I Need Help with Potty Training Ideas

We went through something similar with our 3 year old. And I think (knock on wood) that we licked the problem this past weekend. He would pee ok on the potty, in fact he was peeing perfectly for a while and then reverted a little, but he refused to poo in the potty. It wasn't entirely his fault, he's on medication for constipation, but we never thought we'd get this kid potty trained.

I finally, this past weekend (since I was home w/ him - he's in daycare 5 days/wk), made him go with NO pants. I put a long T-shirt or robe on him so he was covered, but no pants, shorts, pull-ups, nothing on his bottom. He never had a single accident and by the grace of the Man above, he poo'd on the potty! Now he's been diaper free for 4 days with NO accidents. I don't expect perfection, as I'm sure he'll have the occaisional accident, but that seemed to do it for us.

I thought people were crazy when they'd tell me to make him go bare bottom, and never saw myself doing it, but it was my last resort and boy were they right!

Good luck to you, I know how frustrating it can be.

2 moms found this helpful

Naked, let him run around naked, take him to the potty if your not using a potty chair, on a regular basis, if you are using a potty chair try to keep it within his sight, they are more likely to do it if they can do it on thier own and it is close by, add underwear once he has a good grip on it, expect an accident or two once you add underwear, but that usually only happens a couple of times, I think they get a false sence(sp) of security from the undies but once they realise it goes through they tend to stop, That is how 5 of my 7 were potty trained before the age of 2, and it happened the first time by accident, the other 2 were done by the more conventional way of training and actually took a little longer. Good luck and be consistant.

E.,
My son is two years old. He has not been potty trained yet, however my doughter (four) is. When I was potty training her I found that the more fun she had the more she was willing to use the toliet. Try singing songs, reading him stories, and playing games. Try looking on the internet for ideas. The one thing my doughter really liked was when I got out the bubbles. Always stay positve with your son and always encourage him. He'll get the hang of it before you know it.
Good Luck!!!

I have a home daycare and two children of my own and I have to say...don't bother with pull ups, They will get lazy and think it is ok to pee in it...For the boys and my son we got these sinkable things you can float in the toilet (they sell them at Babies R Us or anything that can be flushed "goldfish crackers")and make a game out of it...we played "Sink the Boat" for some reason boys will run to the potty to play it and they will always do it. For number two's we always have a reward...something they really like and ordinarily would get on a daily basis (we used M&M's for my kids) If they went they got M&M's...some of my daycare Mom's did not want to do that so I used Stickers on a chart for them..you can print out free ones at chartjungle.com....And the other thing you will notice about a month (or even before) he turns 3...he will just want to go on the potty...I really don't know what it is but with all my kids turn 3 and a month later they were all doing excellent.
Good Luck!!

online e-book The Potty Trainer. she has trained 200-300 kids

I know your son may be a bit old for this, but putting my daughter on the potty chair every time I went to the bathroom really helped. I was right there with her, and she couldn't sink herself into the big toilet. Also, there was no loud flush so she didn't get scared. There are also a couple of cute kids books out there that are geared towards helping your child learn how to use the toilet all the time. And don't worry, boys take longer to potty train. The main thing is to be consistant, and to keep trying. Good luck!

E.,

First of all you really are doing well having him do his business in the bathroom as it is. Boys ARE just slower at everything they do. I know it is expensive and frustrating but I have found that if I pushed too hard then he wasn't interested. At Kid 2 Kid they have a watch the rings every hour or half hour depending on what you are looking for and it will remind him to go to the bathroom. I have also found that charting him with stickers really makes a difference. I had a single paper on the fridge that had the my childs name and potty chart in large bold letters. I made sure to ask what color was preferable and involved my child. I also did not use a self serve potty. I had my child pick out the seat at Wal-mart and talked it up constantly. Giving it lots of praise and my child too. I made sure that everything about it was positive, even if there was bed wetting or accidents. Allowing my child to feel confident even if a mistake was made. I realized this was a very big thing because if I did get mad it happened more and the self esteem I had worked so hard for...Good Luck

The best thing to do is put him in regular underwear, not pull ups, and just let him wet. Reward him when he's dry for a long period of time, and reward him when he goes in the toilet. I used pennies in a small baby food jar for my son. Every time he used the toilet he got a penny. He got two for going poop. When the jar was full, we went to his favorite store and he got to pick out a small present. It took a week and he was trained. It was a very frustrating week, but it worked. Pull ups are still diapers and kids know that. They're great for at night and naps and long car rides, but for every day use, it's still a diaper. Take him shopping for his new underwear and let him pick it out. Give him as much control as possible. Potty training is mainly a power struggle. Kids have control over when they go to the bathroom and where, so that's usually why kids who know what to do still wet their pants during training. Try to make it his thing and he'll come around. My son was almost 3 1/2 before he was trained, so don't let his age worry you. Some kids are easy to train and it happens right away, others are more stubborn and it takes a while. Just remember not to get mad at him when he wets his pants. Have patience it will come!

