Pooty Training Ideas

Putting a potty in the living room infront of the tv and just setting them on it, then when they go they realize where it goes.. To make it fun you could put rings in the toilet either the real one or his size one to help him aim, and make it like a fun game with prizes and stuff like that.. That might work.. To potty train my daughter I had to put her in big girl panties and let her pee herself to get her to want to do it like a big girl.. But, my son is still too little I just know those things because of growing up w/ my mom running a daycare. Good Luck I hope it works and I hope to hear from ya.

I've tried everything 2 with mine 2 understand what you're going through. Untill i started using money, a quarter everytime and it worked

First off, boys are more likely to decide against the potty than girls. Basiclly, think of having an aimable squirtgun. Yeah, that's how boys see it. First off, get a "Baby Drink-n-wet" so that you can show him how the doll goes potty. Every time the doll does, cheer for that doll (Dr. Phil reccomends calling people to have them cheer as well, but your relatives get sick of that rather quickly). Also, give him a "second option". My 2 year old was having trouble, so we got him a "pee pot" (a little pour bucket from a training potty). If he had to go, he would pee in the pot then bring it to me. He got thank-you's. Make using the potty get the biggest cheers and attention, but never discount the "other" potty. (Saves your carpet, if nothing else). And, as my Grandmother used to tell me, "You never see a normal adult who cannot use the potty, so don't sweat it!".

Hi T.,
I know how frustrating potty training is! I have a 3 and 1 1/2 yr old. With my 3 yr old (and just now starting with my little one) I finally had to just take the diaper off and let him run free. This way he would feel uncomfortable enough to not go on himself. This method is very time consuming cause you have to watch them like a hawk so they dont go to a corner to go to the bathroom. You also have to watch their behavior.....for instance sudden prancing or whinning or just plain being uncomfortable. This is even working for my 18 month old daughter. This method may be a bit unconventional for some but it worked for me. Good Luck!

T.,
I'm not at that stage yet with my son (he's almost 8 months)although we have begun to introduce him to the potty chair.
There are several things you can try... is it getting him to pee or poopy in the potty that are the issue? Or just using it at tall? Are you using a potty chair or the big potty?
Peeing.. try putting cherrios on a jar on the back of the toilet, when he needs to pee he gets to take out 3 cherrios and use them to aim at. As far as pooping, my husband was trained with m&m's..in a jar on the back of the potty. Tthey see the reward and try to produce.. although my husband said he used to sit so long and push he was surprised he didn't give himself a hernia! :)
Dr. Phil says you can train them in one day.. you have tto make a HUGE deal out of going in the potty! A mini party, sing & dance around when they go, positive reinforcement.
There are tons of ideas, I guess you just have to try em'all till you find what works. We sit our son on the potty when we go and make the appropriate noise (ie grunting) you can see he gets the idea> and he has a certain time every morning when he poops so we go up to the potty when the time is close and take a book and just wait.
Hope this helps... GOOD LUCK
M.

hi T., my name is Lexie and i have a son who just turned 4 years old in june. we started potty training him at 2 and it took him a long time. he is very smart and did very well in the beginning then regressed and didn't do so well for a few months and then started doing well again. It just takes tons of time and patience (which i'm not a patient person) but, don't force them what ever you do. they will do it on there own when they are ready. I know how frustrating it is. My son is 4 now and we are dealing with bed wetting now. my husband thinks if he is potty trained he shouldn't be wetting the bed but that is not true. he is a hard sleeper and doesn't realize he is wetting the bed. please feel free to write me back or call me. i also have a daughter who will be turning 1 on august 9th. we are always looking for new friends to play with. lexie

Here's the most frustrating thing about potty training; they won't do it until they're ready. I worked with my daughter and tried everything and she wouldn't tell me when she had to go and pretty soon refused to go on the potty at all. I finally sat back and let her direct ME instead of the other way around. When she would go potty I'd make a huge deal out of it and she would get a treat, and when she didn't go I didn't say anything one way or another. Another thing that works well is having your child around other kids who are potty trained or training. It's like magic they naturally copy each other. My daughter went from flat-out refusal to potty trained by 2 1/2 and fully over-night trained before she was 3. Just go with the flow (no pun intended) and let him set his own time table.

