Seeking Toilet Training Advise

I struggled the most with potty training my youngest son.
what finally worked for us was kinda different... my son loved blowing out candles. I kept a candle on the back of the toilet and while he sat there I would hold the candle, light it and he would want to blow it out so badly, he'd go potty so I would allow him to do so.
Now this trick may or may not work for you, but look for something he really, really likes and try to use it as incentive no matter what it may be!
Good luck!

The thing about potty training is being consistant!! You really just need to ask her about every 20-30 min. You will get to know her expressions when it is time to go, like when they go to find a place to hide when they go poo.... they will start to get really wiggly when they are to into playing to stop and go potty!

Keep asking and give her a special treat when she has gone in the toilet. Also I would let her sit on the potty and look at a book until something happened. There are great kids movies about using the potty, they really enjoy them and it gets them interested in being a big kid!

Good luck and have fun!

L.

I am not really sure what you have tried, so I will tell you what worked with me and my daughter. I would tell her that I had to go potty and have her come in with me and explain everything including washing my washing hands. Then I tried putting her on the potty and used pull-ups. That didn't seem to work for us. I then told her she got to pick out big girl panties like mommy and let her pick out the ones that she wanted. I went diaper/pull-up free during the day. At first she had a lot of accidents and seemed to wet herself shortly after being on the toilet but doing nothing. I got frustrated but tried not to let her know it. She didn't like being wet and soon started going more and more on the potty. I also never refered to the pull-up as a diaper. I didn't want to confuse her. I used them only at night (after my first failed attempt) and called them her night-night panty. She only had a few night time accidents.

Good Luck.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?W...
Check out this site, if it doesnt come up, its barnes & Noble.com and the book is "Potty Train your Child in Just One Day"
I used this book by the book and It worked, It was amazing, I didnt think it would work because I had not even attempted potty training him yet, he had just barely turned 2 and was showing signes of being ready, and one day my son was in diapers and and the next day he was in underware and NEVER wet his pants or even the bed, It goes over kids of all ages with wetting problems and just basic potty training. I loved it and recomend it to everybody whether thier child is easy to train or not. Good Luck.

Bribery worked for our 2 year old. We wanted to put her in a montessori school starting at 2 1/2 and she had to be (mostly) potty trained. So I went to the dollar store and bought a whole bunch of "prizes". I believe I did a sticker for peeing and a small toy for pooping. There were no repercussions for not going or for having an accident, she just didn't get anything. "You can try again in a little bit." I think it took about 2 months before she was really consistant (however, she was younger. The older they are when you start the more a matter it is of just convincing them to do it rather than actually gaining the bodily controls.) We also stayed away from using pull-ups except at bedtime. It was messier for me, but it provided immediate and natural consequences for her.

Good luck!

D.

Dear A. K.,

My 3 year old daughter was a lot harder than my son. I just came to the conclusion that she wasn't ready. It was frustrating because he was totally done and trained at 2 years 2 months. After much fretting and fighting, I decided that is was pull-ups and lots of encouragement and I'm happy to say she's 3 1/2 now and completely trained. I had her wear her pull-ups every night until she was dry every night for weeks. One night my husband put the kids to bed and forgot to put a pull-up on and we were so excited and proud, the praise was genuine and that was it!

Be patient, I promise it will happen. Girls tend to take a little longer sometimes.

Blessings,
G.

My advice is to find something that she REALLY, REALLY loves and reward her with it each time she goes.

I tried m&m's, I tried stickers, I tried everything I could think of. I remembered how much she LOVES playing games on disney.com so I told her each time she went on the potty, she could have 5 minutes of play time. She would literally sit on her potty and wait for urine to enter her bladder LOL

She went from having no interest in the potty, to being fully potty trained during the day in less than 3 days.

I think it's finding the one thing that they love, and it's so different for each child.

Hi A.! I'm currently potty training my 2 1/2 year old daughter, and what's worked for me so far is to just not use any pull-ups or anything, just underwear, and then I put her on the potty every half-hour to 1 hour. That way she gets used to the idea of using the toilet and connecting the feeling of having to go and when. She still wears a diaper at night, but during the day I think that the pull-ups just confuse her.
Hope that helps!
Good luck!
A.

Hi my son is 2 1/2 and he did the same I bought a sticker book with lots of stickers and had him pick it out and when he would go in the potty he would get to stick a sticker in his book. I thought he would want to keep putting stickers in it even though he did not go.I put it up and told him when he gos again he will get another. That seemed to work with him after awhile of doing that I took his pullups away and had him wear underware and he don't ask for the stickers and gos all the time. It took us 2 or 3 weeks with the sticker thing. Good luck its really hard to keep consistent with it.

Hi A.,
My twin girls are 3 and were potty trained 6 months apart. One before they turned 3 and the other after. I wanted her to catch up to her sister, so I just put undies on. Then eventually she caught on. Lots of laundry but she'll get the hang of it!
Ps: If you would like to work at home, please check out my site or email any questions :) www.pearsonsjerkys.com

Elmo fan? Did you see that Potty Time with Elmo just came out (DVD movie)? My daughter loves it!

