Need Reward for Using Potty.

I just went through this with my not so easy to potty train 3 year old son and Skittles are what worked for me. I gave him 2 or 3 Skittles for wee-wee and 5 Skittles for pooping. Good luck!!

Hello BeeBee!
You could maybe try using a sticker chart. Kids LOVE stickers just as much as sweets sometimes. I taught first grade for 7 years, and when we were allowed to give candy, it worked great. Then the law changed, and I did stickers, they did just as well without the candy. There are some really cool stickers out there, especially the scratch and sniff! Good luck!

Create a sticker chart out of paper and markers to look like a calendar. Let him put the stickers on the day that he uses the potty. We tracked how many times he went per day and letting him place the sticker on the chart made him happy. The dollar store sells stickers that are smaller than a dime so they will fit well on the chart. You could also try a treasure box, I use this too and have for many years. If you want some ideas for the box let me know.

Sticker charts work wonders! Dollar Tree has tons of cute stickers, walmart has a few also. Let him help you make a potty poster on poster board and then let him stick a sticker on it every time he goes potty. You can also do bigger rewards (trip to the park, read a book with mom) for every 10 stickers, or every row of stickers filled up depending on how you make your poster. I suggest hanging the poster on the bathroom door so he can see it often.

BeeBee,

I know you mentioned not wanting to use food. We tried using stickers with our son for awhile, but that didn't last long...we really were reluctant to use food also, but my mother in law said she used raisins as a treat for all of her kids...just long enough for them to get sucked in and then as soon as they were going consistently...only gave it for going number 2, then stopped all together. I know food may not be the best, but we used raisins and put them in a little plastic gumball machine that my husband bought...stuck the machine on the back of the toilet...so every time he went, washed hands, then he got a raisin. It worked very well...and at least it is a healthy food... :)

Good luck! People always say boys are the hardest, but ours was a breeze and fully potty trained (except for nights) by 2 1/2. Ours also hated his separate potty and would only use our big potty with the little padded seat insert. Your coin idea is pretty cool too if you can find a neat one he won't get tired of watching. But if he knows he can go potty, watch that, AND save money to go to the store and buy a toy maybe it might work!?

When I was potty training my son I used the Hot Well cars as a reward they are like 97 or 98 cents, I also used Stickers of his favorite things like Nemo, Trucks, and so on. It helped a lot and he was daytime potty trained by 31 months. Hope these ideas help!

J. R

I just saw this wonderful snip in an old Parents magazine from last year. The mom used cute little "temporary tattoos" and put them on her son's tummy as a reward. He "had fun showing them off, and they were covered up" for the times they went out!!

I know you said no foods - but when my daughter was learning to use the potty we used M&Ms - one two pieces at a time.... then we changed it to other candies she liked... like pretzel mushrooms shapes topped with chocolate or gummies we buy at a candy store and she chooses each piece.

After we had the potty going well we started a chore chart of putting the dishes in the sink and clearing the table. She puts her cups in the sink and feeds the cat every night as well.

We came up with about 6 different small chores and when she does them all we go to Chuck E Cheese or Putt Putt or movies or soemthing once a month!!!

She loves our outings and they are special days for quality time together for the two of us!

My daughter was three when she was going through this stage, so our system may be a bit advanced for a two year old. I made a chart on a big piece of posterboard, with rows of six squares. In the last square of each row I put a picture I'd printed of a prize: Barbie Doll, Chuck E Cheese, books, the Toys R Us logo, etc. The preceeding squares were left empty. Each time Madison used the potty she was given a sticker to put in a square. Once the stickers filled up a row of five she received the prize pictured at the end.

Good luck! I'd venture to guess, however, than since he's only just two he might not be quite ready to be consistant.

