Another Potty Training Question - Orem,UT

A.- k my son is only 17 months old, but I caught a little bit of dr.phils show on parenting yesterday... I didn't agree with a lot of things he said, but his potty training idea was neat. Something I've never heard of. Basically he had the parents get their kids a doll that wets and "potty train" the doll. By teaching the doll the children learned. He also had a reward for them in the end. I didn't see the beginning, but the parents seemed to like the process and the kids learned really quickly. Here's the link.
http://drphil.com/articles/article/264

My apologies if someone else has already suggested this.. too little time today to read
The Dr. Phil show a few days ago presented, what I thought a very clever and effective approach - I think it's still available on his site.

Does she want to go to preschool? Most preschools will not take a child who isn't potty trained, and this worked to my advantage with my son, who really wanted to go to preschool, but wasn't at all interested in ditching the diapers. When I explained to him that the preschool didn't allow kids who wouldn't use the potty EVERY TIME, his attitude changed completely, and within a couple of weeks we were done. He just needed a motivation outside of the family to getting him going (pun intended).

Good luck.

I'm hoping to encourage you by reminding you that, while she is a bit on the older side, she is still in the 'normal' age range of potty training. Do you think she might be feeling pressure from you? If so, that may be where the problem lies. Again, because just as you mentioned, she can control this and you cannot. I really want to encourage you to drop the topic for a while with her. You might even announce to her that you aren't going to try to get her on the potty any more, since she wants to stay in diapers. There does seem to be a bit of the 'battle of the wills' here, and you really don't want it to become a full-blown power struggle. This is one you can't win! And she really isn't contolling you, she is wanting to be in control of herself and her bodily functions. If you can back off for a bit, she will one day (probably soon!) decide to do it. And at her age, it will be a snap when the time comes, because the physical control will be so developed. I realize you may have an issue with her getting into preschool still in diapers, but if you back off now you actually have a better shot of getting her trained by then than if you continue to try so hard. Hang in there, Mom! It will happen!

Try bigger 'bribes'. That was what finally worked for us. BIG toys that he just couldn't resist. Perhaps some bigger poo poo toys, and smaller pee-pee toys - put em' in a box for her to view, and let her know she will get one when/if she uses the potty. Candy, and small treats/toys did nothing for my 'controlling' little boy.

Also, do this in unison with putting her in underwear. Have her clean up her own accidents, but in a positive, matter-of-fact way. If she has an accident, tell her 'it's okay, but unfortunately, she won't get a toy this time - maybe next time'. My Ped also recommended going back to the place where they had the accident, and having them jump up, and run to the toilet say 'when you feel it, jump up, and run to the toilet, pull your pants down, sit and pull your pants back up'. We made a game out of it. Have her practice the proper way to go in a sense. Above all, he said be positive!!!

With my first son I got the book called "Potty Training in a Day" and it worked wonders with him but it is hard to do when you have other kids in the house. I recommend this if you can get a babysitter for the day.

With my second one, I took some of the thoughts behind the book and worked it for him as he required a LOT of stamina from me. My daughter was 9 months at the time as well. With him, I actually put together a bowl of toys and candy (all from the dollar store) all tailored to his favorites things in life. We went through the bowl together and looked at everything in there and he was beside himself he wanted all of them SO BAD! I then broke it to him that he could pick out one toy or candy each time he used the toilet for pee or poop. HE LOST IT!!! For two days he screamed and cried about it, but strangely he would go up to the toilet when he had to go. I kept up the bowl for about a week and took it away slowly over the next week and we were done. Never even one accident. Hope this helps and GOOD LUCK.

Hi A. ...

I totally agree with you ... it's a control thing. My adivice is to deal with for another month or two. I say that only because she'll be starting preschool very soon. I believe that you have a good shot at peer pressure solving this problem for you. She may very well come home one day and announce that she's a "big girl" and/or start using the potty on her own. It will then be HER decision. It's worth a month or two just to see. If that doesn't happen, I'd see your pediatrician.