Dear T.,

We also have a 2 1/2 year old son that we seriously started potty training a couple months ago. He is now almost 100% trained (with the exception of nap and bed times). We initially started just before he was 2, but backed off when we saw he lost interest. Since he is is daycare during the week, we started him on pull ups on the weekends, and just took him to the bathroom every hour (regardless if he had to go or not). Asking him did not help, as he would always say "no" and would go five minutes later. However, after a few weekends of the pull ups, we decided that they really were not that effective, as he could still go in his pull ups without feeling any wetness. I think we were also confusing him when he would go back to daycare during the week in diapers. So, I just put him in underwear, and we did that for a couple weekends (again, having him go every hour). When he did so well, we just took a bunch of underwear and changes of clothes to daycare, and had them start taking him him every hour. He has done great since he started wearing underwear all the time. He only had accidents about 1/week. Now, he does consistently tell us when he has to go, but I still make him sit on the toilet at least every 2 hours. He definitely has more bladder control as well, so the tendancy for him to have accidents is fewer and fewer in between. He is even waking up from his naps dry!

Good luck to you!

Regards,
T.

This sounds crazy, but little boys seem to love it. Put Cheerios in your toilet and he has to aim at the Cheerios And dunk them. It's called Dunk the Cheerios. They have fun and it teaches them how to keep it in the toilet, as boys can be very messy.

T.,

It's been a long time since I potty trained, but when I look back and recall what I did, two things came to mind. One was with my oldest son, he LOVED the Teenage Ninja Turtles, they were big at that time, so I bought him some ninja underpants. I made this big deal about not wanting to potty his big boy Ninja underpants, and NO... he didn't want to do that. He was so cautious about them, it was almost comical. The other thing I recall with my middle son was that he had a problem wetting the bed, so a nurse friend of mine told me to religiously take him to the potty once an hour, you eventually get them focused back into going if you make a point of taking them once an hour. So there are a couple of ideas! Hope they help! (-: Good luck.

if he was doing well and now has backed off do what I did with my son. I bought a toy that he had been wanting really bad and put it where he could see it but not reach it and told him if he went one week with out having an accident he could have the toy. It worked.

I also had ahard time with my son except we moved 3 times while trying to potty train him. I was so frustrated because he is smart and knew all about the potty and would pretend to potty Elmo. So what I did was switch him to underware at home all day and at night he could wear pull ups. I potty him every 45-60 min and if he has went a while without going I would potty him even closer together. If he had an accident I would take him to the bathroom and tell him he is suppose to go on the potty not in his underware. After 5 days he started doing alot better. The first few days were bad he would just stand there and pee and I was so frustrated and trying not to show it! Once he started going more consitantly I started a potty chart that goes up in the bathroom. Every time he goes he gets to pick a sticker and put in on the chart, when the chart is all filled up he gets to pick a present or you can just go to the 99 cent store and get a bunch of cheapie toys. Well the underware thing is what made a change. They don't feel in those pull ups. My son just turned 3 and we are still working but he has been doing a lot better and its only been about a month or a little more. I just was real consistant with this plan. He still has issues with #2-he won't sit long enough to go and when we go out he don't want to sit on the potty.

Hi T.,

I understand your frustation. My son will be 3 in a month and is still in diapers. One of my nephews potty trained in a week, once he was ready, shortly after he turned 3. (So, I'm hoping my son is going to be ready soon.)

I've tried the pull ups. I've tried regular underwear...hoping he would be disgusted with getting all wet, or worst!! Nothing has worked, so I'm just playing the waiting game. Let me know if you find success! I'd love to know what works for you!!

K.
____@____.com

I went through something similar with my daughter right before she turned two and then I read a book called potty training in a day. I thought it sounded too good to be true, but thought I would give it a shot anyways. I would suggest never putting them in pull-ups or diapers once you start the potty training process because it only confuses them. Then I would take an entire day and have him drink as much liqids as possible and make that day all about using the potty. I did that with my daughter and she had three accidents in her panties that same day and then the next day she only had one and ever since she has gone to the bathroom great. I know bribbing your children isn't great, but maybe get a few small prizes ans wrap them up and each day for a week he uses the potty he gets to pick a prize and open it. It makes then feel as though they have something to work for. Hope this helps!

