Potty Training - Orem,UT

This is what finally worked for my daughter... I let her run around the house naked. For some reason, she had no problem 'going' in her panties or pull-ups, but she wouldn't 'go' in the buff unless she was on her potty or the big potty. Hope this helps!
L.

He's just too young. He's showing some interest and doesn't like the feeling of a wer or dirty diaper and that is good, but boys really are late bloomers in the potty training area. Take a break from it and wait a little longer.

Just checking to make sure you've heard the average age for boys (esp. 1st borns) is closer to 3 1/2 years old. And that you are starting the process a year early, if he is average.

My DS will be 3 in March and is fascinated with the potty, will tell me he needs to go and will go by himself for both #1 & #2. He just won't do it 100% of the time. I have not put him in underwear because, surprise, he's not trained! And neither does he want to be in underwear because, heres the key, he doesn't think he's ready either and in the end, its his choice.

Don't sweat it. Kids want nothing more than to please you and he will go when he's ready and not a moment sooner. Please, for both your sanity, find something else to stress over.

I've heard boys take longer to potty train. Although I don't have personal experience with it (I have a daughter who trained easily) I know my sister-in-law struggled to get my nephews potty trained--the older one was close to 3 1/2 or 4 by the time he was fully on board with the whole thing & then once he was, everything was fine...no accidents, etc. I'd take a more laid back approach and back off a little. If you're hellbent on getting him potty trained, it could be a long road for you.

It sounds like he is not ready yet. Boys don't usually potty train until they are 3 or later. What I would do is since you have introduced him to the potty. Wait a couple of weeks. Then try again. Potty training doesn't just happen in a day it takes a week to 2 weeks to have them completely trained, even more. My boy still every now and then wets his pants. He has days that he refuses to go and then he is fine again.

This is what I did and do. I took his dry panties, put them in his hand and said dry. Made him repeat it. I told him to keep his panties dry. Then I put them on him. Had him just run around in them and a shirt. Every 5 minutes I asked him if he was dry and made him check to see. At first I put him on the toilet every 15 minutes and made him sit there for 15 minutes. As soon as he went potty then we got all excited and I gave him his favorite treat Dibs ice cream. Once he got the idea and would go I then switched to taking him every hour. I would still ask him if he was dry and make him check and then every hour I would take him and make him sit on the potty. Then I went to if he went potty I would wait 2 hours between potty times and if he didn't go then it was every hour between sitting on the potty. Once he gets it then every 2 hours for awhile tell him to go potty, don't ask just tell. Then all of a sudden you will hear the toilet flush and you know that he got it.

There may be days that he refuses to go and he potties his pants. What I do is ask him where he is supposed to go potty and make him show me. Then I have him take his pants off and feel his panties and tell him that that is gross or kaka, whatever word you use. I make him sit on the potty and make him wait to go. If he does it again then I give him a small tap on his bottom and say that that is a naughty boy he knows where to go potty, make him show me, make him feel his panties, and make him sit on the potty. Then if he does it a third time I make him take a cold shower to clean himself off, sit on the potty and go and have him tell me where he goes potty. He has only had 2 cold showers and he has been potty trained for almost a year.

Good luck and when the day comes that you hear the toilet flush rejoice!!! Give your son a big hug and say what a big boy he is and give him his special treat.

I would completely drop this subject if I were you, and let it resurface naturally. His awareness of the poop in no way indicates that he's physically and mentally ready to control the poop.