No pull ups, no diapers, underwear or bust. We tried this with my 2 year old, and within 2 weeks he was potty trained, even at night. ( with the occasional accident). Pull ups and diapers absorb to much wetness. With our child he only needed to have an accident with underwear on a few times to realize how uncomfortable it was. The first 3-5 days were rough and involved a lot of patience and scrubbing urine out of the carpet, but in the end it was worth it. As a reward for going potty we gave him one skittle for pee and 2 for poop. It was satisfying enough for him, without gorging him on sweets. The entire time we promised him a big boy BMX bike (his passion), and that also excited him. When he had gone 2 weeks without any accidents we gave him the bike. Another tip... Character underwear are expensive, and our son is not into super heros anyway, so we bought packs of plain white underwear, and some iron on transfer sheets for the computer, and we made him underwear with guys on bikes doing back flips. We got like 25 pair of underwear that he loves for under $20. Good Luck.

E.,
My son was potty trained by the time he was 18 months old. He still had some accidents but very few. how I did it might not be looked at as the right thing to do but I did it with all my children as my mom did with mw and my sibs.

I always took my kids to the bath room with me when I went potty and when they were able to sit up I would put them on their potty sit. little by little I then put them on the big potty sit.

I also made it a big deal when they went on the potty (theirs 0r the big one)I would do a dance and get really excited and have a little party each and every time until just the excitement and words of praise were the only thing they wanted.

Since your son is 3 now maybe just giving him praise when he is successful and when he has an accident thats ok! just tell him we'll try again! (We use to do the conga! Travi used the poty, Travi used the poty, He did it, He dit it!

I did the same thing with my grandkids. I have 5. The oldest is 10 the youngest is 4. The girls were out of diapers by 12 months and the boys by 18 months.

Remeber, each child is different. Give them the tools and confidence and they will progress at their speed. Be encouraging and do not force them.

I hope this helps.

This worked for us:
http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/264

It says it works in "less than one day" but it took about a week for true consistancy. Also, try to find something that will really motivate him. For our son, it was going to preschool - he couldn't go unless he was potty trained.

Good luck!

E.,
Get the book "potty training in less than a day" it is old, and my sister-in-law who has five kids reccommended it to me. I guess her mom used it on her siblings too. I was skeptical, but it totally worked for us! My son was potty trianed in a day! I swear! We trained him on the big potty, so he didn't even have to transition at all from the kids potty. No diapers, no pullups, just underwear from that day forward. he had two accidents after that day, and that was all. it teaches the kids to do pretty much everything on their own and if they don't, they have to "practice". Anyway, I loved it, and I just got it from our local library, so it didn't cost me a dime. Good luck, I know we all dread these things, especially moms with sons! take care
H.

Be consistant and remember every child trains at their own age. My oldest was over five and my youngest was just three. He might not be ready yet.

My son {now 14 years old} had a similiar issue. He had the peeing in the potty part down around 3, but was about 4 before he stopped pooping in his pull-up. I found making a big deal about when he does use the potty helps and also if Dad isn't around, do you have any other older males, neighbors, uncles, friends, nephews etc.. than can go in the bathroom with him and show him how "big boys" do it. If there is someone just a little older who he looks up to, even better. IF you have the time, also putting him in regular underwear instead of pull ups during the day when you will be home can help, as he will feel the wetness, and most kids hate to be wet. {it will mean more laundry for you, but it usually helps}. When he does go to the potty make it a big deal Sticker charts and rewards for staying dry, also helped quite a bit. If he stays dry for a day {eventually moving to a week} let him pick some small reward a video, a trip to a park, a new cheap toy etc.. {pick something you know will motivate him} and lastly be patient. I know with Warren the more I pushed, the more he rebeled. When I just backed off, he suprised me one day by saying he wanted to poop in the potty, he did it and that was the last time he had an accident.

I have a 3yr old son and I use cheerios and had him aim for them and he did great with that.

My son wasn't potty trained until close to 3 years old and I hate to say this but my Grandmother (his Great-Grandmother) would bribe him. Everytime he would go "poop" in the pot he would get a $1.00. It worked so well he accumulated alot of money that sooner rather than later we were able to wean him off of collecting money and he would "poop" in the pot without any bribing. (My son is a natural negotiator...has been since birth).

Now my sister's son was a different matter. He would potty in the pot but only when she would take him. Since bribing wouldn't work, we had to take a different approach with him. We would put him in big boy underwear and if he was playing to hard and didn't want to stop he would just go in his pants. To stop him from doing that we put him in big boy underwear and the last time he used the bathroom in his pants, instead of us cleaning him up, we made him clean himself up. He had to remove his wet pants, his wet underwear, get a towel, wash himself up, put on clean underwear & clothes, then we had him rinse out his own underwear and pants and throw them in the wash so we could wash them. It was way too much work (so he complained) but he never used the bathroom in his pants again.

Both ways taught them how to negotiate and how to be responsible for their own actions. But everytime we were patient and encouraging. You just have to find out what works best with your child. Hope this helps!

I wouldn't feel bad. My daughter is almost 4 years old and we had a hard time potty training her. She would only go on the potty when she wanted to. So what we did was told her if she wanted to go to school next year she had to go potty on the potty all the time. And now she goes all the time. But anyways that is how we got our daughter to go on the potty.