Potty Training - Conrad,MT

2 1/2 can be a little young for a boy. While my daughter was perfectly content to do what I asked, my son adamantly refused to cooperate. I just took a step back, gave him some time, and he decided on his own he wanted to use the bathroom. Also, camping trips are fun, because they can "pee on a tree" and for some reason, that is really appealing to little boys!!!

When my girls hit that stage, we kept a M&M jar in our room in sight that everytime they went potty, they would get 3 M&M's. Candy seems to be a good reward. They still had the occasional accident, which they would not get their M&M's for but a hug, words of encouragement to try again next time and reminded that the M&M's were there. I also asked Dad and the older siblings to ask the girls if they had to go potty. Between us all, they seemed to get reminded every 20 minutes (we have a total of 7 kids between us). If they went a week with no accidents, we would make a trip to the ice cream store or to the Dollar store to pick out a treat for their continued success. Something else we did was if the girls went say, 2 weeks with no accidents, we would take them "pretty panty" or "Big girl panty" shopping. During their reminders, we would tell them that they wanted to work toward getting more "pretty panties" or "big girl panties". These ideas worked for us....hopefully they will work for you as well. Good luck!

My first piece of advice, NEVER ASK him if he has to go, just every hour and a half to two hours put him on the potty, no discussion, if he goes make a huge deal out of it, if he doesn't then it is great too. Just say you need to try to go. Do not make it stressful as he will rebel and it will take a lot longer. 2 1/2 is young for a boy, which typically take longer. I started with my son at about this age and he didn't have any interest. However by his third bday he was in big boy underwear all day, two mos after that he was 100% potty trained, pooping, peeing and at night was in underwear. Just be patient, be matter of fact about it and take him to pick out his own cool underwear, that was the deciding factor for my son. I am a firm believer until they are ready to use pullups despite all that say otherwise. Number one it lessens your stress, you aren't cleaning pee and poop up out of underwear and it still gives them a sense of being a big kid.
Worked with both of my kids using pullups first. Just don't ask him, tell him he "has to try for mommy or daddy" and set him on it. Explain if he doesn't have to then that is fine, but let's try. Not a choice for him. This will help a lot. boys get distracted and easily would rather mess their pants then stop playing so don't wait for him to tell you. Good luck, just keep at it...it will click soon enough.

My son did the same thing. He was interested for a while and then lost interest. He will be 3 in April and is now getting back on track with the whole big potty thing. You may just have to give it a little more time before he is really ready. Don't push him, like you said you don't want going potty to be unpleasant for him. When he is ready I reccomend getting him pull ups and a potty time watch. My son has been so much more motivated to go in the big potty since I added those two things into the mix. Most of my friends have boys and have all said their boys didn't potty train until after they turned 3 so don't be discouraged, he will get it eventually.

Here is where you can get a potty time watch:

http://www.pottytimeinc.com/

First, we thought that potty training meant we should train our daughter to use the potty. What ended up happening was the more we wanted my oldest daughter to use the potty, the more she simply wouldn't go at all...not in the potty or in her diaper/pull-up! She got terribly sick and vomited a lot. We all learned the hard way...we took her to the doctor who suggested we not do anything...to lay off of her and just let her see us go to the bathroom. Eventually, she used the potty when she wanted to, when she was ready. I never potty trained my 2nd child at all...she saw all of us go, including her older sister, and she just climbed on the potty and started using it one day. She even refused small potties or potty seats...she would only use the big potty. The only thing I did do at home was to let them run at least half naked. I'd read that children eventually don't like to poo poo or tee tee on themselves. Yes, there were messes to clean up, but I swear it helped. I'm doing the same thing with my 2 year old now. She's made her own progress. She uses the potty sometimes and sometimes not...I think she doesn't use it when I let on that I want her to!

Potty training my first son was sooo frustrating for me! I thought that at 2 1/2 it was time. Then I read a book that said the average age was 3 years and 3 months for a child to be ready for potty training. My son was exactly 3 years and 3 months. Anyway, after I read that book, I took the pressure off of all of us and he just started understanding the reward charts and the potty training when he was good and ready.

My son was the same way. He had every sign he was ready, except he was stubborn and had no interest. After a couple months of being frustrated, I gave up and just let him wear diapers and didn't even bring up using the potty. Then we took him to his preschool to show him around and told him he couldn't go unless he used the potty. That was all the motivation he needed because he really wanted to go to school and he was potty trained in a week (he was 3 years and 3 months old).

What I'm trying to say is he won't potty train unless HE wants to and if everything you've tried isn't motivating him, then I suggest giving it a break for a month or two and trying it again. If it doesn't work after a week, give it another break for a month. And hopefully something will come up that's a great motivator for him! Best wishes.

everyone always told me children will potty train when they're ready. we did buy pull ups and underware when he was about 2 1/2 and i'd ask him if he wanted to wear them and sometimes he would say he wanted to wear underware but he'd still go in them. so i sat him down and talked with him about it, i told him it's ok if he has accidents but underware are for big boys who go in the potty and that he could wear pull ups till he wanted to go in the big potty and be able to wear underware. that was that, we kept the underware in the house and at about 3 switched to strickly pull ups and then one day about a year ago *he just turned 4 in november* he came to me and said that he wanted to wear underware. he's been potty trained since that day, he's had maybe three accidents during the day and two at night over the last year. although he did still wear a pull up at night for a little while longer, i told him the same thing, to let me know when he wanted to wear underware at night but that it ment he would have to get up and go potty at night if he needed to. they really will do it when they're ready. there was no preasure on him that way and no stress on me.