I know doing multiple loads of laundry is exhausting but putting him a pull-up only confuses the situation. I used an alarm ringing every 30 minutes that would tell my 2 and half to go. After awhile she hated it, I then let the "beep" go and not make her go. She then started telling me when she had to go or just went on her own. I know girls are supposed to be easier but try the "beep" and DO NOT resort to pull-ups. Once he gets it, it will be so much easier....GL

I have a little one that will be three in June as well. We have been working on this off and on for months. We started with her taking off her diaper and sitting down on the potty when Mommy would go, and then having her in a diaper, but I would take her in to her potty chair every 30-60 minutes, and then asking her each morning if she wanting panties or diaper. We gave her a reward and lots of praise each time she went potty. We don't do much sugar, and so she got a cough drop made with rice syrup and elderberry extract as a reward each time, which she loved. She resisted pooping on the potty for a long time. We told her that when she went, we would give her gum (which she loves) and we stopped giving her any gum at all. A couple times I caught her in the middle, and took her in to finish the poop on the potty, and gave her gum. Eventually (after 6-8 weeks!) she decided that she wanted gum. She now poops tiny amounts like 10 times a day to earn gum (silly kiddo!) but has been accident free for a week! So, it has taken a lot of time, but we have done it gently, and eventually got there. We had to figure out what made it fun for her--the cough drops and gum--and let that motivate her. It will probably be different for your kiddo--could you have a surprise basket he gets to pick out of? or something that he would think is really fun that would motivate him? Now, after a week of being without accidents, we are doing a chart so she can earn a pet fish after 10 days with no accidents (and will discontinue the gum after that!), but I think at first they need an immediate reward--within just one or two minutes of going potty.

Good luck! It is a challenge!

Also--FWIW, I think a lot of the talk of readiness and later training is due to advertising and studies paid for by the makers of Huggies and Pampers, who make a lot more money if you buy their products! I think kids are ready before we give them credit for being ready, and we are just a bit lazy about training them. Yes, it takes time and effort, but I don't see much reason for any normal, healthy child not to be potty trained by 3, or 3.5 at the latest. I think MOST can be trained around two. I was lazy and didn't make the effort I should have with my LO, but she is still trained before three. My daughter did a lot better when I got her a few all in one cloth diapers, and put her in those. She could feel when she peed, and was wet and uncomfortable. That helped a lot!

When i started training i sat the potty chair in the living room where my 2 1/2 yr old played most of the time. the first day we went through alot of underwear the second day less. to this day when we are in the house me does not tell me he just goes. I do have him yell at me to wipe his butt. and he does say something when we are out. We still have accidents but he has done really well. my little one goes to the big potty all the time now and doesnt use the potty chair at all I hope this helps you some if he is not ready you will know.

Hi L., I totally understand the frustration with potty training. I have a 3 1/2 yo girl who has special needs and isn't potty trained and refuses to wear diapers. One thing I learned from a toilet training clinic is to have a "bar-bottom weekend". This means that just you or someone else sits with the child all day with no other interruptions. The potty seat goes in the same room you will be in most of the day (hopefully not a carpeted room) and there are no diapers, panties or pullups on the bottom. They say if the potty seat is within eye shot they think about it more and don't have far to run. I personally haven't tried it as my daughter has sensory issues and can't tell she has to go until she is already going. So needless to say I clean up a lot of messes..

What kind of undies/training pants do you have him in? I use the thicker Gerber training pants along with their vinyl pants on top so sometimes it doesn't wet all of her clothes. We also use a potty watch from One Step Ahead. You can set it at 30/60/90 minute intervals and it plays a little tune and lights up when it's time to go potty. They have them in pink and blue and the are in the shape of a little potty. Really cute. Even when my batteries died I wrote the company and they sent me a new one within a few days, no expense. It was under $10 and it has been a huge relief not to have to reset the timer every time. I attach it to the belt loop of her pants and it seems to work.

Good luck, and remember that he may not even be ready but if you have your system/routine/goals set ahead of time it will be much easier to handle mentally..

