Potty Training - Newtonville,MA

What worked for both of my children (now 13 & 8) was that I would have them wear an oversized tshirt with no underwear on - it made them more "aware" of possible accidents and it sped up the "training" process. I also just took lots of visits to the restroom both at home and when out and about. We also used positive reinforcement, like a sticker each time they would "make it" to the potty. Hope these help - good luck!

Put a Potty in each bathroom. Bring her in each time that you go so she can see what you do. Reward her even for sitting on the potty. Make a chart and put it on the fridge. Have her help you put a sticker on it each time she sits and "tries" on the potty. Most of all don't push the point... it only makes it worse. It just takes repetition and patience.

HI, You could try doing a reward system with her. I have known many people who make a sticker chart and for everytime she goes potty she gets to pick a sticker. After a specified number of stickers she can then have a small reward such as a cheep prize from a prize bucket. She could even pick out the prizes in advance as something to look forward to. The dollar store or dollar section at Target is a great place to find these prizes. I hope this helps. Good Luck!

Positive behavior modification...i.e. bribery. We used a sticker chart for peeing with our son (also 2 1/2). He picked out the stickers and got excited about putting them up. He did well but did not seem completely interested. Then we bought a whole bunch of race cars from the movie Cars which my son loves. We told him whenever he poops on the potty he gets one. It is not a cheap method but it really worked well for us at least. We thought it might just get him interested in the whole idea but it really all just clicked and now (a week and a half later- he is wearing underwear a all times except for bedtime).

Good luck and don't sweat it though- it will happen eventually!

get some toys she wants stick them i a bag when she goes pee pee in the toliet she gets a toy if she goes in her diaper then you take one away and yes a diaper just in case but chek it every 15 to 20 min.

My best advice would be to pull a paper bag over your head and pay someone else to do it.

Signed,
Another mama in potty training HEEEEELLLLLLLL

thank you for starting this topic! I am in the same boat with my 2.5 year old son! We do have a little Elmo potty for him, and he'll tell us when he needs to poop (though he usually tells us when he's already gone). We use stickers and m&m's as rewards for when he does go in it. I'm just wondering what the best approach is as far as getting him to go pee in the potty...or getting him to tell me when he feels the need to potty.

I can tell you what works for me...

I had decided to use cloth diapers when my third child was born, and at the same time my second child turned two, so he was still in diapers, and I switched him as well. He HATED the sensation of pee (cloth doesn't wick moisture away like disposables) and he started whipping his diaper off the minute he peed. Or sometimes right before he peed.

It was messy, but we have hardwoods, so I just washed my floors.

We then bought a potty, and right away he was using that and keeping his diapers dry.

With my daughter, who is almost two, I've started taking her in the bathroom with me, when I have to pee. I put the potty next to the toilet, and she sits next to me and looks at books.

She is already VERY interested in her potty. And takes her diaper off to sit on it several times a day. (No pee yet though!) I'm just trying to get her comfortable with the idea, so she won't be stressed out or afraid of it...

Having potty trained 3 boys, here are a few things that helped me. Is your daughter showing signs of being ready? Does she tell you when her diaper is dirty, or go hide somewhere when doing her thing? Remember that consistency is important. I made sure that we were going to be around the house most days, not on vacation, field trips, etc. I made a commitment, and it's really hard at first, to put my son on the pot every 45 minutes or so to try to catch him in the act. It took about 4 or 5 days before my now 3 year old had his first success! Then I proceed to make a HUGE deal about how great a job he did every time. When they have accidents, I put the poop in the toilet and let them flush to see where it should go, use every opportunity to teach and reinforce this idea! I also offered rewards in the beginning, like a few M&M's for each time he does something in the toilet. I would even give him 1 M&M for trying because he got to the point where he did not want to sit on the toilet at all. I also put thick cotton training pants with plastic covers on him so he could feel the wetness. This is important because he seemed to catch on much faster. I started with the (wet feeling) pull up diapers, until he had a few successes, then went with cotton. They are annoying to clean (he only had 2 accidents), but I think they help speed up the process. Once all of my boys had a few successes, they caught on very quickly, the learning curve was huge. Be sure to teach them a signal, if they can't speak well yet, to let you know when they have to go. It also helps to let her watch what mommy or an older sibling does and stress that they get to wear underwear of their choice, if that can be a motivator...like princess panties. Don't get discouraged, every child is different, but I have to say the one thing I noticed is after being dry and having a few successes, they were pretty much trained within a week or two. They got the peeing down first and poop came within a few days to a a couple of weeks later. Two of my sons didn't need pullups at night after waking up dry every morning the first few weeks of training. Good luck and I hope this helped. Potty trainging is one of my least favorite things to start, but not changing diapers is a HUGE reward for all the hard work.

