my son will be 3 in october. he shows interest in watching big brother and dad use the tiolet. he will stand/sit at the big one and sit on his little potty, but not do anything. if we put underwear on him he will hold it for hours untill we put a pull up or diaper on for his nap or bedtime. the other day he went through 3 paIRS OF UNDIES IN AN HOUR, just wetting them a little, but telling me he was wet. after we took the 3rd pair off and sat for a while he ran and put on a pull up filled it up. he does have a speech delay , but he can tell us when he is wet or has pooped. should i back off on the underwear and just use pull ups? he has had accidents in his underwear and sometimes he cares other times not. i'm 8 mons. pregnant and afraid he'll regress anyway and i'm also short on patience these days but trying hard to be positive and supportive.
Many boys are not ready until four.
http://parentingtouchstones.com/01/10-techniques-to-toile...
I've been in a similar situation and decided to wait a little bit. Maybe a few months after baby is born you can try again. He'll be more mature and ready for it. I know some people are in to early potty training, but it's so much easier when they are older and understand better. And, if you haven't tried, you might want to try bare bummed. That's what I did with my son, and he potty trained himself. He didn't do well with underwear, but bare bummed, he did great. He pooped once, then didn't make that mistake again. And he might have peed once or twice but then he got it down. I didn't force him to go potty if he said no. He just had to learn with trial and error...and he learned fast. He was 3 yr s when he trained. My older daughter was 3.5 years old. My other daughter isn't quite 3 and she's not potty trained yet. It's so much easier and less stressful to wait until they are older and train super fast and really thoroughly.
Readiness happens on three levels, physical, nervous system, and emotional. Since your son isn't yet getting strong enough sensations to figure out in time he needs to use the potty, and is still confused about what to do when he is on the potty, and since you recognize that he might regress anyway after the new baby comes (congrats!), the most sensible thing would be to back off and wait until he's ready on all cylinders. Even for boys with no new siblings on the way, this often doesn't happen until somewhere between ages 3 and 4. When he is truly ready, he will be the one who's motivated to make this developmental step forward.
Here's a wonderful, informative website you might find helpful. It gives a few variations on"readiness" checklists, plus tips on various training strategies, the best ages to start them, and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach: http://www.parentingscience.com/toilet-training-readiness...
It sounds like he's not quite ready. I would not bother with pullups. If he's just going to use them as a diaper, then diaper him. Why use pullups as a diaper? If he is leaking a little pee three times in an hour, it sounds like he is physically not ready. He needs to be doing big pees every couple of hours. Telling you after he's gone really isnt a sign of readiness. my kids did that at a year and a half, but didn't train til around the time of their third birthdays.
Ah the joys of potty training! Sometimes it is difficult to know which way to go M. and every child is so different. With a second child it is easy to expect the same results as we had with our first but patience and consistency is key. It sounds as if your almost 3 year old has the body awareness and interest to begin potty training but I would choose to use underwear only if you want to pursue this, keeping pull ups/diapers for night time only (there are other things you can do for nap time to protect bedding). It is good that he feels the wetness when wearing underwear, that is what you want, but pull ups draw the wetness away from his skin and make it less uncomfortable, more likely he will pee in them. Or you can decide to wait and put him back in pull ups.
As a parent coach I help parents potty train their children all the time, especially those with communication challenges, and the most important question to resolve besides whether or not the child is ready is whether or not the parent is ready to commit the time and effort needed. With all that is about to happen - are you really ready for this?
If you have more questions I encourage you to take advantage of my complimentary phone consultation, http://parentcoachingforautism.com/free-consultation/
There is some great tips on potty training at http://www.toddlerbedandmore.com along with stages of speech tips. Hope this helps!