I just bought the dvd "Potty Power!" from amazon. It's fantastic!!! I highly recomend it.

I do not have a boy just girls but my friends with there sons bought the little potty darts for the toilet and taught there child how to aim at them for points. This sounds funny also but for the poo they told them that it makes noise when it hits the toilet and both of there boys got a kick out of this that it became a little game to go.

My daughter just needed a little incentive...My husband and I told her that if she could quit the diapers we would take her to Disneyland (we only lived 5 hours away). She was out of diapers and pull ups completely in about 2 weeks and we took her to Disneyland last summer.

my son is 31/2...boys are stubborn....he just now is beginning to use the toilet...it is difficult for them to go number 2 on the toilet as i understand..

what worked for us is money....
you could get a post-board and a lot of little stickers...post it near the restroom and eachtime he goes, he gets to put a star on the board....you can work the incentive to your taste...but for each star is a dime, after 10, he gets to trade his dimes for a dollar, then go with the whole family and buys his treat, and even pays himself...

also, letting him be there when mom and dad use the restroom...lots of jumping up and down and clapping is always exciting for these guys...

one more trick of the trade...we bought a brand new pack of pullups and had a new garbage bag in the trash. zacky put one by one in the trash (willingly) and scolded the diapers " bye baby diapers" and " i won't need you anymore" then after he was gone, we took all the items relating to diapers and put them up high...he didn't know there was a stash in the trunk for emergencies, so basically he made a choice...it's all about allowing choices at this age so i learned...at the store he said "mom... i need to go potty!"

now, there has been a few times with grandma and the babysitter that he went number 2 right outside the bathroom...purposly...i don't know if it was because he was upset...i just don't scold for mistakes. ive found that feeding negatve attention seeking brings more rebelous acts than letting them know it's alright..
i hope that this helped somewhat...good luck with all..
p.s.

wait until the day you know that you helped him grow and taught him what unconditional support,love and trust is..it'll be wondorous...

S.

My son did the same thing the first time we tried potty training him. He will be 3 in September and has now been almost fully potty trained for about 2 months. What I found worked best was a combination of things... allowing him the experience of wetting his pants a few times let him know that he didn't enjoy being wet; letting him pick out some new big boy underwear; lots of talking about using the potty and praise; letting him be with us in the bathroom when we went if he wanted to be; and the biggest factor... letting him run around the house naked (it made for a few accidents we had to clean up, but it was definetly the best way of letting him learn to recognize when he had to go). We also chose to teach him to sit wheather he had to pee or poop for right now. It takes away some of the confusion and intimidation. It also gives him the opportunity to poop, even when he dosen't notice at first that he has to; he sits down to pee and realizes he also has to take care of some other business. We figured he could learn to pee standing up after he mastered the toilet and was fully potty trained.
This time around it took him about a week to get the hang of things and he's doing great.
Good luck!!

my daughter was completely potty trained (even thru the night) before she turned 2. try to act like potty training is no big deal, DONT PUSH IT. have the child watch you or Dad use the potty. and especially since its summer & hot let your child run around without the diaper. be encouraging & supportive. if the child makes a mistake IT'S OKAY. when the child does use the potty MAKE IT A BIG DEAL! give the child a reward. my daughter loved stickers.

-T.-

I have 3 children ages 13, 10, and 9 two of them boys. It took my boys until they were 3 to be able to go without tricks.
I tried the colored cherrios,aim and shoot, big boy undies that just led to alot of extra laundry, I even tried to bribe them with candy if they went in the potty. But nothing worked
for me. Just give him some more time soon he'll want to do it on his own. Boys seem to be slower on the potty training than girls..girls start around 2 and I have no Idea why.
But good luck

My older daugher was about 2 1/2 when we were potty training her. At first it was kind of a fight. To start with I have her in sweat pants so that she really feels an accident. I want her to know how uncomfortable that is. Second we got a potty tape and lots of books on pottying. But I think the final thing that made it successful and put the responsibility in her hands was that I told her that when she learned to use the potty I would put her ina dance class. So when she had accidents or just refused to go I'd just say fine but that means no dance class. the sign up was also at a certain time that we had circled on the calender so she knew that she had to get it now or she would miss out on dance.

I hope this helps to give you some ideas.