Potty Training 3 Year Old - Mesa,AZ

Hey Heather,

Look, potty training is often so much more about our parental needs than it is our children's readiness to do so. You know he's not ready. He's told you so. None of your incentives are going to work if he doesn't want to do it. I'd put him back in diapers and wait a while to try again. You can talk to him about it, ask him what he wants to do, tell him what you'd prefer he do, etc...but my experience has been that children potty train when they make up their minds to do so. If you really don't want to make this a big deal, then don't. He will learn to go on the potty-promise. Take his lead for a while and move forward when you see he's ready. Trust your intuition-you know what's right for your son. Act from compassion and love and you won't go wrong.

Take care,

A.

I found an online book really helpful. I'm sure you can probably buy this book at a book store, but I just bought the one that you download to your computer. It was cheeper that way, at the time. Potty Training Made Easy, Fast, and Simple by Johanne Cesar is the name of the book. It's a short book too! (only 87 pages) You can go to www.thepottytrainer.com to check it out. Our son was not showing any signs at all, but I felt it was time to at least start something since he was coming up on 2 1/2 years old. We've made potty training fun with no pressure. We use potty charts and stickers as rewards! High fives, hugs and kisses, and being called a "big boy" is also helpful. No big boy underwear yet, although he wants so badly to wear them. We've tried them on a couple occasions, but since my husband and I are not diligent enough, he pees in the them. So for now, he wears pull ups. He always poops in the potty though and tells us that he has to go. He has been pooping in the potty for several months now. Lately he's been putting his potty seat on the toilet, moves his step stool in place, takes his pull up off, and goes all by himself. We are still working on peeing in the potty. My son does not care if he is wet which is the problem, (this is discussed in this book). If we are diligent about putting him on the potty many, many times through-out the day, he will pee in the potty almost every time. I hope this helps. Good luck:)

Ahhh - potty training - My guy is 3 too and he's been successfully potty trained for 6months or more. Here is how we did it.

The resistance was minimal. He showed us - he was ready. He enjoyed wearing his big boys pants and he wanted to pee pee "in the rocks" - YES outside! and in the shower....

So - signs will tell he's ready. THEN...
For 4 days - we didn't go anywhere. He was pretty much naked and I watched his moves...
signs of having to go potty - put us in the bathroom, In most cases longer than either of us liked.. however, I did not push or force. Just attempted to make it fun.

for 4 days...no diapers/ no big boys pants. just pretty much naked. and he GOT IT!!
At night time we did the pull up for quite a while until he showed signs of DRY all night.
Then we went to the leakproof mattress pad. Once we decided to go 'no pullups', we had many a night with accidents - however, I was told - DON'T GO BACK! After almost a week of bed wetting, he understood there was only one solution - stop wetting the bed!

About that same time - we also watched his intake of fluid after 7pm...
This was hard - as we live in the DESERT! (want my little guy to drink when he's thirsty!!) however, I saw it work, and all was happy!

If I could offer one piece of advise...
Practice smiling and laughing thru it all and your son will learn it's all ok and get it quicker!
Best to you!
Lisa M.

Hi Heather! I agree with LisaMo's advice and I have some of my own.

Please don't presure your son. I am watching a friend "battle" with her three year-old son and it is painful for all involved. Your son will give up diapers when all the preparation meets his will to make it happen.

With my son, we read a lot of books about using the potty, written specifically for little boys. His favorite is "My Big Boy Potty" by Joanna Cole and Maxie Chamblis. We still read that one a year later 'cuz he likes it so much.

Another helpful hint is to let him in the bathroom with his Daddy so he can see what his Daddy is doing. If you have any friend's sons, cousins, or sibblings who are a bit older and potty trained, let him hang-out with them and see how it works. Use the peer presure to your advantage!

When my son gets into the bath he is stimulated to pee, so we would get out a special cup and he pee'd into it. Then I let him dump the pee-pee in the potty, say "bye-bye" and flush. This helped with the concept.

LisaMo was right, you need to have a sense of humor and make a game of it as much as you can. Boys are so competitive, even with themselves! Aiming at a floating Cheerio or Frut-Loop in the potty was fun for my son. When outside, we'd see how far his "stream" would reach...WOW! Thats a lot of pee-pee...can it go farther?

Rewards were important for my son. Using the potty (and washing his hands) meant an M&M. Just one, not two.

We never pressured our son, just talked/read/watched videos about it a lot. One day when he was about two and a half, he declared he was done with diapers and he never went back. Sure, he had a few accidents, at first, but we laughed them off and made light of them.

Good luck. Your son will get there!