Potty Training - San Jose,CA

Hi...

I just trained my 3 y/o twin boys. We still have accidents... but for the most part they know what's up.

Here's what I did. I was going to be home for several days. I purchased about 12 pairs under wear each. I let them pick out a few pair. I told them that "tomorrow they will not be getting day time diapers." (we had already had Potty time sitting on the potty and such). I would get them up in the morning, walk them to the bathroom to go potty, and then switch to underwear. Then try to take them potty ever 25-35 minutes. They were rewarded with M&M's for sitting, peeing and pooping... each getting one more M&M. The first week I went through all of their underwear every day.. Then about half ... and now usually 1 pair a day. It took about 1 week to get the gist... then a month or 2 before accidents weren't so common. Now they just run in the bathroom to go. However, and this is my current issue. If they are outside, they will just strip off and go. which can be quite MESSY!

I also recommend some sort of container to hold dirtied undies until you run the wash...

Good luck!

I decided not to potty train my first son and he potty trained himself at 3 years 9 months.... day and nighttime. I tried to potty train my second child (daughter) because my in-laws were taking her on a trip and they were hoping she would be trained before they left. It was a disaster so I stopped trying, but on the first day of the trip, she decided to stop wearing diapers. She was also 3 years 9 months. I had a friend with the same philosophy I had of letting them wait until they were ready (which she did with her first three children) and then I received an email from her proclaiming that her 2 1/2 year old son was potty trained in a day. He was the same age as my youngest son, who was 2 1/2 at the time. I didn't believe it would be possible for me to do, but I ordered the book, Toilet Training in Less Than A Day and the Aquina Baby doll that pees. My in-laws took my two older children for the day while I spent 6 hours with my 2 1/2 year old on the floor of my bathroom, armed with junk food and juice. There were lots of accidents, but by the end of the 6 hours, my child could pull down his own pants, get on the potty, go potty, pull up his own pants, he could empty the little potty into the big potty and flush it and then wash his hands. He could also clean up if he had an accident. He was so proud of himself! I still wasn't sure it worked because it was kind of hit or miss for the next 3 days. He would run for the potty when he needed to go, but he didn't always make it. After 3 days, he got it. He was potty trained a full year and 3 months before my other two children.......and all it took from me was 6 hours on the bathroom floor with him.

I've potty trained our 2 boys. Our second is thru the process by about 2 months & has the occcassional accident. I suggest you skip the potty every hour bit cuz that backfired on me w/our 1st son. I took him potty every hour & he ended up trained to go every hour cuz he didn't know the sensation of needing to pee cuz I anticipated it for him. So, I had to kinda start the process again w/our 1st son but it went quickly. With our second son, I read this book about potty training your kid in 3 days. You can Google it w/that name & it should come up. It says to have your kid tell you when he/she has to go & avoid the potty every hour stuff. It also says for you to be w/your kid at all times to catch the 'look' on their face, ask them if they have to go peepee & rush them to the potty. Well, I didn't follow it to the letter & have my son w/me at all times. We did stay home (as the book suggests) for 3 days w/ventures out only to get older brother. But that worked WAY better for us. He then knew when he needed to go. Sure, we went thru A LOT of undies & shorts. Luckily, it was summer so most of the time he was in his undies unless we needed to leave the house. We did day & night at the same time & ditched the diapees for good from the get-go. I also suggest not using pull-ups...not only do they offer a false sense of security, they're pricey & not very absorbent. The book also says to not put the potty in the living room or somewhere besides the bathroom so that they know peeing & pooping take place in the bathroom. I also suggest avoiding making him sit on the potty til he pees cuz, again, not a natural. Have him sit for a couple of minutes & if nothing happens praise him for trying & remind him to tell you when he needs to go. Even tho I did my own variation of this method, it worked better. I think our 3 yr old has less accidents at this stage than older his brother at this age cuz #2 has a better concept of the need to pee. So, Google 3 day potty training & take a look at the book. Remember to stay consistent, try your best not to show your frustration (cuz it can be VERY frustrating) & stay positive. Best of luck.