Best wishes,
L.

A few others have mentioned this, but I gave my son a week warning that the diapers were going to be all gone in a week and then he would be in underwear. We went shopping and found some that met both our needs, fun prints for him, absorbent for me, and he was in them at the deadline cold turkey... no going back. The first day, he came up to me, peed on my feet and asked me for a diaper... I almost cried, knowing the kind of control this kid thought he had over me. I helped him clean up and change and didn't go back. He was potty trained day and night within 4 days and has had not even one day accident since. He has the occasional night accident but they are so rare that I just make sure that there is a mattress protector on his bed and keep him in underwear. Truly amazing.. Good luck.

First thing, go along with her. Tell her she's free to go in her diaper, but that you will NOT be changing her anymore. Then let her know that she can't go to preschool if she is still in diapers, because school is for big kids, and only little babies wear diapers. Then when she poops in her diaper, ask her if that was a good choice and walk away. Let her know SHE IS in control of messing, and she is in total control of doing the self-cleaning, too. Sounds like she wants to be a baby, and you will show her what it takes to be a big girl. good luck!
Just an after-thought. All of my six kids were trained before they were two (the youngest at 14 months, the average was 16 months). I think the thing that worked best for me was example. I always allowed the youngest to be in the bathroom with me to see what was supposed to happen. The boys were with their Dad, and saw the proper way to do things ( since I had the wrong equipment!). Kids want to be like Mom or Dad and do what they do. Or, they could follow an older sibling. The Sib. could tell the younger one how neat it is to be able to wear big-kid unders, and explain how to do it. That IS sometimes easier than a nagging mom or dad.

Obviously you are going to have to change her diaper at some point, but try not changing her diaper right away when she goes. Let her sit in it and if she complains, tell her "Too bad. Mommy's busy right now and I'll change you when I get a chance. You know enough to ask to be clean, you can start trying to keep yourself clean by going potty on the toilet." Obviously you won't wait TOO long, but even 5-10 minutes just to show her that she can't say "jump" and expect your response to be "how high?" You can also try giving her a backpack (probably not cute, so she won't be proud of it) and start making her carry her own diapers and changing accessories whenever you go anywhere. I have seen several moms try this and it has worked quickly because the kids hate having to carry the bag, especially when they see other kids playing and Mommy won't hold it for them so THEY can go play.

Potty training can be tough...good luck!

my dd is 3.5 also. she has shown some interest at times but then none at all. now my husband is military so she has lots of changes with him leaving as often as he has so I know that has regressed her a couple of times. I don't push her. I want to be done with pull ups--but I don't agree with leaving kids in their mess, or making them feel guilty about the process.
I caught that Dr. Phil also and was intrigued by the dolly that pees concept and then throw a party. well we got some party horns and when she's gotten on the potty yesterday and today we have a potty party. we blow the horns and have a good time. tonight about an hour before she had to go to bed after using the potty I told her that if she was dry when it was time for bed we could have a bigger party for lunch. I wanted it to be a short amount of time to start building her confidence that she can do it. well she was still dry, and when I was singing to her tonight she said "uh oh, I got pees coming and a poop" and jumped out of bed and we ran into the bathroom. my dh got the horns and we had a potty party and she peed in the potty and had a little poop. we'd talked about pooping tonight she told me she couldn't poop in the potty, and I said sure you can, and she said I did it once (I had grabbed her and put her on the pot because she had already started, but still we had made a big deal about how she pooped in the potty) I said yeah and if you do it once you can do it again and she said YEAH!
anyway I don't now if this will be the time it clicks, I hope so but I'm not stressing about it. I don't think in 20 years I will look back and say gee I wish I had made a bigger deal about potty training. so I try to keep that in perspective. if the potty parties don't keep her attention long (bribes would get her to go sit on the potty and trickle pee but not for long--just if she wanted something from the basket...there are still a bunch of little toys in there, it didn't work for her) we will probably get the doll that pees and have her potty train the doll. I'll try it.
she won't be wearing pull ups in high school. (I repeat that to myself when I start getting frustrated)
I guess I'm sharing my story because I'm in that place right now--good luck...hang in there. this too shall pass and probably faster than we would want--they won't be little long.