I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!! I have TWO boys that exact same age (will be 3 June 27). They are also working on potty training. He may not be ready, as some of the other posters have said. However, he may just not have found the right incentive yet. My boys really "blossomed" in the potty training area when I took them to the store and let them pick out a new toy. Something big and important to them. I made sure that they knew it was a toy for filling up their sticker chart for peeing and pooping in the potty. In their case, it was trains. One picked a new engine. The other picked some box cars. I set the boxes up high where they could see them, but not reach them. They're in an obvious place, so they see them all the time, and remember they need to pee or poop in the potty to get a sticker. It REALLY helped them for the first week. Then, they lost interest in the sticker chart. BUT... they got the feel for using the potty, how it works, and what exactly they're supposed to do. They still do it. I wouldn't consider them completely potty trained yet. But they are about 100 times better than before I got them their prizes. They didn't respond well to little treats, or just stickers alone. They needed something big. It's not like I spent tons of money on their prize. They were each around $12. But it's big enough that it's worth the effort to them. Anyway... maybe he's not ready. But maybe he is. If you get so fed up with it and feel that absolutely nothing is working, then maybe wait and try later. But if you really want him out of diapers and using the potty, maybe you just haven't found the right method yet. Good luck! Stay sane!

L.,
I feel your pain and frustration. In my opinion, it sounds as though your son may not be totally ready to be potty trained. I know that my son found early interest in using the potty, but in the end, he just wasn't ready yet. I would still keep trying and letting him go sit on the potty when he shows interest, but until he is totally ready, I think that you may just end up very frustrated and constantly doing laundry. I never cared how old my friends kids were and how easy their training went, I knew that each kid is different. So, while there are certain pressures to have your kids done by a certain age, it is just up to your son and when HE is ready. Keep praising his good times, but don't worry so much about him not being trained yet.
Hang in there, it will click eventually with your boy.
Good luck!

One thing that I have done with my daughter is ask her in the morning what she wants to wear and explain to her what goes with the choice. She does great on the days she chooses to wear panties and not so good if I force her. The other thing is I gave in and bought a potty chair for her, which I swore I would never do. Then for a week we made it the place she sat for treats and movies and cartoons. In order to make it more a fun place to sit. Then we tried the big potty when she was ready for that. The other thing is that while she is sitting there if she goes potty then I can make a big deal and give her rewards which helps her understand that it is a good thing to go potty. Good luck I hope these suggestions help.

I am totally having the same struggles. It is just a burden to my two year old to have to stop and go potty. And I can't get him to tell me when he needs to go. But if I take him every 30 minutes or so, he starts to resist it. I know he could learn easily, because he asks me to change his diaper and then tells me "tank you mommy." Let me know if you find something that works!

Throw some cheerios in the toilet and teach him to pee standing.

My daughter just turned 3. Honestly there is a lot of advice out there and you just need to do what works for you. What worked for me is I just honestly didn't care if she was potty trained or not. I waited until she cared. She has a younger brother still in diapers, she is very smart and could be all the way potty trained if she wanted to, but for a long time she just wanted to be like him, and I decided there were worse things then dirty diapers. One day she found a pair of underwear she liked and wanted to wear them and I told her she couldn't unless she started going in the potty, and from there we have made progress. I will keep her in underwear in the daytime, even during her nap and as long as I remind her she does pretty good. But even with that she rarely tells me when she has to go, we are working on that, and she will very rarely use the potty for poo, I think that is harder for them. She will either go in her underwear or wait until I put a diaper on her at night. Yesterday I put her back in a diaper because she went poo in her underwear and she didn't like that, so hopefully that will keep her from doing it in her underwear. We are trying again. I really don't worry too much about it though, I know she will figure it out. If she starts making messes all the time, I will have no problem putting her back in diapers. They'll see their friends potty trained eventually and want to do it too. They all come to that point eventually. Anyways, I hope that helps.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, just because he takes off his diaper and sticks his hands down his diaper IN NO way means he is ready. He has to have all this in place before he is truly ready
1) be able to understand the urge BEFORE he goes
2) be able to hold it until he can get to the potty
3) be able to pull pants up and down well
4) wake up dry on most naps and most mornings

When those things are in place, he is ready. He is two!
That doesn't mean he is ready to start just getting the experience but you will end up very frustrated if you try and force anything.

DO NOT put him in underwear, I hear that a lot on here and to be honest it will just add to frustration and money in the garbage from seriously soiled underwear. Until he is done don't go with underwear. You can get pullups at Sams or Cosco in bulk very inexpensively.

