My 4 Yr Old Needs to Learn to Aim!

Hi Jessics,
I have a son who is now 11. This was a difficult task for us as well. I had a friend who suggested froot loops in the potty. It was a great help for my son and made potty training more fun for him. We encourged him to aim for the (red) one in the middle. We however did not feed him froot loops until the potty training stage was over. Only cheerios, this you can say was a safty factor. Hope this helps.

To help aim, you (or he) can put a little something in the toilet to "hit," like a square of toilet paper, or cheerios (toilet paper's more handy!). Sometimes I tell my boys (4 and 2 and a half) to "make a lot of bubbles" in the toilet. You probably need to have him help clean up whenever he does miss. And clean with vinegar to cut the smell!

I have heard of people using cheerios to aim at?

I trained my boys to sit down when they went potty. I never had that problem....still don't and now they stand up to potty. I believe it had a lot to do with training them to sit down to potty and once they had that down pat, then they could stand if they wanted to. They waited until they were about 6 or 7 to stand up. Thankfully, I've never had that problem.

But another thing you could do is have him clean the toilet and the floor around the potty every time he does it. Sometimes little ones start looking around and not paying attention to what they are doing and that causes these problems. I'm sure it will be resolved once he is tired of cleaning up the mess.

Gosh, we didn't use any of the suggestions, tho I like the tissue aiming! We just worked with the boys and were persistent in the "aiming" part of it all. Yes, we had mistakes and the boys did help to clean up the 'misdirects' too. However, nothing wrong with teaching him that if he misses, he gets to clean it up! As long as he aims in and not on, you clean. He continues to aim ON and he cleans. Might work....then again, he might think the cleaning part is fun!

We used tissue paper that was decorated with designs he liked (Dinosaurs, Planes, etc). We got them at hobby stores. We cut out the pieces together and placed them in cute little baskets that fit on the back of the toilet so that he could use them whenever he felt the urge. We also had some in a ziploc baggie that he took with him to school, neighbors homes, etc. He loved it. We never had to work on aiming again. And it kept me from nagging.

Hi J.,
You prpbably got plenty of responses on this but try putting cheerios in the toilet for your son to aim at. That's what I did when my son was a little guy.

How puting some round stickers in the bowl and have him aim to them?

I recommend Cheerios or Fruit Loops in the bowl - tell him to aim!

With my son every time I took him to the bathroom I'd tear off a little piece of toilet paper and have him try to sink that. another piece of advice is to put cherios or fruit loops in there and have him try to sink them but I didnt like the idea of teaching him to put cereal in the toilet.

My mom has been an elementary teacher for 30+ years . She in here classroom ( bathroom in the class) told me to use the cheap fruit loop cereal. The boys grab some in their hand toss them in the toilet and fire away. The fruit loops will go down and then pop back up. My son loved them. We did the same thing with him and he never had an accident. They also don't clog. I kept some in a container under the sink so he could grab a handful when he needed to. I also carried some in a zip loc when we were out and about. Worked great and cheap!

J.

I have been through training 2 little boys. The only way I could get them to pay attention and aim was to make it a game. Float something flushable in the toilet and have him aim at it. Kids will try anything that is a game. I even have some soap in mine and they had lots of fun making bubble. Just make sure it isn't something they would want to play with or eat.