Potty Training Woes!

Yes this is normal. She sounds very smart in so many ways.

1. She's using her words not only to get your attention but,
she describing the feeling of -pressure- to pee as well.
2. She's excited and proud of herself *confidence*
3. She's seeking a private place to "take care of business"
this is a precious part of emotional growth and maturity
4. And she's being very resourceful with the diapering as she
ceases the opportunity to use it when it's on.

Many parents use the naked method. I do too. But, I usually time it for the summer months even it's a little past the two year old mark. That way, I can keep the kids outside and it's not that big of a problem if a mistake happens.

An idea: My oldest daughter wanted to be potty trained before she was two and it was not summer time, so I bought a few potty chairs for her to use. Some people use potty chairs and some don't. She seemed to like them.

I put one in her room, one in the bathroom, and I took another one in the car with me (& toilet paper). It seemed like she always needed to go whenever we were getting into the vehicle or getting out. She could hardly wait and hold it in. She waited to the last minute to tell me when she was just bursting to go.

You are a smart mom and will be intuitive about this. You'll know when it's time to stop putting the diaper on her for outings and when she can hold out for the car potty chair or a rest room. Another thing I did was, I would take the kids into the rest room (even if they were diapered) and have them sit on the potty for a "try". The pee usually came out.

The diaper delema - diapers are security and can prolong the process. I do not encourage diaper use during the waking times or even pull-ups. Some kids will hold out and keep their poopies inside until the diaper is on. You'll find that they will poop when they should be getting sleepy for nap, mid-nap (an inconvenience), or as they are waking up.

But, I understand that diapers are needed at nap and bed time. My son still wears them. But, as soon as he begins to wake up, I take it off right away.

After about 6 months to a year of being totally potty trained during the waking hours, I think that's a good time to start waking the child up for a potty break to train them into getting out of bed to go potty in the night.

Tip for bed wetting during training - There are disposable pee-pee pads in the "Depends" isle of the grocery store. I have washable cloth ones. We sort of borrowed them from the hospital. I'm not a big fan of making beds in the middle of the night or doing a lot of laundry.

But, I don't think either one of us is at the point right now, were we can let them loose at night. It's not panty time at night quite yet.

For now, just keep doing what your doing. Take her along with you as you dump the poopy into the toilet from the diaper or from floor. Try to catch her in mid-act as much as possible. And use a reward system if you aren't already (M&Ms, stickers, toys) for those times when she does do it in the potty.

Rewards: Hunter pee'd frequently so I gave him stickers for that, but when he pooped in the potty we'd circle a train from the Thomas the Tank Engine magazine and talk about buying it at the grocery store. He has a lot of trains now. We talked all day long about how he was potty "training" for trains and how a poopy in the potty earns a train. It was easy to ween him off of this expectation also. All I did was just start buying him trains for other good things that he was doing. Pooping the potty became a natural action to him, so I just changed our focus and my language to talk about stuff like using gentle hands. Gentle hands earns a train. And I catch him being nice, kind, gentle, and listening to his sister when she screams NO because she doesn't want a hug (smothered).

Fears - Lots of kids are afraid of the poopy getting sucked away in the toilet. It feels kind of scary to have it come out and just drop. At least in a diaper they can feel the whole thing happening. At least on the ground they can see the whole thing happening. But, for it to be sucked into the abis and disappear is a little scarey.

Would she sit on the toilet and pick a roll of toilet paper apart for practice? Hunter loves to do this and so did Addy. They would just drop the toilet paper down between their legs without wiping (or really needing to wipe at all) and the were fascinated with the flush. They would tell me, "OK, now flush it mom" -a sense of control. And they became comfortable with the big swoosh. Neither one of them became mischeivous about flushing other things besides pee, poop, and toilet paper down the toile but some kids do. Dunno. You never know which kid is going to discover such fun.

And my final input- relapses... There was a time when Hunter knew better. Even now, I would consider it a "you know better". Aside from an understandable diahrea problem or stomach upset, I would not be sympathetic, too sweet, or coddling about it. Since, Hunter still does use the diaper at nap times, he tested the boundaries for a couple of weeks. He was simply lazy and just didn't get out of his warm bed to go poop. He did it twice as he was supposed to be going to sleep and once as he was waking up. I was sturn, cross eyebrowed, and I expressed my disappointment. I made it NOT fun, convenient, or rewarding -AT ALL- for him to do such a thing. He learned that it wasn't worth it. I just wanted to tell you about this experience because it may be in your future. For now, it's time to be very understanding, helpful, encouraging, and forgiving. But, you might go through something like this too. I felt like a mean mommy being so disappointed and kind of mean about it... after having been so helpful, happy, and encouraging for so long. It was challenging, but it was time to take that approach.

Other helpful techniques
-when she poops in the diaper give it a poke or a little squish on her bottom to help her feel it and discover that she doesn't like it.
-have her throw her own diapers away and talk about how much quicker it is to just use the potty. Getting undressed, wiping the mess, putting a new diaper on, getting dressed again, and then having to throw the diaper way takes time. When all you have to do is just quickly hop up on the potty. Here's a good comment, "Ok, Momma's done changing you, now you CANT play yet. You have to throw the diaper away." Kids are often so happy to help and do the things we request, but if we use a tone of irritation about a task, they will learn quickly to mimic our feelings. We want her to feel bothered by the task and not so happy to do it. I have no doubt that she's so sweet.
-when dressing, don't use underwear or pull ups, only soft pants with elastic waste for a while so that she can pull them down quickly when she's under pressure to go.

more.... anyone else please contribute!