i know how frustrating it is. my oldest started potty training at what i thought was a great age, but refused to do #2 in the toilet for a long time. he would hide behind a chair to do it. we would get so frustrated because he was too big for the biggest diapers and sometimes the pullups didn't hold as much as came out. nothing i did worked to change his stubborn mind. finally one day when he was 4, he decided to poop on the toilet while i was busy nursing the baby. he used the toilet from then on. he missed the fall entry to preschool because of not being potty trained in time, but i was lucky to find a great preschool with an opening in winter and he caught up quickly with the other kids. hindsight, if you can be patient, she'll probably decide on her own when she's finished with the diapers. sometimes it helps if they see a friend using the toilet. sometimes they respond better to peers encouraging them rather than adults. good luck!

I have a friend who had an interesting system of dealing with this... you could try it if you'd like:

When she has a wet or poopy (poopy is usually more effective) place her in the bath tub, hand her some wipes and tell her she has to change herself. a few times of a good poopy diaper to change by herself and she should be more interested in going on the potty where it's easy to take care of

GOOD LUCK!

When my son did this sort of thing, I told him he had to be a baby. So I made a point of showing him all the things he could no longer do since he was choosing to be a baby. We had a tree house at the time that he had been playing in. I let his older sisters go there every afternoon and he had to take a nap. He hadn't napped since he was just over 2. I had my husband take the older kids to the park in the evening, but he couldn't go since he was a baby. I found a number of things like this that he couldn't do. It only took about 2 weeks till he got it.

I did what most of the moms below did and made him clean it up only I didn't give him diapers. He had underwear and he had to wash them himself (minimal help) and clean up the floor and clean himself. If he wouldn't he sat in time out till he did (usually a couple minutes). Most parents reported their child stopping in 24-48 hours but my son is stubborn and took 2 weeks but he rarely has had an accident since. After 9 months of trying and nothing else working, that finally did it. I knew it was because he would argue with me and cry while he was cleaning. After he was finished I went and did a good cleaning but it was up to him first,

Don't let her wear diapers or pull ups, and have her help in cleaning up the mess. You are in control, you just need to remind yourself of that and stop letting her take the wheel on this one. My sister-in-law actually took underpants away from her oldest when she was potty training and went through the same thing. Help in cleaning up a poopy mess off the floor once and she was useing the potty.

LOTS of moms says "kids are in control of potty training", but with both of my kids, I've found that's just not true. My son in only 22 months, and when I started EVERBODY laughed at me and said he was way too young. But you can do it whenever you are ready. I mean, come on amd think about it, if the kids really had that much control, they wouldn't need to be taught how to hold it, would they?

Anyway, here's what you do. First line up a babysitter for your other 2, believe me you will need it. Second, buy LOTS of yummy drinks (juice, gatoraide, even soda) whatever you know they will just guzzle down. Also buy something small for a reward, I used gummy bears because they are easily eaten quickly. Next prepare a lot of easy fix lunches and breakfasts so you are able to really focus on potty training. Then, stock the bathroom with the treat, drinks, something to sit on, and lots of books and toys.