Boy, I'm probably gonna have lots of Moms mad at me on this one. I do not recommend any kind of reward system for going to the potty. After potty training 4 boys & lots of reading on this issue is why I dare comment. Boys are harder all the way around and getting this successfully accomplished can be a nightmare. You can have boys completely potty trained & they stop 3 months later & may dig in their pants & paints your walls with their poop. But the reason against the reward system is that is something that is a normal body function. Once you use a reward system, they know this makes Mommie very happy but also something that makes her mad or upset also & will use it as a weapon. You probably didn't give him rewards for taking his first steps, he was proud of his ownself & no reward needed. Samething with them learning to go to bathroom they are proud of themselves and want to learn to master it and not ever dissapoint you. But no reward means you are dissapointed in his eyes. The best thing you can do is act like it is normal, not over praise or get angry. I swear I have known 4 year old boys that will start pooping in their pants just to upset Mom & Dad. Again this is just my opinion, what worked for me, may not work for you. Good Luck & I wish You much patience!
R. M

We would all gather around and clap when the child went to the potty.. Yayyy..hahaha it worked, and ofcourse praise the kid for being a big girl/boy.

We love the Oklahoma Sooners at our house, and at that age, our oldest was quite familiar with the fight song. We have a bottle opener that played the fight song that she "played" as her reward when she was successful going potty.

I think a coin sorter is a great idea!

The coin sorter idea is great but he may get bored with it after awhile. How about a sticker chart? Make it yourself on a poster board or even a sheet of paper. Have several different stickers available for him to choose from and maybe after a certain amount of stickers, reward him with something special. Good luck!

I have been thinking on how to start my child with pottie training. I was thinking of putting a pottie chart on the door of the bathroom and rewarding her by putting little stickers (stars). Then maybe later after so many stickers(stars) taking her for a treat somewhere maybe ice scream maybe a toy (something little not a major big toy).

I made a treasure chest and let my kids take out a treasure every time they went potty. I went to US Toys in Plano and bought a ton of little prizes and mixed them all up in the treasure box. That worked great for urination, but was not enough to get them to poop. So then I let them pick out a special toy, which was a care bear. I called it the "Poopie Bear." When they went poopie, they got to play with the bear; when they did not poopie in the potty, the bear had to go up in the closet and they could get it back by pooping in the potty. worked like a charm.

We have used M&Ms for both kids and they work pretty well. However, I've realized that if they don't WANT to go, no reward is incentive enough! :-).
Stickers in and of themselves were never "good enough" because there's nothing really to DO with them.

But, I tried something new with my son that he really enjoys. I drew an airplane on a piece of typing paper (later, I printed one out from the internet -- just do a Google image search for "airplane coloring page"). I stuck it on his bedroom door (which is just outside the bathroom). I called it his "potty plane" (I know, it's silly). I put a sheet of fun stickers in the bathroom and every time he uses the potty (whether anything comes out or not) he gets a sticker to put on his plane. He's filled up two planes, and it's kind of fun to print out different types of planes and teach him what they are!
I suppose you could use a picture of anything that he's interested in. Potty train, Potty Elmo...

Use a sticker chart. At the end of a set number of stickers he recieves a prize, like Chuckie Cheese, or a small toy. You can download some cute ones with Diego and Dora the explorer or whoever he likes, Bob the Builder, whoever. Just Google Free potty reward sticker charts. or here is a website. http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/Free-Potty-Training-... That's what we did.
Z

Here is my advice - figure out what his currency is...we tried EVERYTHING! Like you I didn't want to do food - so I started with stickers - that took like 10 seconds before he lost interest. I tried food - again, although it worked longer - it still lost interest. And then one day as if by some sort of miracle, we were watching cartoons and my son told me that he wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese. I am not a big fan of the place, so he had never been before - they aren't exactly the cleanest places in the world to take our kids to and I am a major germophobe! But, I bit the bullet. I went out to the Chuck E Cheese website and they have a potty rewards chart that you can print out. (They give you some free tokens once you complete it.) Once he completed the chart, I drove us and a truckload of Purell to our local Chuck E Cheese and we haven't looked back since. Figure out what he REALLY wants and use it to get what you REALLY want - a potty trained kiddo! Good luck!

I used stickers with my son and they worked well. One thing you can do is give him a sticker to put on some kind of chart and when he fills it up to a certain amount, he gets a little prize from a dollar store or he gets to go to Chuck E Cheese or some other kind of special reward.