A very good book to use is "Once Upon a Potty." It looks like a regular kids' book and makes using the potty an action of pride. There are no phony rewards, no punishment--just good information. I recommend parents read it often with their children a couple of weeks before starting potty training and twice a day when potty training. Everyone who has followed this plan has reported success!

there is a great book called How to potty train your child in less than a day. This book has been around since the '70, my mom used it for me and I used it for my son. It is great! It was developed for special needs children. So it is really easy to understand. It starts off by you teaching the child to teach a doll to potty. once the child teaches the doll you then start with the child and uses lots of juice and snacks.

What we did was took my daughter every 15 minutes for two days then bumped it up to every thirty minutes for a few days then every forty five minutes and by then she was potty trained. She was completly ready though so it was fairly easy.
I think an hour is a little too long between to start with.

Hello C.!! I have 4 younger sibs and a whole lot of younger cousins and in my experience in potty training the best thin to do is buy the plastic underwear and just constantly ask your son is he needs to go potty. I don't know exactly how they do it but children learn to associate us asking them if they need to go potty with THEM telling US that they need to go potty and them they start just going on their own. I hope this helps you!! Good luck with potty training!!

Hi, C.,
Like Angela, I also let my son run bare bottom for about a month (at home only!). He figured out VERY quickly that he needed to pee and we did not have many accidents at all. Then we slowly moved to underwear and pants and we started having about 50% more accidents, but we were still making progress. Eventually, he got the hang of it. He was almost 3 years 3 months old. He didn't poop in the potty until he was about 2 months being done potty trained for pee. He would wait until he had a diaper on. For two months, he would pee, but not poop on the potty. What's more, he showed no interest in pooping on the potty. Finally, I had enough of waiting, so I enticed him with one jelly bean for every time he pooped on the potty (I knew I should not use food as a reward, but nothing else had worked). Well, the jelly beans did the trick! A few weeks later, he was totally trained. He still has accidents once in a while and he is almost 4, but that is how we tackled the whole thing. I have an 8 month old and I started him at 3 months, because I read somewhere that they can be potty trained this early and it is working. He is still in diapers, but he can pee and poop in the potty! It is really amazing. Good luck!

I found it helpful to read books about potty training and buy new underwear, etc. No pressure worked best. I have 3 kids and the two that got NO pressure from me trained the fastest.

He needs to start waking up in the morning and after naps dry. Then and ONLY then do you know he is ready. Putting him on the potty every hour is only training you...not him.

Look for the signs he is ready and DON'T use pull - ups ever.
When he is ready he needs to feel the "ickiness" of it rolling down his legwhen he has an accident and pull-ups don't teach kids anything.

He may not be ready if he isn't dry in the morning and after naps. It is still a good idea to leave the potty in the bathroom and have him use it when he chooses.

Cute undies are always a good thing too.

Good luck -

B.

Bare bottoms at home are also a good idea.

C.,

I did the every hour, but say I woke them at 8:00 a.m. and we went in the restroom and they went potty, then we would go back at 9:00 a.m. If they didn't go potty at 9:00 a.m. then I would take them back in 20 minutes. Say the went at 9:20, then I would take them again at 10:20. So the hour slot kept adjusting based on what they did. The other thing is I never put my kids back in pullups or diapers. Not even at bedtime. I know everyone's concern is what about accidents. Well if you cut off their liquids early enough it probably won't happen. We never had accidents at night fortunately. The only accidents we had were # 2 accidents and that just seems to happen with some kids. The idea of not putting a diaper or pullup on them again is so that you don't confuse them as to when they need to get up and go potty and when they can just go in what they have on.

I trained all thre of my kids this way, I surely hope you can take something from this.

Good luck!!!

I know it may sound a bit crude, but I let both of my boys run around when at home bare from the bottom down. They very quickly learned to correlation of feeling and then the need to go. Every hour is great also. Once he puts feeling and action together he'll get it. Just remember it takes time and usually isn't done in a day! Hope that helps.

