. Up to you.

I didn't do stickers for the potty. I used lifesavers candy. One piece per potty success. And no, I didn't take my kids every 30 minutes... ever. Maybe once per hour at first.. but I really watched their cues for the most part, and kept in mind their eating/drinking. My kids were both finished training by this age (my daughter trained at 2, and son at 2 1/2).

Personally, every 30 minutes is too often for a child that age, and it sounds like sticker overload as well. Too easy to "earn" a sticker for doing nothing.

--

Lisa O had some good advice as well. In the beginning, perhaps a frequent schedule is fine, but I wouldn't reward for you taking her potty. Matter of fact, it's time to go try and then do a potty dance if there is success. Then extend the time (keeping in mind her eating/drinking habits, and when you are about to leave home or take a nap, etc). Once she begins to assert her own opinion into it (she takes the initiative, or sometimes they refuse to go try)... you can use move to the incentive.

You've survived the hardest part of potty training ... getting the child to actually pee in the potty! That actually took a day or so for both my boys. Once we got through that stage it got much easier.

I really don't think there's a right answer. You just kind of try something and see how your child responds.

I used rewards with my oldest. The first couple of days every time he used the potty I ran to get the "treasure chest" and let him pick his toy. After that, I gave him one only if he asked. After another day or too he stopped asking. I guess I just took that to mean that he pretty much knew what he was doing. I still tried to be aware of the time, but I also had a baby in the house, and I sometimes wonder if I have ADHD (just kidding ... I think).

It's probably most important for you to make sure she goes first thing in the morning, before you go anywhere, before naptime & bedtime, etc. If you think it's been awhile or if you see her doing the pee pee dance, tell her it's time to go.

I'm sorry to say there's no exact science. If you think the stickers are helping, great, fabulous. Personally I would find that to be a hassle, but if it works for you, wonderful.

Good luck! And really, try not to stress. Sounds like she's doing just fine :-)

I never did the potty every thirty minutes with my boys. I would remind them to go before we go out, before we sit down to eat, when we get home or if they started doing the dance, but otherwise I left them to decide when they needed to go. Sometimes in the beginning they might actually start to pee a little before they made it to the potty, but that reinforced the feeling for them. I would stop taking her every thirty minutes and see if she feels the cues. If I went every thirty minutes I doubt I would feel like I need to pee in between potty breaks.

You can stop taking her this frequently and back off gradually to every 2-3 hours, after each meal and whenever she wakes up starting now. You can start waiting for her to tell you she needs to go in maybe a year. Or more - it will be a long time before she prioritizes feeling like she needs to go over doing something fun. I would just drop the stickers. Do you give her a sticker for eating breakfast? Using the toilet is an expectation. We don't get rewards for things we are simply expected to do. I would neither reward her nor punish her for having some accidents.

Good question! My daughter is 3 1/2 too and we are having a hard time! She really doesn't care if her underwear is soaking wet! My son was way easier to potty train! Ugh! Good luck to you and me!

Before my dd was 3, I took off the diapers, showed her the potty chair and told her to use it when she had to go. I got the "once upon a potty" video and the bear in the big blue house potty video which she loved (old, but I'm sure you could get it on Amazon)
I just kept the diapers off and put old sheets and blankets over the carpet for accidents.
They learn when they get wet. If they have pull ups or diapers on, they never really make the connection that they just went. I think they need that feedback.
Imagine if you were used to just going whenever you had to go...it would be almost a reflex. It does take a little while for them to realize that they can't just go when they feel like it.

I recently potty trained my almost 3 year old and here is what worked for us:
First of all, we had been talking about the potty and what to do with it for a long time before we finally decided to start the process. Books, a little TV show with a song (Daniel Tiger, if she likes that show), and his own little potty and potty seat on the actual toilet (they like options). So if this is a brand new concept for her, it might take awhile before it really clicks. Next we told him that today was his last day in diapers, starting in the morning he would be able to pick his own big kid underwear. That night, all the diapers went away so no temptations to go back and no reminders for him where he was coming from. The first day we went through 7 pairs of undies. I would have him try to potty at least every hour, and he would go, but also had accidents. That's normal, they are used to an absorbent diaper and it's a new feeling. By the end of the first day he was only peeing a bit in the underwear, and then would run to the bathroom to finish. It took another few days before he could hold it until I would remind him to go (and I pushed back how often I asked to 1.5 hrs to 2 hrs), and another couple of weeks before he would tell me he needed to go or would go on his own. It's definitely a long process, we literally did not go anywhere that first week except for a couple quick trips to the store. I had him in nothing but the undies and a shirt at first for easy access and as a reminder that he didn't have a diaper anymore. Now he goes on his own, but I still remind him if he hasn't gone in awhile or we are going out or at bedtime. We also did a sticker chart (it was a big one, he got a sticker for asking to go, peeing, pooping, flushing, and washing hands) and he got to pick a prize out when he filled it up.

Ultimately the process is different for every kid, so take the suggestions you get here with a grain of salt. What works for one kid might not work at all for yours. I would try to stretch out asking her to go from every 30 minutes to at least 45 min to an hour, or you run the risk of burning her out. That's alot of breaks to go try, plus she won't ever get the feeling of a full bladder if she empties it that frequently. Just remember to stay encouraging and try to avoid a negative attitude about accidents. I would have my son help clean up, and take his wet undies to the laundry room when he had an accident so he knew that it was much more time consuming to go in his undies than if he went to the potty, but didn't punish or scold him for accidents.