Take care, J., and remember -

Take care, but don't "take on" the cares of this world for His burden is easy and His yoke is light ~ YM

It sounds like you have a very ambitious little two year old on your hands. It is such a great age and so much learning is going on. You seem to be doing everything you know to do, everything you have read in the books, and taken all the advise you can stand. Although I only have boys, I too had a lot of poop cleaning to do. My son would poop and then take off his diaper and leave it wherever he was. At one point it became publically embarrassing. I think one thing you may try (and hopefully it helps) is having her in her undies around the house first of all and at some points during the day sit her on the potty with maybe a book and turn on the water. Keep her undies at her ankles and keep her occupied for a couple minutes. Maybe she will go, or maybe she wont. But the idea is that it will show her that she can do it even with undies. And she gets to pull them up at the end. Keep up the hard work. It may take just a little more time a patience.

hi J. i havew 2 kids a 5 and 21mo old i have had some of those problems but my girl was almost 3 be for she realy got it she had truble at 2 she got it at almost 3 and by 4 she was night trained i don't thank meny kids get thre idea untill 3 i would just keep trying or just stop and try at a later time she may do it to copy but not understand all of it i have been a nanny for 14 yrs and i don't think any ofthem was there at 2 but you could try puting just pants no underwere that work some times and pullup at night and when you got out my be better i hope i helped i allso do a stay at home job if your ever interrested call me 1-###-###-#### S.

Hi,
Rest at ease...She is very normal. Potty training can be easy as pie and completely difficult. I say this because I have 4 children. One child I potty trained in 1 day at 19 mos old. He hated to be dirty and it was easy. He still hates to be dirty at age 20..ha ha! My 3rd child is 2 & 1/2. He is a busy active boy. It seemed to take forever for him to take the time out to use the potty. He is potty trained during the day as far as peeing goes. He too likes to run around naked now. I must hunt down his underwear all day long because he just pulls them off and leaves them behind. I can take him anywhere and he won't pee his pants. He usually always uses the bathroom, but recently he has discovered that peeing off the side of the deck or into a hat or a bowl is soo much fun...Yuk! Anyway it took about a week of redirecting him to the potty and that has seemed to go away for now. He will not sit on the potty and go poop. He will hold his poop all day if I let him, until he can't anymore. He has also pooped on the floor...double yuk! I pick it up and do the same...bring him and the poop to the potty and flush it. He understands that poop is supposed to be there and if he poops on the floor he will show me and tell me. Anyway...good or bad I have decided at this point, in the middle of the day after he has eaten enough food that he will probably have to poop. I have grabbed a diaper put it on him and tell him it's time to poop. Usually within 15 minutes he goes. I change the diaper and put back the underwear. I know some parents might not agree with this, but it's better than the floor or him being constipated. The way I look at it is that as long as we are communicating that is the first step. I also have found to bite my tongue when frustrated at an accident. I just explain that it was an accident and that we will try again next time. As long as I am positive he is too. When I ever expressed dislike about the situation he acted out by continuing to have accidents. Anyway...Just keep at it! I wouldn't worry about the nighttime diaper yet. She will get it all soon enough. Good luck and I hope what I said helps a little. G.

just a couple of things to add we bought underwear that vega really liked so when she messed in them she couldn't wear them anymore so if she made cinderella dirty she had to go with her second choice. I was originaly only buy inexpensive plain underwear and she didnt' care if it was dirty and pull ups were right out they were still a diaper even if they got cold when she peed or whatever but we got her the princess ones and two days later she was completely out of diapers except at night (even though she doesn't wet them i feel better)

second about the poop she prob. has special places that he poops so what happened for us was really just luck I guess Vega went to her poop place in front of my husband and he grabbed her and ran to the potty and she pooped then he called me in and let her tell me what she did and I could see how happy it made her when I got really excited about what she did and since then she has only had a couple of accidents (it's been a month) and they were mostly our fault for not getting her to the potty on time or we were on the potty at the time. but just know that you are soooo close.

I think it's important to respond to her saying that it hurts when she pees. Even girls this age can have an infection. First look to see if she's red or sore in appearance. If so pay attention to things that she might be allergic to such as the detergent or fabric softener or new panties that haven't been washed. Does she play with herself when her hands are dirty? If you cannot correct whatever is making her irritated call the doctor. Pt could be a urinary tract or yeast infection.

I potty trained my daughter right after she turned 2. It only took 3 days. Everything I read said to get rid of diapers all together when they are awake. As soon as she wakes up put regular big girl underwear on her that she helped pick out. Set the timer for 20 min. and put her on the toilet when it goes off. You will need to devote at least a week to just doing this, no errands or anything. When you do go out to the store take her to the potty right when you get there. You might have to check the clock and take her again in 20-30 minutes if she doesn’t tell you when she has to go yet. I don’t think it really hurts when she feels like she has to go. She might be paying more attention to what it feels like to have to go pee and that is the only way she knows to explain it. I think she might be getting confused as to why she wears a diaper to the store but not at home. The only time she should be wearing a diaper is at night which could last until she is 4-5 or longer. If you want more help let me know. :)