Oh potty training! I'm actually doing this right now. My son is 2 years 10 months. The advise I received was from a wonderful teacher about a week ago. First, make sure he is already waking up dry in the mornings. Don't let him hang out in his room too long in the mornings right after he wakes up. He may have been dry when we woke up but then pottied while waiting for you to come get him. Once you know he's interested in going in the toilet, take him to the store (Target) and let him pick out a few packages of underwear he likes. Then, by yourself, head to the dollar store and grab about 25 little gifts you think he'd really like. Take them home and wrap them. YOU HAVE TO WRAP THEM! It sounds like a lot but it took me no time. Make them easy to open. After they're all wrapped, put them in a basket next to the bathroom. Let him pick one out EVERY TIME HE TRIES OR GOES in the toilet. We just finished day 2 and he finally ran to the bathroom and went potty all by himself! Pooping in the toilet is a little harder but he did that yesterday for the first time. We had an accident today but I wasn't quick enough to get him to the bathroom when he needed to go. We leave the house for short trips and he ONLY wears underwear in the day. No pull ups. Tomorrow night I'm taking off the diapers at night. I know he'll do great. Good luck!

I think my 2 yr 9 month old son can now be considered potty trained (it's always hard to decide if it's really been long enough to decide the training is really done). What we did was helped by us having him in preschool. But what we did in combination with them was take him to the potty on a regular schedule (at preschool to prevent accidents they did it on a 30 min schedule and he went every time but at home we never had an issue with every hour). We changed completely over to underware, there were only a couple of times where we put him back in pull-ups and those were times like when we sent him our for a whole day with a family member or when he was sick.

We had some difficulties. One was that he was difficult when it came to going poop in the potty. The way we got through this one was a 2 step process. One was his preschool keeps records of when children go potty and when they have accidents and when they are dry. His teacher found that every afternoon after his nap was when he was having accidents. So she started putting him on the toilet after his naps and if he didn't go then 15 minutes later she would ask him and he would go in and go. The other part was we started rewarding him for going poop on the potty and not in his pants. He loves cars so we got a big pack of hotwheels cars and everytime he went poop in the potty (whether it was at home, at school or somewhere else) once he was home he would get to choose a car.

The other biggest difficulty we had was he began to tire of the being taken to the potty every hour. So we again did two things. We told him everytime that as soon as he started telling us when he needed to go and was having no accidents then we wouldn't take him all the time and we began giving him little stickers each time he went to the bathroom with us without throwing a fit. He loves stickers so they were a cheap easy way to get compliance. We made sure to always acknowledge his feelings though. We would say "I know you don't want to leave what your doing but it is important that you go to the potty when you need to go and until you tell us on your own we are going to have to take you."

If you have relatives that take your child at any point during the potty training be prepared for accidents. I found that the majority of my sons pee accidents actually happened when he was with either of the sets of grandparents or his aunt. They aren't with him all the time so it was more difficult for them to make sure they took him often enough to keep from having accidents.

Good luck! By the way, we took him out of pull ups and into underware at the end of August or beginning of Sept. Though we did start the process earlier by having him in pullups and going to the potty, though that was partially because my son is a very big boy and stopped fitting in the diapers so we had to change him to pullups.

I'm a pre school teacher I do the potty training thing everyday! It's a good stategy to try every hour as long as it doesn't seem unpleasant to him. Talk alot about what his body might feel like when he has to go. We try to make it as fun as possible. With the boys we usually start sitting down, and then when they are ready to try standing up we drop a cherio in for "target" practice. It gives them something small to aim for and helps keep the focus.

Hi C.,

I am a very busy mom with a strong-willed 3 year old boy. Everytime I mentioned the potty, he ran away screaming. Then I got really good advice from a presechool teacher. She said to just put him in the underware and not ask him to use the potty, just wait until he is wet and then change him and say "Oh, maybe next time you will want to go on the potty."

This technique worked with my son. He started using the potty within a week and I wasn't tied down to an hourly schedule or whatever. But he did already understand the concept before I tried this.

Also, I borrowed some Kiddopatomas carseat liners from a friend in case he had an accident in the car. These were very helpful:)!

Good luck!