Hi there~when my daughter was 2 years old, (she is 10 years old now), it was summertime and I used the good old fashioned cotton potty training pants. She did not like the feeling of being wet. Fortunately at the time, I was not working and therefore was able to be there when she "had the urge!" It took about 2-3 weeks to train her. I did not go back to using the diaper, but I did use pullups at bedtime. Hope this helps!

C.

Hi. We are working on training my daughter right now. Started on Saturday. Set up a timer for every 20 minutes and have her sit for about 2 minutes. pull ups at night only. stayed in all weekend and still working out pretty well. Need to stay in and have a support system. very tiring, but huge strides already. went to play group and she told me 2X all by herself she had to go and she made it to the potty. lots of little prizes and lots of laundry. need to stick with it and remember to keep putting her on the potty. Good luck.

They have these Training pants that have dragons on it and when jaz was little we would get her them bc she didnt want to pee on the dragons (its Dragon tales) so when she pee'd they would go away... another thing that we did was we got the tablets that would make the water Blue.. so when she pee'd it would change color so that made the yellow pee turn the blue water Green Jaz LOVED goin to the bathroom LoL... hope so of this works liek it did for me ...

GOOD LUCK
J. marie

Hi,

I've had trouble with both my daughters - it took a long time, but well worth the effort. Try and take her every hour or two hours to the potty, depending on her routine I have one uses the bathroom 3 times a day and one who goes all the time. Even if she doesn't do anything, it doesn't matter. Just be persistant and don't lose hope, even when there are temper tantrums - that's really the most important thing. Try avoiding those with rewards for at least going and sitting for a while and if she still refuses take something away. Don't punish for "accidents." And when you see she's dry through the night, throw out the pampers. My biggest mistake maybe was not chucking them when I should have and my daughter regressed some.

Good Luck.

What I did with my son at the age of 2 1/2 was make a goal poster. First we went to the store and I explained to him that we were going to shop for something he wanted but we weren't going to buy it today. We would go home and draw a picture of it (or cut it out of a magazine) and put it on poster board. We had so much fun looking at all the neat toys and he finally picked out a dump truck. We also bought big boy underware during our trip to the store. We then went to staples, I let him pick out the color of the poster board and then we went home and got to work. We made a 21 day chart together (because doing something over and over again for 21 days is proven to develope a habbit) at the end of the twenty one day chart was a big picture of his dumptruck. We put this on the fridge. We explained to him that everytime he went on the potty he could put a sticker on the box for that day and after he did this for 21 days he could get his prize. I didn't make a huge deal if he had an accident he just didn't get a sticker that day, I dont' believe in punishing kids for accidents when they are just learning, but I MADE A HUGE DEAL when he had a good day, we had a parade around the house and called the grandmas and daddy if he was at work. He was so proud and was SO PROUD WHEN HE PICKED UP HIS DUMP TRUCK! he told everyone at the toy store he pooped for 21 days! The other thing that was a huge help was the bear in the big blue house potty video. It was all about using the potty and has a great song to go with it! Good luck!

Hello,

What worked for us:

Bring her to pick out underpants. Also while you are out pick up an egg timer if you don't have something like it at home.

When you are home let her wear her new undies around the house and set the egg timer for 20 minutes. The egg timer tells her that it's time to go to the potty. (that way she won't think it's you making her stop playing)
This will work if you are willing to stay home for a few days. If you are on the go, it will take longer.

If she is as picky as my 2.5 year old, she won't like the feeling of wet clothes. Accidents will happen, but that is all part of the learning.
Good luck.

We just bought our daughter her favorite undies and used a potty chart, she loved picking out what sticker she got if she used the potty. We also started in the summer and while we were home let her run around the house naked so she wouldn't want to pee on the floor she'd just run to her potty. Oh we also did the happy potty dance...sounds silly but when she went potty we would do a silly dance and end with a big HOORAY!
Good luck.

