Potty-training... ?!?!? - Pittsburgh,PA

Try putting on underwear first and Pull Up OVER that. He feels the uncomfortable wetness, mess is contained for you.

Is he wearing a diaper (or pull up) while you're trying to get him to learn to use the potty?

If so, I'd recommend get them off of him!

Let him go bottomless for a few days so you don't have to do a ton of laundry. Don't venture too far from the bathroom to get there in a hurry. Encourage him to try 20 minutes after eating or drinking and any time he LOOKS like he needs to go. Without the diaper, you'll find he's much more interested in getting to the potty.

Only put a diaper on him if you want him to use it (in my book, that'd be bedtime/naptime only) otherwise you send mixed messages.

We stripped our daughter down and let her walk around naked. The feeling of peeing/pooping on the floor was too weird for her so she sat down on the potty to do it. The only thing that backfired for us, though, was that for a good year, she had to strip completely down (shoes, socks, everything) in order to go. Definitely a pain in a public restroom! She's all good now though. :)

As much as you may not want to hear this - he may not be ready. Until he "buys in", you're wasting your time and it will frustrate all of you. Our daughter was born shortly before our son was 3, so I waited until the "newness" of having her around wore off. He was 3 by then, very bright, and very verbal. I took him to buy underwear so he could pick out some he liked and he told me "I don't need underwear, I wear diapers!" He had no interest whatsoever. I backed off for a while and then tried again a few months later.

Maybe you need to wait a few months?

Get rid of diapers and pull ups. Underwear only. Devote a whole weekend or week to potty training. Take him every 30 minutes. Set a timer for him.

I would get rid of diapers completely and just use underwear. He will notice the discomfort more. We tried 'naked all the time' before underwear. My son LOVED peeing on the floor so we gave that up in less than 24 hours. It does work for some people though. I think pull ups are a waste of time and money - for the child - it is a diaper - they have been peeing and pooping in diapers their whole lives - why wouldn't they go in a pull up. And yes - three year olds hate stopping their play. It might help to tell him that sitting on the toilet for 2 minutes is faster than changing his diaper.

Pull-ups to practice pulling pants up and down. Are grandparents ok with him coming to the bathroom when they do so they can model the behavior? Or perhaps there is a part time preschool option where he can hang with kids his own age. My son learned at preschool because all the other kids were learning, he could get an idea of how it was done, the potties were kid size, etc.

Make it FUN to sit on the potty. At our house, playing the Wii is a special privledge. So, we put the little potty in the living room in front of the Wii and said that if he sat on it, he could play Wii while he sat. Once he had that down and was sitting and going pee, we told him he could play Wii after he went pee in the potty. We would let him sit on the potty, Wii remote in hand, but didn't turn the Wii on until he peed. Then we moved the potty to the bathroom and said he could play Wii after he used it in there. That got him started and now he just goes potty when he needs to (he was 3 in Feb).

Obviously the reward doesn't have to be the Wii. But for a very busy kid, I found that I had to find something fun he could do _while on the potty_. Of course he doesn't want to stop playing, but if going to the potty means that he gets to play something even more fun, he was willing to do it. Is there something else like this you could use? A leapster, a favorite TV show that he can only watch while he sits on the little potty, etc. Whatever his favorite activity is, find a way to use it!

(Obviously we also made a huge deal every time he actually peed on the potty, so there was a reward for going potty also.)

I actually didn't drop the diapers until mine had gotten some practice going in the potty on a regular basis...to the point that I knew they knew how to go and could hold it for a reasonable amount of time. But I have carpet and it wasn't the summer so I was reluctant to have them go bare bottom and pee on my carpet.

One thing we did was use a timer to indicate when it was time to go potty. Initially we set it to something small....like 20 minutes. We would also try to give them extra fluids to make it more likely they would go frequently and see some success. Using the timer helped because it wasn't us telling them it was time to go potty....it was the timer. Once they seemed to manage 20 minutes, we'd go to 30 minutes, then 60 minutes. Then we'd drop the timer and just periodically remind them and let them learn to tell us when they had to go. If we had an accident, we'd go back on the timer.

The other thing we did was give a reward. But it has to be something he doesn't normally get. Our reward was time playing on the iPad/iPhone. Every time one successfully peed on the potty, he got X minutes of iPad time (and 2X for poop on the potty but making progress there took a little longer).

We also did a star chart. For some reason, this visible sign of progress really kicked things into gear. We put a poster board on the door of the bathroom. (I had two potty training at the same time so I had two posters up). Every time they peed in the potty, they got a little star. If they kept dry between trips to the potty, they got a bonus star. So that way if they tried to go, couldn't, but stayed dry between trips, they still got a reward. We had bigger sized stars for poop on the potty.

But kids can be really stubborn if they want to be. I had one that was stubborn and he would rather watch his brother play iPad, than go pee on the potty so he could play himself. And he really wanted to play, but we wouldn't let him. Eventually, the desire to get stars and play iPad won out and he started peeing on the potty. During the stubborn time, I would just keep saying, "When you go pee on the potty, you can play iPad (or get a star) too." And when I changed his diaper, I would say, "This would be a lot less messy and quicker when you start going on the potty." or "Maybe next time you can try going on the potty." I didn't make it into a battle, just gentle reminders about how nice it will be when he goes on the potty.

Other things you can do if you are willing to drop the diapers, is to draw out how long it takes to clean him up after an accident and discuss in a matter-of- fact manner how much quicker he could get back to playing if he went in the potty instead of his pants.

Another thing, if you aren't doing this already, is to have him watch you, your husband, or his grandparents go to the bathroom so he learns that's where one goes potty. Let him hand you toilet paper and flush the toilet and say bye bye to the pee.

I guess if you have an Elmo, when he says it's potty time for Elmo, you can make a big deal out of Elmo going potty. Say, "You're right. Elmo has to go potty." Then lavish Elmo with attention, take him to the potty, and pretend have him go. And pretend reward or celebrate that Elmo went. It might take some attention away from your son and onto Elmo's bathroom success. Maybe your son will want the same attention and try to go. Not sure if it will work, but it might be worth a try.