Now, first thing in the morning, you change form a diaper into underwear, and spend your whole day in the bathroom. They drink and drink and drind, and eventually they WILL have to go pee and poop, and you are right there. They will start to pee on the floor, and you will catch it, and rush to put them on the potty. Usually they will just stop the first several times, but eventually the bladder will get so full that they won't be able to stop anymore. Then they will pee after you put them on the potty. You praise the heck out of them and give them their gummy bear which is SO cool for them (kids love to be praised and to please mom) that the next time they will do it for you again. You do this for 3 or 4 days, and....tada!!! you have a potty trained child. Now, I'm not saying there won't be any accidents, but they will know what they are supposed to do, and they know it will be rewarded. Don't use any pull ups or diapers. Once you start the underwear you have to commit to the underwear. It will work. Both my kids were potty trained before 2 years old, and this is how I did it. My daughter never had any pee accidents unless I was dumb and put her in overalls that she couldn't get off, and the only poop accidetns were when she had diahrea really bad. My son is getting lots better now, and only has one or two accidents a day and they are usually while he is on the way to the bathroom, or my husband and I aren't paying attention.

The average age for a girl to be potty trained is 35 months. Which means half of girls aren't trained until after that. So she's not really that far behind. (And many kids show a passing interest in the potty long before they're ready to go, so baby may have very little to do with it).

You don't want her controlling you. Take away the control issue. No more talk about the potty. Just drop the issue entirely. She may decide, once it's no longer an issue, to go potty. Or she may not.

I went through this same thing with my son. He showed interest in the potty, and a baby was on the way, so I was excited to get him out of diapers. But it was just that passing curiosity. I pushed him to go, tried all the same things, rewards, threats, etc, and was very frustrated. Did this for about a year and a half. I finally had enough, put him back in real diapers (not pullups) and stopped asking him if he needed to go, telling him to go, commenting about going potty when he needed a change, etc. I did decide that playing the Nintendo was a big-kid thing, and big kids wore underpants and went potty. The only time I ever mentioned it was when he asked to play, then I just said, "oh, I'm sorry, that's a big-kid thing, and big kids wear underpants and go potty." After a few months he decided to go potty, and he was 100% trained within a week! (And I did very little in the process.)

As far as preschool, many good programs understand that not all 3-year-olds are ready to go potty. The don't expect to change her, but if you let them know, they may be willing to work with it. (And many 3-year-olds, and even older, have accidents at school anyway, so they should be kind of used to it anyway). Plus, hopefully it's only a 3-4 hour a day program, and she may not need a change at all. For some kids, being in the environment where other kids their age go potty can be a big incentive for them to start doing it too.

Hang in there! This will pass before you know it!

While reading your post I could totally relate except my DD was 3 1/2 by the time we got to this point. Last summer she was 3 1/2 and enrolled in preschool in the fall and we told her that she would be unable to go to school if she didn't learn how to use the potty. Our preschool was unwilling and unable to deal with the diapers. So we started on the first of June and went diaper free during the day. Since it was summer and I am a SAHM we were able to hand around the house and focus on training and working with her to get it done. Whenever she would have an accident I would leave it up to her to change herself, she was old enough and knew what to do. If she had a poop accident I would help her a little but not much (just to make sure she didn't get it all over the bathroom and toilet). Another bonus was that she hates showers, so when she would have a poopy accident into the shower she would go to clean herself off. I know that sounds really mean but it did the trick. She didn't want to clean herself up like that and a couple of times into the shower with the reminders that big girls don't poop their pants and such and she was better. By the end of July she was trained during the day and when school started she wasn't having accidents except for if she got too involved in the activity. I still used pull-ups for night though just because that was a whole different ballgame. Other parents would tell you not to use them at all because of the confusion, but that is your choice as the parent. I would also possibly start with the thicker training pants, like the ones gerber makes--they have like 5 ply fabric and hold more so there is less to clean off a carpet, but buy some really pretty ones that she picks out as an incentive to wear. If she goes so long without an accident then she can wear the pretty ones. Good luck and don't let her control you.....just the potty.
J.- SAHM of 6