Hi H. D. My suggestion to you is maybe read a few books about potty training with her favorite character or as i suggested to one of the mom's @ my center is to have her pretend play with her dolls and sit the doll on the potty when it's "time". Another thing i could suggest is put her in big girl panty's and have her "go" and she just might not like the sensation of being wet and having to feel it, i hope this helps, tell me how it goes if you haven't tried any of these yet.
K. r.

Hi H.,

I may be on board with just one other person. My advice is DON'T DO ANYTHING!!! I took this advice for my daughter who is now 5.5. It was the best advice anyone has given me. I let her decide when she was ready and I didn't have any horror stories of sitting in the bathroom reading to her for hours or asking her every few minutes if she had to go potty. At at 3 years, 2 months, she decided she was ready to wear underwear. We went out and bought a few packages of her choice. She wore underwear the next day to pre-school and never turned back. At night I put a pull up on her, but that last three nights of being dry and we switched to underwear at night. Very uneventful and stress free for me and my husband! My friend who has a son gave me this advice that worked for her as well! Keep in mind...they never to go kindergarten in diapers. Why put yourself through all the stress :)

Good luck!
C.

Hi H.,
We resorted to bribing with stickers. We had a vinyl blind up between our kitchen and mudroom to keep in the heat, so we used that. We were working on pooping on the potty. We got her to pee by telling her she'd get to wash her hands because she loved that. The sticker thing was great!

Good luck.

M.

I used to work as a preschool teacher, and one of the mother's was using food coloring in the toilet to potty train her daughter. She would put blue in, and after her daughter would pee in the potty it would be green. I thought this was a pretty good idea!

H.;
I have a 4 year old son but I will explain to you what Idid. When I knew he was ready I made a big deal and took him out to have him pick out his own big boy underpants. I also purchased a cushioned potty seat from I believe babiesrus that has all the sesame characters on it. He loves going on that. He was ready because he was sick of getting changed with the diaper thing and he really wanted nothing to do with the pull ups.
I strongly feel that if you allow them to pick out his underwear he won't want to have any accidents.

Thanks
B.

Hi H.,
With my son we used the reward system. He got to put a sticker on the calendar every time he successfully went on the potty. This worked very well for him and he was potty trained in no time. Good luck!!

Stop trying. When she is ready you will know. I have five kids 19, 17, 14, 4, 2 1/2. As soon as I stopped trying to get them to train they just started to want to do it. Make sure you let them see you doing it. Hope this helps.

Hi-
I finished potty training my now 3 year old in the fall. For peeing on the potty, it took about 3 days, and this is what I did. I didn't use pull ups, because they were just like a diaper, I put her in underwear and no pants, and planned to stay in the house for a couple of days. The first day was awful, because she would just pee anywhere, but then she started to realize where it was coming from, and would get to the potty. I also went to the dollar store, and flea markets, and bought cheap prizes that I knew she would like, and I put them each in individual brown lunch bags, and I let her pick one each time she went on the potty. I did a sticker chart with pooping on the potty, because it took longer for her to really catch on, for whatever reason. But she did, it just took patience and commitment not to go back to diapers or Pull ups!

Hello H., I am a mother of a three year old boy, now fully potty trained. Last summer he began to show signs of being ready, dry more throughout the day and asking to go more frequently. One weekend my husband and I decided it was time to try. We explained to our son what was going to happen, that he was not going to wear diapers and he was going to use the toilet. If you are going to do this, you need to committ one entire weekend, no interruptions, no places to go, no visitors. ALL POTTY TRAINING!! Put your daughter either in underwear or just let her go bare from the waist down. Take her frequently to the bathroom, you know ever 1/2 hour to hour. Also what we found with our son, instant rewards helped whether it be a sticker or a small piece of candy. I will admit the first day was horrible, he had at least seven accidents that day. To the point my husband who is a patient man wanted to give up. As each day passed by, he did much better. By the fourth day, he was having no accidents and going all on his own. Once you start the process though, you can not go back to diapers. All that does is send mix messages to your daughter. Also do not get upset because all that will do is upset her. I hope this helps and Good Luck. Amy

We got our now 5 year old daughter her own "potty chair" and we got a movie called "Potty Power" which we have let many people barrow to help their kids with potty training. You could probably google the name of the movie and find out more info. about it. Just always encourage your child, as frustrating as it can be at times, stay positive. Get a chart to let them see their progress, you could fill it will stickers or whatever your child likes. Good luck, it all comes together in due time. :)