Looking for Toilet Training Advice....

Hi K. i have potty trained more children than i can count. I have four and i am a childcare provider in my home. I say the best thing is just encouragement and excitement over their sucess. Keep a treat jar and everytime he goes potty let him pick a treat. Take him shopping and let him pick out his own big boy underwear. Good luck take care steph

My son who is 3 is now potty trained. The only thing that worked for him was to put him in underwear during the day then pull ups at night. Then, he did not want the pull ups at night. It did take some time to get him to poop on the potty, but eventually he did.

My daughter is just about potty trained now, she wears underwear all day and a pull up at night when she goes to sleep. The best thing I can say is just keep going. The pull up thing sometimes worked during the day but I found that it still seems like a diaper. We just put underwear on her and that seemed to work better. I don't know if that will work for an 18 month old but it doesn't hurt to try after there is some consistency with going. Try putting him on the potty every 1/2 hour to 1 hour (if you can, I am a stay at home mom right now) and keep working at it. Try rewarding him for going too like with stickers and clapping and dancing we did that too. I still clap for my daughter and tell her good job. Get the whole family involved with praising him when he goes and if he doesn't make it tell him it's okay and he'll do better the next time. Also don't force a child to be potty trained too early if they are not ready they will not do it and it could actually make them wait longer to do it. If your son shows signs of being ready than go for it but if he seems to have too much difficulty than back off for a while and try again later. My daughter showed interest in the potty which is when we started to potty train her. Good luck!

I potty trained my daughter at this age and it was a success. Just be patient, I found that the use of pull ups is a waste its just like a diaper. I let my daughter go around the house during the day with underwear on. I had her pee and poop if she had to before bed. I put a normal diaper on her for sleep then in the morning I would take her pee and poop right after she woke up so it became normal to her. It only took a few weeks of that. Have a bottle of resolve ready, lol!! good luck!!

I have two boys and I remember the pediatrician telling me that there is no magic age when toilet training is appropriate but to make sure that when you begin really young like 18 months that you watch for cues from your son. If he is having TOO many accidents and both of you are becoming frustrated, then he may not be ready and you don't want him to feel constant failure. It was explained to me that it isn't always psychological or developmental readiness to toilet train but sometimes it is physiological. In other words, his bladder and brain may not be in sync with each other quite yet to even be able to control his urination. Everyone has differing opinions on when it is a good time to potty train. Our pediatrician who also worked closely with a child psychologist told us that it shouldn't take more than two weeks to toilet train my son (accidents will still occur periodiacally) but the majority of the time he should be trained. I know many people who have done it at 18 months and younger and succeeded very well, all I'm saying is make sure no matter what method you are using, take cues form your son.
Having said that, the most effective thing that I found was never to use pull ups because they are confusing, toys and treats are a great idea, and my kids needed to be kept naked in the house during toilet traing as much as I could. I know this sounds weird but with both of my boys, as long as they had underwear or pants on at all, they got lazy and went in them. If they were naked they went straight for the toilet. After a couple of days of this, they were pros! Good luck!