I potty-trained my daughter by 26 months (she is 2 1/2 now) but I think we were very lucky. I have talked to several friends and family members whose kids weren't trained until 3 or in some cases, much later, closer to 4. The turning point for my daughter was that for a week or two, I pretty much let her run around the house naked (no diaper/no pull-up except for at bedtime) and had the little potty right out in the open near her toy room and the living/kitchenette/kitchen area. She had a couple of accidents but learned to use the potty very quickly. Of course, prior to that, she had shown a lot of signs of readiness. But some kids simply aren't ready yet until they are over 3 and I think that is completely normal so if your child isn't ready yet, that is more than fine. Every kid is different and I am sure the one in my belly, which is due in February, will be completely different from how this one did it.;) Good luck and hang in there! The fact that your kid is even talking about it is a good sign that it will happen soon. Email me back if you have any other questions or anything!
S.

Hi A.,
Jenna turns three next month and we are potty trained. Things that worked for me was using panties at home and setting a timer. Every hour when it went off she knew she would have to go and try. Night time just happened. I would praise her all the time when she did go. For night time sometimes she even got a treat. She got a big toy (alpha thing for the fridge)when she didn't go at night for a week. We have had maybe two messes but done! Daycare had a lot to do with it also - she followed the other kids and did what they did. At night I just started giving her the option of panties or pull up and finally we are done!
Hope this helps
A.

My concern with your situation is that when new babies are born into the home children will regress, especially at potty training. My best advice to you is to hold off until your baby is bron and a few months old. Otherwise your child will think you got them out of diapers so that the baby could have them. And you don't want yoru 3 year old to feel that dissapointment and sadness/embarrassment in regressing so why not wait? I'd hold off but if you decide to potty train try this: I did the 1 day potty training (Dr Phil promotes it but he didn't come up with the idea). You can get directions online. Basically, you get the table all decorated like a birthday party along with cupcakes and have a party for the doll who goes potty in the potty. Buy a doll that can wet. Have them go potty in the child's potty. Then put the doll in underwear and have the party to celebrate the doll being a big boy/girl now. Then ask the child if they want to have a party for them. They will. Then take them potty every 20 minutes. make this fun not stressful. I gave my child fake bugs everytime he went since he was so into bugs at the time. My son was potty trained by the end of the first day and the second day we went to disneyland (we lived close by at the time) and he had zero accidents the whole time. I swear by this method. It is fun, involves cupcakes :-), and is not stressful on mother or child.

When my twin girls were almost 3 we started potty training, we would set then on the toliet every 30-45 minutes to go potty. If they went potty in the potty then they got a prize (sucker, sticker etc.) If they went poop in the potty they got a bigger prize ( nail polish). we praised them every time they tried and especially when the told us and went. It only took about a week. Just have to keep putting them on the potty. Also, DO NOT put them in pull-ups unless its nap time--they view these as a diaper and can't feel the wetness if accident occurs as do in big girl panties. Have her pick out a few pairs of big girl panties and she may try to keep them clean to wear all day.

My son, Felix, just finished potty training, he's 3 1/2 years old. Roger (my BF) and I were handling it the same way, asking him to tell us when he needs to go and getting nowhere. We decided we needed a better plan so we started telling him on a regular basis (every 1 1/2 to 2 hours) that we were going to the potty. Felix got the hang of it within two weeks of actually taking him to try and now he only has an occasional accident overnight. Kids want to please their parents so agreeing when you ask them to tell you is natural, but the point doesn't get taken in by the potty trainer until the physical part of it is added in. I hope this helps, let me know if it did if you want.

Regards,

M. Drake

I don't know if you went and bought a small potty toilet for your daughter but when I was potty training my son we went shopping & I had him pick it out himself. I put 3 or 4 toilets down and had him sit and look at each and let him decide which he liked better. Then everytime he used the potty he got a sticker (as a reward) to put on the potty. (He loves stickers). He loved getting stickers and caught on very quickly. I hope this helps you. If you have questions please email me at ____@____.com

GOOD LUCK ;)

I just potty trained my 3-year-old son and after receiving lots of advice to use the "Dr Phil" method of potty-training in one day, I thought I'd give it a try. I had already tried every other suggestion I could findn (stickers, charts, just underware, etc). BINGO! It sounds like a lot of work, but it's worth it!
http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/264

Good luck!

A friend of mine has a little girl who is 2 1/2. She said she took her little girl to the potty every hour on the hour and had her potty trained in 3 days. I haven't tried this with my daughter yet, but I think that's what I'm going to have to do with her as well.
~ S. B

Hey A.,

What you need to do is to just try putting on regular underwear. I know it does sound scary but it worked for me! Make sure she has shoes on that are easy to clean. I tried those Feel & Learn Diapers and he would go threw them like a regular diaper. They were just more expensive! So do not waste your money. Then I tried the underwear thing and it worked for me. When you go somewhere make sure you buy some pull-ups to put on. They are easy to take on and off unlike the diaper and come in cool styles! So there is not an accident, make sure she wears pull-ups or a diaper at night as well. Also, I almost forgot I put a sticker (at eye point level) as something to look at when he was sitting down. I put the sticker on the wall across from the stool. Whatever method you decide to do I hope it works for you! Just be patient with her because she will do it when she is ready. The best way is to just not make a big issue with it, if it takes a little longer for her. The best thing is, is that she feels comfortable. She will automatically do it when she is ready. I wish you luck! Take Care!

C.