"Update and a New Question..."

Sounds exactly like my son! He's been trained with hardly ever accidents for 2 solid months now but he still dances around when he has to go and then I ask him he says he doesn't and gets annoyed wtih me which I can understand. I spent months telling him "Tell me when you have to go potty" and now I'm telling him to when he has go. So anyway, now I don't ask I just say "let's go potty before we start this puzzle" or "when this show is over we need to go potty or the TV goes off." Sometimes it works but he doesn't have accidents so I've been letting it go. He's the one that's unconfortable and he knows what he needs to do to alleviate the discomfort and he'll go when gets too uncomfortable.

I sort of disagree with everyone who said to put a potty in the living room. I think he needs to learn to allow time to get to the bathroom. I've never done that and my son is really good about telling me early if we're out somewhere and the bathrooms may not be close by.

He also does the exact same thing with not going when he first wakes up. He still wears a pull-up at night and he does not wake up dry so I think it's normal for him to not have to go right away. He pees all night so he doesn't need to go in the morning until he starts drinking something. That's my thought. I'm not concerned about it.

Get him a training potty. If he is away from the regular potty,let him pee in that one. Just leave it in the corner. Tell him it is there and he will go if he needs to. My son goes potty on both and it has worked out great. Sometimes,they do hold it for a long time. He knows when he has to go. They do get distracted and you may ocassionally have an accident. He sounds like he is doing great. Good job with the potty training.

Sounds like he's doing great. Let him go but encourage the habit of peeing at certain times during your routine, like:

1. When you wake up
2. Before lunch
3. after nap (if applicable!)
4. Before dinner
5. Before bedtime

My son is 7 and I still remind him to pee before we leave the house! LOL

I have an up and down stairs and I had to approach this 2 different ways with my kiddos:
What worked for my sons: Giving him a "potty clock" that was programmed to go off every hour - when it rang he had to go sit on the potty, whether he needed to go or not. He could still go without the clock but using the timer helped eliminate asking him to go. Asking them won't produce results if they can't tell until the last minute so some kids will appreciate the routine of going at scheduled times.

What worked with my daughter: Having portable potties! I picked up 2 little training potties from Ikea for $5 each, they are pink and small enough that she can move them from room to room as she likes. I put one downstairs and one up in her room. She has been potty trained since she was almost 2 but even at 3, her bladder is still not developed enough to give her more than a 60 second warning. Generally routine is just not up her alley, so the clock thing just frustrated her. She likes the training potty option because there is no climbing involved like getting on the bigger toilet and running all the way to the bathroom when she's doing the dance just isn't possible sometimes.

We are struggling with potty training too, so I don;t have a lot of advice. In fact I just asked my own potty training questions a few minutes ago. :)

The most basic answer I have for your question is to get another potty for the living room. That way he can sit on it while he watches tv and it's not too far from his toys. You definitely don't want to turn pottying into a battle or negative experience, because then he will never want to do it. Keep it positive and fun.
Good luck!

Bring the potty downstairs.

I dont know how old your son is, but my son is 3 and does the same thing. He is completly potty trained and never has an accident but he will hold it till he really has to go and only goes a few times a day to. He drinks and eats fine and has no issues with anything so i just let him be. He will go when he really has to. I think it is normal. My friends kids do the same thing around that age. As long as he isnt having pain and at least going that is great!

Regardless of whether or not you are nagging him, he needs to be taught to respect you. If he can dismiss you already at such a young age, you will have major issues later. He should not have the upper hand in this. If you are asking if he needs to go, it is because you have wisdom as his mother to know he might. Require that he be respectful to you in his response. You should not be the one required to change your behavior to suit his demands.

you don't ask if he needs to go lol. you say come on its time to go potty. turn the tv / toys off for a minute and take him up. I took the daycare kids to the bathroom every 2 hours. just plan it in. put an alarm on in the kitchen if you have to to remind yourself and take him to go. tell him it takes longer to argue about it than it does to go and if he has an accident because he won't leave the tv then the tv is done for the day.

Don't have any ideas on your second question but as far as 'reminding' him, I would say to set the timer every hour or so and tell him when it goes off, he has to 'try' to go. This way, it's the timer and not you making him go. Or, ask him "Do you want to go on the potty now or after mommy?" Don't ask if he has to go - my daughter never 'has' to go when i ask. Make it a question he can't answer 'no' to! I'm still having issues with my daughter (3) who's been potty trained for about 9 months now. She has an accident at least 1x a day and usually it's because she's just too busy having fun to stop and go! I asked if she wanted to go back in pullups and she said no, so we're just doing a lot of laundry these days!

My daughter, now 7, has been adamant for a very long time about when she does and does NOT have to go to the bathroom. (That doesn't mean there haven't been times where I could tell she was clearly getting fidgety and had to go.) It is still a fight/bargaining game to get her to "try" to go before a long car ride, "just to please me". Anyway, she has always gone very long periods without needing to pee, including when she first woke up in the morning, so I think that's normal for some kids.