I successfully potty trained two children (both at three) in a matter of weeks when they were ready, not when I was and doing it with pullups until it was done. It took the stress factor out of it, I wasn't cleaning up pee or poop off the floor, it was very calm, relaxed and at their pace.
Both did it 100% day and night, solely in underwear when we were done and it took two weeks for my son, two and a half weeks for my daughter (who by the way potty trained too early and regressed).
Do not bribe him, reward when he does go. When you finally decide you are ready you need to plan on being home, set a timer and every hour set him on the potty. NEVER ask a child if they have to go, it will be 98% of the time the answer NO! They get distracted and don't want to stop playing. Just pick him up and ask him very nicely "let's go try, if you don't go that is totally fine", see if he can. When he does make a HUGE deal out of it, charts, a few m&ms whatever he responds to. Get a fun potty seat and bypass the potty chair as that will help not have any big potty issues later and less messy.
Be prepared to do the work. Don't get frustrated and keep it very light and at his pace. His internal body has to be just as ready as his brain to do this. If his bladder isn't ready no amount of underwear is going to help. Pushing it too early because you are fed up will only cause regression or make it a power struggle.
He is young, yes some moms do it super early, however that is the exception and it is much better in my opinion to do it once and for all then a ongoing process.
Give him time.

L.,
I don't know if this will help,but when my daughter was having a hard time with potty training we put her favorite things in a magazine rack next to her potty chair. She loved looking at books,and coloring. I would take her in there and she would pick up a book and sit there for a while with the book until she went potty. Eventually she started going by herself. I think that once she relized what it felt like when she had to go she got the hang of it. Hope it helps.

Hi L. - it's pretty clear that he's not ready yet. You had to try - but - now it's time to back off, especially since he's saying he doesnt like the potty. If you push the issue, it will only get harder and harder to train him. Continue to model good behavior and try again when he expresses interest.

Good luck!

you have a lot of responses, and i did not read them all, but i feel like it was me who wrote your concerns - the EXACT same thing has been happening with my june baby as well. i had a talk with her pediatrician, and she said that my daughter needed to let me know when she was ready, and until she asks to go on the potty or asks to wear big girl underwear or whatever... i need to just back off and let it happen. that was hard for me to hear with so many people i know whose children are potty trained by 2 or 2.5 and here i am... my mom and MIL both think she should be potty trained by now, so there is a lot of outside pressure to do it. i, like you, did not see any reaction from my DD that she had just peed in her underwear for the 9th time and it was only 10am! so frustrating. i did everything you did, set the timer for every 20 minutes, stayed home and didn't leave for three days, stickers, skittles, you name it. i even got her to sit on the potty for a while by painting her fingernails and toenails (one hand and one foot at a time - got me four good sitting times on the potty). she'd go here and there (more luck than anything).

i let it go, and every now and then she'll ask to use the potty (usually just before her bath). we celebrate and make a big deal about it. we'll see in time. i trust her pediatrician SO much - it's just difficult to see and know about other kiddos who are doing this already. i am sending her to preschool in the fall, so i know we'll get this figured out by summer.

hang in there - i am in the same boat as you.

I am not at your stage yet (9 month old)... but I will go off of what my mom told me. Are you using one of the kiddy toilets? Perhaps have him use the big one. They have inserts to fit their little bottoms.
My moms said I refused to use the kid toilet! She said I wanted to use the big one, but couldn't reach it and back then they had no inserts.
She said the day they put a stool up to the toilet and some how rigged up something so I wouldn't fall in, I was trained! For a girl I took a very long time, but once they made these changes I was fine.
My sister took my moms advice and for her two boys she did the big toilet right away with the insert and they were and ease. I hear boys are harder than girls, but my nephews never had any issue and I often wonder if my moms advice helped my sister out.
Anyhow just a thought....

