Potty Training - Roxbury, CT

I am going through the same thing with my 2 1/2 yr old daughter she won't tell me when she needs to but as soon as she is done she will tell me diapy change it's frustrating but what i am doing is putting her in big girl panties (I have about 20 pairs) the first day she peed right away but she doesn't like the feeling so I am hoping eventually she will tell me when she needs to go and just stop with the diapers altogether. I hope this helps. If you get any advice that works please let me know. Thank you

Hi M.,
Telling you that she has to go is often the last step in the toilet training process, not an early step. Typically what you need to do is take her to the toilet every hour, hour and a half and have her sit a few minutes. If you use cloth diapers or heavy cloth training pants with waterproof outer layer or plastic pants, this helps too - she learns what happens when you pee, you get really wet, and starts to recogize what it feels like just before the really wet happens. I did this with my youngest and while it was messy at first, after a couple of weeks, he stopped going in the training pants and waited til I took him to the toilet. But it was a good month after that before he would say that he had to go rather than just waiting til I took him. Don't wait for your daughter to tell you, just start taking her to the toilet regularly. When the toilet is just an occasional thing, it's really not even worth the time - they aren't going to get the idea that you're supposed to use it all the time unless you take them all the time
Good luck!

The same thing happened to me with my daughter. She would sit on the potty no problem but to actually use it was a different story! One day I decided we were going to use the potty. So I didn't put her in a pull-up just panties and we drank water. Alot of water every couple minutes we would take a sip. (I did it with her so she would do it easier). Then about every half hour I would just put her on the potty and we would sit there for a couple minutes. I did this for a couple days and then she got it! It definetly takes patience it can get quite frustrating with all the accidents. My daughter has been potty trained for about 8 months now and she still doesn't always tell me when she has to go, so I will make a suggestion like "While mommy makes lunch why don't you sit on the potty!" And the pooping definetly takes longer. Good Luck! Hope this helps!

Hi M. - potty training can be vexing. You're not just teaching your child to make in the potty, but to listen to their bodies. It's a skill they acquire over time. You really don't ask them in the beginning if they have to go, you just take them to the bathroom. A two year old will pretty much say no to anything anyway. :)
1. Make sure you reward good behavior with m&m's or cheerios or stickers. No rewards if she doesn't make a deposit in the potty.
2. Make the potty a fun place. Sing silly songs that you only sing in the bathroom. Read stories that you only read in the bathroom or have a puppet that only comes out in the bathroom. (Ours was clammy - just a funny voice and my hand - the genious of this is we could take clammy anywhere we went.)
3. Go shopping together for big girl underpants. Let her pick them out and try them on. Tell her when she goes to the potty all the time she can wear them.
4. Point out other children (she knows) who are wearing big girl/boy underpants. Say how lucky they are, and how they must be so proud of themselves, etc.

You can do it! And relax, you're baby won't be graduating college in diapers. She'll get it eventually. If you're stressed, she will be too. good luck!

I used the same technhique with all five of my children. I allowed them to run around naked until they "got it" and then slowly added undies then pants over the undies. I always believed that if my child could feel something there they may feel it's a diaper even though they are told these are big girl/boy undies, ect. Try letting your child run around naked so that the minute she begins to do something she will realize there is no place for it to go and hopefully she'll high tail it for the bathroom. Two and a half is usually the optimal time to begin training BUT remember it can take longer for some.

Good luck!

First I got an Elmo talking potty, which Kaelin just loved to play with. Then I bought her underwear. When her and I were in the house together she got to wear it. Then I just asked her, by the time she was ready for the potty, I pretty much knew her "schedule" so it was realatively painless.When she said she didn't have to go I put her on it anyway. Finally, we broke out the marching band everytime she went, it was really a fun time, she would tell complete strangers of her sucess!
PS don't fall into overthinking it,you are not going to scar her for life :)!

At this age you have to tell them to go sit on the potty. You can't rely on what they say. Just make it a scheduled thing- every hour and a half or 2 hours she has to sit. Also she may not be telling you the truth all the time because she does not want to disappoint you. Make sure she knows that if she does go in her pants that it's ok, that sometimes accidents happen. Also, if you have some free time (like a week) and want to get it done quickly you can let her run around bottomless or with just the thick training underwear. Just be prepared to clean up a few messes. Definitely don't use pullups since they send a mixed message.

A good idea that I used with my now 6 and 5 year old daughters is take her to the potty every 15 min to 1/2 hour. This way you are bound to catch her when she has to go. And you will teach her to know her own signs when she has to go. Good luck!

Hi,

My son showed signs early that he was ready to potty train (he trained in two days this way and he was 22 months old). The first day I sat him on the big toilet (with a potty seat- I didn't want to have to train him twice once for the potty and then for the toilet). I started when he woke up and sat him on and ran the water. He had a chart with stickers and if he went he put a sticker on for going and if he didnt he put a sticker on for washing his hands and sitting on the big boy potty. After an hour I did it again, and every hour or hour and a half. It is time consuming but it worked, eventually he did either pee or poop on the potty and got to put on 3 stickers (one for trying, one for going, and one for washing his hands). He was very excited about this. I did not use diapers I used training underwear the thick cotton ones NOT the training diapers. On the second day I did the same thing every two to three hours, especially when he woke up in the morning, woke from a nap, after he ate or drank (I waited about 20 min to 30 min after for this). By the third day he told me that he had to go potty. He loved the fact that he could do the stickers. He even had me read him a story when he had to poop because he sees his dad bring the newspaper in the bathroom, he said it helped him go....lol. My best advice is to be consistant and give her rewards for sitting on the potty and going on the potty. Hope that helps.

