3 Day Potty Training? - Tulsa,OK

I have 3 boys. I potty-trained all of them at 2y9m in 3 days or less. I know some kids "get it" at 18 months or 24 months, but I personally think those kids are really the exception. You can start whenever you want, but it will just take a lot longer if they're too young.

We did the undies/t-shirt thing for all 3. They all had 3-4 accidents the first day, 1-2 the second day, and none the third day. Pooping took a little longer--probably around 7-10 days. And, they all slept in a diaper at night for another 2-3 months. They were dry most mornings, but I didn't want to wash sheets 2-3x a week.

We never used pull-ups or potty chairs. We taught them to pee standing up and they used the potty ring on the big potty for pooping.

Good Luck!

hmmm...

There IS a method that I used with MY kiddos...

I waited until THEY were ready, and it was literally same day! The night time awareness/control took longer...but that came in it's own time as well.

I have 4 boys, and 2 and a half seems young to me (this was years ago of course).

Personally, I would back off and wait until HE is interested. It will save you and hubby (and especially your son) all kinds of stress. I suspect any method you use now will 'train you' rather than allow your son to learn.

Just my 2 cents!

best luck!

I didn't even try until my boys were about 3 1/2. My oldest had it in about 3 days. My youngest had it, no problem ... until school started. Then he regressed. We put him back in pullups and tried again a couple of months later. No issues since then.

For us, the 3 day method meant 3 days in the house with basically the same experience as Andrea L's

"First day I basically walked behind her with a mop (LOL) - lots of accidents, they happen, you clean them up. Easy. Second day: less accidents. Third day: no accidents, we started spacing out the potty trips to once an hour."

By the end of the 3 days, I was more than ready for an excuse to leave the house. There were still accidents after the 3 days, but they both pretty much had it.

I hear about people starting the process at 2 or 2 1/2, but I don't know anyone personally who potty trained before their child was 3.

You started training your son at 1 1/2. That is too early. That is why you are still, after a whole year, running after your son who is not potty trained one little bit.
If he doesn't go to the bathroom on his own, if he shows no remorse or discomfort at being wet, if he is still in a diaper (that's what you said), then he is NOT potty trained.
Stop trying. Put him back in a diaper. Your son is only 2 1/2. You are running yourself ragged trying to potty train a child who is just not ready.
If he asks you about underwear or the potty just say, "oh I am sorry Brian, but you keep going potty in your underwear and pants. You are not ready to be on the big boy potty yet. But, when you are ready to stop having accidents you just let me know!" and then put him in a diaper.
I tried to potty train my 2nd son at 2 1/2 and he was having none of it. SO, I put him back in diapers and let HIM decide when he wanted to start using the potty. A couple of days after he turned 3 he told me he wanted to wear big boy underwear and he never looked back. Seriously. He had one accident a day for the first 3 days and then no more accidents! Night time trained too.
Back off mom. It's too early.
L.

I haven't tried the book you mentioned.

For what it is worth we waited until our son declared he wanted to use the potty and showed serious interest in getting out of diapers. I know it sounds crazy but that's how it played out in our house. Both my husband and I took him to the bathroom with us from around a year and onward, which I have heard helps with the process. Needless to say it does limit your privacy as a parent. We were lucky in that he made his potty training announcement right around 2.5 years old. Once he made up his mind, he went from diapers to undies in a single decision on his part. There were accidents the first couple of days but he was sufficiently motivated the whole thing was a breeze. He is accident free during the day and at naps. We are still working on the night time bit but his body is not ready so we use pull ups.

In contrast my friend decided to train her girl at about the same age and it was a mess. They both wound up stressed and frustrated. She was reminding her daughter and/or taking her to the potty every hour. After a week, she called me and asked what was she thinking. "Who wants to be pestered every hour to use the bathroom?" was her moment of revelation. She backed off and her little girl decided around 3 she was done with diapers and that was that for them.

Good luck but no stressing as stress never fixed anything in my experience.

While I hear all the time about moms training their little snowflakes right at age two, my experience is that boys are easier to train at about age 3 because their communication skills are improved and because boys have a hard time controlling their bladders and take longer to mature physically.

I would give it a rest. If he's not interested, he's not ready. I found that when they are consistently waking up with a dry diaper or pullup in the morning and after naps, it's a good time to start putting them on the potty for a habitual morning pee. Let the rest come naturally.

And, to answer your question about the 3 day training program, no I don't think it will work for a child who isn't ready. And I'd lose my mind.

All that I have ever heard is that many boys need a bit longer to be interested in potty training - certainly true for the only boy in my family...

I don't know the book you are talking about, but honestly, it's potty training - not brain surgery...

My DD was potty trained when she was 2.5. It took about a week until we were accident free (a bit longer for nights).
Like you we had bought a potty long before to get her used to the idea. About 3 weeks before our target date (a long weekend, since I worked during the week and wanted to make sure I had the time) we started talking up the potty and how we were "running out of diapers" and when the diapers were gone she would be a big girl and go on the potty.

When the day came we put on undies and NEVER looked back. I didn't even keep any diapers around the house anymore. We were truly OUT.

I put her on the potty about every 30 minutes or so. We did not do nighttime diapers. First day I basically walked behind her with a mop (LOL) - lots of accidents, they happen, you clean them up. Easy. Second day: less accidents. Third day: no accidents, we started spacing out the potty trips to once an hour. The first week that followed we had a few accidents and a few days without any. No big deal. We spaced out potty trips to every two hours and before and after meals and trips.
We had a few nighttime accidents as well, again with double sheets and absorbent pads not a big deal.
We never offered diapers for pooping either, just M&M's as a reward and a healthy diet with lots of fiber and liquids to make it easy.

Accident frequency really dropped after two weeks and I declared her potty trained. Yep, it takes a bit of work and some extra laundry (we did it in the summer so running around in undies at home kept the laundry at bay).

Now that said my DD was READY, meaning she never refused to sit on the potty. If she had I would have not put up a fight about and maybe tried again in a few months.

My only nephew wasn't on board with the potty until he was almost 4. Put up a HUGE fight when my sis tried to get him to use the potty. Not the hill she was going to die on. Then one day he decided he was done with diapers (I am suspecting playground peer pressure) and never had an accident. He was just ready.

My advice: you know your kid. If he's ready and you don't mind the clean up give it a try. If it seems to be a struggle - don't. If your husband thinks is so important and MUST be done now, let HIM be the one doing the cleanup and die on that hill.

Good luck.

Well I did not know there was a book but it sounds pretty much like what I did for my boys. I started them in pull ups when they showed interest, and after a few months, when they were using the potty about half the time, we went to undies. The first day was bad for both of them, they each had 10+ accidents and wanted their pull ups back, but we stuck it out and on day two they had like 2 accidents, and by the third day they pretty much had it down, having maybe one accident a day at most, usually only 2 or 3 in a week, for the first few weeks or so.

With both of my boys I waited until their third birthdays to take away the diapers. (We had done the potty training books and videos before they were three.) They were completely independent and accident free day and night in just a few days. My friend started training her son at two, and spent a whole year training him.

He should be in pull ups and not diapers. The whole purpose of pull ups is that he can manage them independently. Don't buy anymore diapers, just pull ups for days then overnights for sleep.

Since he doesn't care if he's wet or dry it's not going to phase him one way or the other.

Most kids do really well when they start potty training in the spring. They go commando and run around outside in a long shirt or where they can't be seen so much.