My advice -- drop the discussion, training all together. Put him back in diapers/pull-ups or whatever and don't worry about. It my belief that when they are ready they will do it. We did very mellow PT before my son turned three, rewards and whatever but none of it ever stuck. Ultimately, the week after he turned three HE decided that he wanted to only wear big boy underwear. We had a couple daily accidents for a few weeks (with pee only -- pooping was never an issue) and he hasn't had an accident in years. He will potty train -- but not on your time table.

I think your son could be ready, although think going "cold turkey" is hard. It will take longer than a few days to reverse what he's been taught (that diapers is where pee and poo go). I would make it a slow process. Start taking him just a couple times a day when he's likely to go - just after waking is a good one. Then gradually take him more. Remember that it is a psychological adjustment too.

I really recommend the book "Toilet Train your CHild in ONe Day." The author's name is Azrin. It;s in paperback and you could probably find it at your library or for cheap online. It talks about reinforcing staying clean and dry, not just sitting on the toilet at arbitrary times. After all, that's the skill you are trying to teach--continence--not just toilet-sitting. Consider offering small treats such as pretzels (salty, to induce thirst) and sips of fun drinks (juice boxes, etc.) when he is clean and dry. You can say, "Are you clean and dry? Check and see!" and then if he checks his undies and confirms that he is indeed clean and dry, you can say, "Yay! You can have a sip of this fun drink because you are clean and dry! You know how to use the toilet!" The book I suggest goes over this technique in detail. Worked like a charm for my two sons, although I admit I took longer than one day--more like a week of cencentrated effort. Good luck!

My best advice is to wait until he's three in June - it's unbelievable how much difference it will make and how much better things will click by then. Stop making yourself crazy and maybe he'll initiate it sometime between now and then. I was determined to get my daughter out of diapers by 2.5 when our second baby was to arrive but I finally just surrendered to waiting until 3 and it made it a much less frustrating experience for all. Best of luck!

Have you tried letting him run around naked? This worked for my daughter at first. She would never tell me she had to go if I put her in a pull-up or underwear, but if I just let her be naked, she would just go on her own. We then tried putting her in pants without underwear and she got the idea. Somehow, she will still just go if I put underwear on her. Good luck! I've heard from many other moms that boys are tricky :)

Two days is nothing compared with two years of habitual pooping in his diaper! Be consistent, be patient, and when he goes in the wrong spot, take a deep breath and tell him out loud, "It's okay. You are learning. Sometime soon, you will let the poop come out in the potty! Your body will tell you when the poop is ready, and then you'll sit on the potty and push with your tummy and open the muscles in your bottom, and out it will come!"
(half the time I was just reminding myself to take heart!)

I had a big basket of books in the bathroom, and sometimes the whole family (I have 3 kids) would be in there with the toddler, reading, talking, singing...the season WILL end! Just don't let yourself go crazy in the meantime!
blessings!

I was in your shoes just a couple months ago....And it is not fun. I was making my son go potty every 20-30 minutes when we first started potty training and he hated it. But he at least learned the basics of going to the bathroom. We tried it for a few weeks because I was done buying him diapers. However, we finally broke down and bought more diapers and then told him everyday when he makes the choice to wear underwear and go potty in the toilet then we would try it. One day he saw me cheer on another little boy his age when he went potty and since that day my son has been pretty good about going to the bathroom in the toilet. He still has his accidents and he needs a pull up at night, but he is doing well. Honestly your son needs to make the choice for himself and it's not easy for a mom to do. But it needs to be his. I wanted my son to be potty trained so badly, but he would have accident after accident until he made up his mind that he needed to be potty trained. Good luck.

Hi L., I have to agree with many of the others - you're son is not ready yet for potty training. When he is ready, you won't have these battles. My son started showing interest in the potty at 18 months and we tried off and on to potty train him until we realized that he just wasn't ready. It wasn't until after he turned 3 that he was ready and when he was ready, it only took a few days and he was trained. I would back off the training, still talk to him about it though and keep it positive and try again in a month or two. If he still doesn't seem to get it then, give him another month and keep going like that until he pieces it together. Pushing too hard right now will only prolong the process...not fun for anyone! :) Good luck!