Getting them to take a break from playing/watching TV long enough to recognize they have to go to the bathroom is a harder task. Remember, this is a CONTROL issue for the kid, as well as, a "big kid" transition issue. So, yes, when they are paying attention, they know very well whether or not they have to go to the bathroom and you are insulting and irritating them by asking, on the other hand, they will ignore/not recognize/forget they have to go until they are ready to burst when they are engaged in ANYTHING else. Maybe, if you feel it's been a while since he ate or drank something and you feel he SHOULD have to go, you could ask him to come into the kitchen for "a drink" (or whatever distraction), something to get him away from the activity at hand, long enough for him to become aware of any urges. Then maybe you could casually ask him if he needed to go to the bathroom, or just remind him to tell you when he does need to go. (either way, you are going to be "nagging" him, but the more "in charge" he feels about it, the fewer arguments there will be.

Not at all unusual... one thing that seemed to work with one of mine (but not with the other) was to set the alarm on my cell phone, letting him pick the ring tone.... whenever his "potty song" came on, he knew he had to stop what he was doing and head to the bathroom... During early training, I set it pretty frequently, but we eventually got to the point where every 2.5 hrs was a good interval (adjusting as appropriate around meal times)... One compromise I did make with him was that I agreed to pause his TV show (we have a DVR with that luxury) whenever it was potty time, either timer or self initiated... this made a big difference in willingness to back away from the "boob tube" for him ;)

1. I would have a schedule for potty. Let him know that when he wakes up it is time to go to the potty. If he needs a warning, tell you that you need to go in 2 minutes. Set a timer if you need to so that it isn't you nagging. Does he really like his underwear? I say toilet or diaper. My son pushed me once and I put him in the diaper.....ooooohhhhh we had a meltdown, but he needed to know that it wasn't an idle threat.
2. I would say it is because he is holding it so long. He should sit on the potty (whether he goes or not) about every 1:30-2 hours if he has the hang of it. More often if not. We do every hour. If he pees, great. If not, we try again in 20 minutes. And we are constantly communicating this to him so that it isn't a surprise, and he also knows that he isn't stopping doing the fun thing, just taking a break. The timer helps with this.

I agree with set times to go. We have a "you don't have to go, but you have to try" rule in our house for the following times.

When waking up
Before leaving the house
Before TV time
Before a playdate
Before bedtime

Basically, if I don't want to have to deal with using the toilet during a period of time, then we have a potty break before it. It works well for us, and because it's established, then usually no one balks too much.

My boys (age almost 4 and 5 1/2) can go maybe 3-4 times a day. That's normal for them.

J.

1. Does he have accidents because can't make it upstairs? Have you thought of putting a potty somewhere downstairs then? I used to have one in the living room and then I gradually moved it back to the bathroom once my kids were doing better. If he isn't having many accidents I wouldn't worry about it.
2. Once my kids potty trained they could hold it longer and longer and I think that's totally normal - they're getting better and better bladder control. I wouldn't worry about this. My 3 year olds sometimes get up and don't go for at least 2 or 3 hours.

Its normal to only go a few times a day.

My son likes rules. So, we have a rule that he has to go potty immediately after every meal and snack. He usually needs a reminder, so I'll say, "we just finish our meal, so now you need to go potty." If he gets upset, I remind him its one of our rules & that seems to make everything ok for him.

He shouldn't be allowed to throw fits, so discipline will solve that.
Definitely keep the potty near him for this phase. Get a little potty for the downstairs. Don't worry about his going less. My son did that too for the first couple of weeks. Now he's running in and peeing by himselfall the time. (thankfully he's JUST tall enough to reach over the rim..)

Sounds like your son is close to "physically" trained, but hasn't gotten the "emotional" component worked through yet. "Being trained" carries with it a huge obligation to get to the potty on time forever after, no matter how fascinating and distracting your current activities are.

Little kids live in the present-moment, and are generally not good at planning ahead or making transitions. Thus, holding it forever, or until no longer possible to deny, is a fairly common dynamic. Play is so much more fun than stopping to use the potty.

I dealt with this in my grandson by making trips to the potty sound like irresistible fun. I'd tell him the bathroom was crowded with dinosaurs, and I needed his help clearing them out. We'd run in there and wrestle them out the door, then I'd hold them at bay while he took a pee. That game was effective for months, and developed many variations, until it became apparent that he'd voluntarily get to the bathroom when he needed to. (He still waits till the last moment on occasion. But I do, too.)

Or, if it works for both of you, you could simply keep reminding him, or set up a timer for him to respond to, and perhaps even give stickers or some small, immediate incentive to get to the potty when the timer goes off (though giving rewards can also have negative longer-term effects, so use cautiously). If he's close-to-ready for that long-term commitment, that may do the trick. He'll probably only need the chart/reward system for a few more weeks or months.

But if it becomes a huge battle of wills to get him to go, then he's not trained on the mental/emotional level. Boys are often slow at making this adjustment in attitude. Sometimes putting him back in diapers gives him a few days or weeks to make that critical decision. Sometimes it's more like a reprieve from a burdensome obligation, and he'll be ready in a few more months.

Backing away from the training entirely has been beneficial in a few young families I've known. When the regressing child decides they are ready and want to be out of diapers, they say so, and they finish training themselves, sometimes instantly. I should note that those families continued with positive messages about the benefits of being trained as opposed to needing to stop for diaper changes. But the kids did let their parents know when they were ready for this developmental step forward.