Hey there.....first, if she is still wearing diapers, I recommend putting her in underwear or if possible let her go naked at home. We told our son that in a few days, we would run out of diapers and couldn't get more. Then we just went right into it. He has not been perfect, has accidents, but is learning that feeling wet or poopy is not a good feeling. I am learning hte less I nag him to use the potty, the easier he does it on his own. We also put a little potty out in whatever room we were in when we started, then gradually moved the process to the bathroom. Use underwear when you go out too, then pullups for naps and bedtimes as this takes more time. At first she may not mind wetting her underwear, but don't make a deal of it, change it nonchalantly, and she will get it eventually. Going potty is one thing they can control, and that just means you can't make them go whenever you want, but you can tell her that when we wear underwear, we go in the potty. YOu will have to emphasize that over and over, but not in a stressful way, just encouraging. And I know this sounds weird, but we gave our son's poop a "voice", and the poop talks to him about needing to come out, etc. He really likes this and talks to his pee and poop before going. Strange I know. But start with underwear all the waking hours, and stick with it, don't go back once you start, and it will get better. She is defintely old enough for this.

Hi A.,
I know exactly what you are going through. I told my child who was doing this same thing that diapers are for babies and if he was going to insist on being in diapers then he would have to do all the things that babies do. I started putting him in the crib for naps at the same time and wouldn't let him up, only gave him a rattle to play with and wouldn't even let him walk, because babies don't walk. After about a day and half of being a baby he decided he wanted to be a big boy again. Good luck

I think you are spot on when you say it's a control issue. We had the same issue so we changed the rules. Drop the issue and tell her fine you dont have to use the potty, but you have to clean up after yourself. My daughter was about 3 1/2 when she got it. We had to give up pull ups and went to pretty panties, this included night time because she would wait to go poop until then. It was a battle till we gave her the choice to use the bathroom and no choice in underwear. We also pointed out privileges you get as a big girl, such as computer time, a cookie for a snack, her big girl toys, and told her that those were things she could earn by using the potty. Once she realized she wasn't getting reactions it was no longer an issue, she just clicked. Best of luck and take heart, I have yet to see a kid graduating in diapers. :-)

How about "I'll poop in my diaper & I'LL clean it up"? Hf she's old enough to recognize that if she just poops her pants you'll clean her up, problem solved, she'd old enough to help clean herself. One of my boys was PT by 3, but my older one was just over 4 when he was PT-it depends on the kid. I'd say though, if she's just going to poop her pants & let you worry about it, make it her problem too. She's old enough to remove her diaper & throw it in the trash can, start wiping herself with baby wipes & get in the tub to wait for you. It took making one of my boys (don't remember which) having to clean himself up before he stopped pooping his pants. Once I made him rinse training pants & wipe himself w/baby wipes, it was a relatively quick process to pooping in the pot.
Somebody mentioned peer pressure-it took his big brothers coming to visit for the summer & peeing in the big boy potty for my 4YO to really be interested. It could be that you'll have to tough it out til she starts school.
Good luck!

I had a friend with this kind of issue. What she did was let her little girl realize the natuaral consequence of her action. My friend took away the diapers, and went for it. So, when she wet her pants, she rinsed the panties out and the child wore them wet, like she would have had to do if she wet her pants in public. If she pooped, she had the child take the panties and dump out what she could rinsed them clean and again, the child wore them wet. Then the child was washed using cold water on the heiny, just like it could be at any convience store that doesn't have hot water (I think she actually used the kitchen sink sprayer.....). Either way, it took twice of each (two wet, two poop) and she was done. Kinda a hard line, but she was DONE with the "you will clean me" attitude. Mom was in charge again. GL!

She's not ready. It's a hugely complicated process, mind & body, plus emtions.

Try not discussing it at all with her, EVER. She will come to it on her own. All the discussion actually postpones it because it makes her really tense.

Expect a problem with pre-school. She might not get the joke that she's forced to go, while the baby gets to stay home with you.

Personally, after I tried pre-school with my first child, I skipped it with the rest. I didn't see the point, and there were many downsides. I taught them all to read at ages 3, 4, and 5. Their elementary teachers agreed that they were better-behaved than kids who went to pre-school.