Hi M., Yes potty training is very tricky and confusing. There are no set rules except to follow your heart and your childs lead. It is a good sign that she likes to sit on the potty. As far as her telling you, that is where the tricky part comes in. Each child is different as to when the signal goes from the brain to be able to tell you in advance. It is a matter of maturity. You could make it a game when she goes in her pants, put the poopy into the potty and tell her that is where it should go. She may want to flush it (or not) this is not a process you can rush. She could wake up tomorrow and tell you(or not) Yes it can be frustrating. I do not know where she is when you are working. Is she being encouraged to go to the potty? One key is if she does not like being dirty. This could help speed up the process. Most children are not really trained until between 3 and 4 years old. Anyone who says different, usually the parent is trained. Anyway, I hope this helps you to know that no one really has an answer. My best, Grandma Mary (mother of 5 and 3 grands:-) )

M.,

She might just not be ready yet. I have boys but my first one took quite a while to potty train because I kept trying to make him be ready before he was. In the end, he was about 3 1/2 before he was trained. My middle son was 3.

I wouldn't make a big deal about it. I wouldn't make her feel bad. If she poops, I had heard of some people saying, "Ok, let's go throw the poopies in the potty where they're supposed to be." Then dump them from the diaper into the potty and make a big deal about flushing them bye.

You could also try giving her little rewards...let her pick a sticker to put on the day of the calendar each time she uses the bathroom that day. That's what worked for my oldest in the end.

Good luck!

L.

The pooping on the toilet takes a lot longer to train the child on than using it to go pee. If you see her hiding in the corner, snag her and have her sit on the toilet. My son will not poop without a stool to put his feet on. It makes him feel more comfortable. We also did rewards for pooping in the toilet. My son loved cars, so he was rewarded with a car. Once he got the hang of it, we used a sticker chart where he had to get five stickers and then could get a car. This really helped him as he got to go to the store and pick out the cars to earn for using the bathroom. Eventually, you just space apart the number of times she has to use the bathroom to earn a prize and you'll ween her off of the prices. Once DS got the hang of pooping in the toilet, if he went in his underwear, he would have to give us back a car and earn it next time he went on the toilet.

For the most part, he always goes in the toilet. It probably took until he was 3 1/2 to go accident free and he was potty trained at 2 1/2. It was a couple of months after peeing in the toilet that he understood pooping in the toilet. Good luck with your daughter! Potty training is my least favorite part of motherhood!

she isnt old enough to comprehend her body with cause and effect. some kids dont like being wet, others dont care. some kids take months, some do it in one day and dont look back. i think she is old enough to start since you are already there with the sitting on it and possibly going. im just not sure if she is ready to be moer serious abnout it. use your judgement on that.

when you are serious about it,stop asking and start telling. you just say time to go potty, and just make sure she sits. do this every 30 mins. just have her sit no matter what. its not a choice. if she goes, give her praise or a very simple reward. what worked best was stamps. get some stamps and an ink pad and give her just one when she goes. it worked better than stickers and is inexpensive. its good to to have it when she goes out so you can show people. my daughter was very proud. i dont think food rewards are good. we also set a timer on the oven. before you knew it, she would run over and go by herself when she heard the bell. make sure the potty is in a central area easy to access but not right in the middle of the room. seeing it but still have some level of privacy if wanted.

dont worry about poop unless she brings it up. poop was way harder and scary to kids, esp if they have one bad experience.

it could take months, or days. just depends on her. accidents are common though. after she is consistantly going for a long period, you can experiment when you will be home a few days, to ask her if she has to go and dont make her sit till she says yes.

my sister and i both agreed potty was the hardest thing to teach your children. just dont stress. if its too much for anyone, just wait a month or 2 before trying again. good luck

She is uncertain about what is happening to her. For 2 years she has pooped and not noticed, now she feels it and isnt quite sure what shes doing, which is why she hides. Try to figure out what time of day she usually goes, then watch her. When she goes in the corner or under the table, take her hand and lead her to the potty. Don't gush or scold, just lead her to the potty the same way you would take her to her high chair for food. Try to make it seem like a normal everyday experience (which it is) and not something special. Soon she will get the connection.
AFTER she has gone you can make a big deal out of her success, give her a reward or call daddy and tell him how proud you are. Be careful of what you do with the poop. Some kids love to see it go down the toilet and love to flush and wave goodbye, while others seem to hate the idea of their poop going bye bye. You might have to flush it on the sly.

To me, it sounds like she's just not quite ready yet. My son did the same thing, even after showing all of the other signs, but wouldn't tell me when he was going poop and I knew it. He would stand there, red faced, and say no i not poopin. I took this to mean that he wasn't comfortable enough yet. So, I COMPLETELY dropped the whole thing for about 3 months. He took the initiative himself after that and within 3 days he was trained. Maybe she just needs a little more time!