We do stickers for potty and keep them in the bathroom. For poopy, we give our son a penny. He can put it in his piggy bank or in the gumball machine where we keep M&M's or Kissables. It despenses 1 or 2 pieces and we got it at JC Penny. Poop is harder so that is why we reward with a penny and let him choose. He will alternate between putting the penny in his piggy bank and the "candy" machine.

We did a sticker chart that I made and then when it was filled, we went and got a Care Bear...they toy she was lusting over at the time. :-)

Hi BeeBee. I used stickers as a reward for my daughter. We also went to the dollar store and bought a bunch of small toys and put them in a little basket on top of the fridge. when she went potty, we'd let her go get a toy or sticker.

My kids love to read, so we had a chart. When my son got so many stickers he would get to go to the store and pick out a book to buy. It is something they can use for a long time and I don't mind buying books.

Well this is what worked for us (although it only worked after she mentioned interest...previous attempts to potty-train her did not work until she brought it up herself). We used a sticker reward chart.

We went to Michael's with her and she helped pick out several packs of small stickers that she liked (most featured Disney shows and cartoons that she was really into at the time). We also picked out a couple packs that had REALLY large stickers, featuring characters from the Toy Story movies (she was VERY into those movies at that time). I also got a sheet of foam poster board, which I divided into 3 sections: one section was for tee-tee, one was for poo-poo, and one section was for accident-free days. Every time she went tee-tee in the potty, she got to pick one small sticker and put it in the 'tee-tee' section of the poster. When she went poo-poo, she got to pick TWO small stickers and put them in that section of the poster. So, that helped a LOT with giving her incentive to go potty in the toilet.

But, we still needed something to give her incentive to ONLY go potty in the toilet (in other words, she would go potty in the toilet so that she would get stickers, but then she also continued to have accidents in her panties as well). So, if she went a whole day without having any accidents in her panties, then we let her pick out a BIG Toy Story sticker to put on the poster at the end of the day. Once she had 5 big stickers, she got Woody and Buzz Lightyear dolls. It worked awesome. FYI - she was 32 months old at the time; I only think that particular system worked because she was so obsessed with the Toy Story movies.

The other thing that helped was getting rid of the pull-ups. When we first started the reward chart, we kept her in pull-ups, and she just kept peeing in them. Switching completely to panties, even though it meant dealing with accidents from time to time, helped greatly in keeping her from going outside of the potty.

When our daughter was a little older, we used colored bath fizzies (you can get them at Wal-Mart). She'd get one for pee and two for poopy. But if she had an accident, she'd get one taken away. When it was time for her bath at night, she got to throw in however many fizzies she had left. Before the fizzies though, we used m&ms, stickers, stamps (put them on her hands and feet), and any other thing she might be into at the time.

Here's a few ideas:
- make a poster and put stickers on it for going to the potty, flushing the toilet, closing the lid, and washing hands. Doing ALL of these gets him a BIG sticker. You can use stars for all the rest.
- put a stamp/sticker on his hand everytime he goes.
- buy small toys from a 99cent or dollar store as his reward for going THREE TIMES in one day...or for pooping on the potty (that's what we do)
- think of things he really likes to do, eat, or receive and make that his reward (for instance, my daughter LOVES driving through the car wash & when the car is dirty, I'll give her a goal so we can get it washed...otherwise I go without her).
Hope this helps!

Hi BeeBee,
Make it fun!

Try floating something that is flushable in the toilet and let them practice their "aim". I've actually heard of using Cheerios!

Living in the country, we allowed our three boys to run to the back yard to urinate through the porch railings into the grass. I know this might sound a bit "backwoods", but they loved it!

Before starting, make sure he is showing the interest and physical readiness to do this. My friend started training her son when he was 2 years old and he was still having accidents 6 months later. On the other hand, I waited until they were 2-3/4 years to 3 years of age (which is the average age for boys to potty train) and in all three cases, we were successful in a matter of a few weeks with very few accidents!

Good luck!

Janet B
Parent Coach