Potty Training Help

hello i am a mother of 4 girls and yes all are diffrent i potty trained 3 of the 4 girls the fouth is a step DD any way i started taking my girls to the bathroom everytime i went and they sat on the potty also when they did anything in the potty they got a special treat for it my 3yo got suckers she also knew she had to use the big girl potty to get them and that was the only time she got them.. i had my oldest who is 15 totally potty trained by 2-2and a half.. my 3yo was a lil harder she was i think 2.5 and still wets the bed but its not a big deal. My mother also had a toy that we could only play with if we was on the potty.. maybe some of this wil help

I went through this with all 3 of my older kids. They would show intrest only to lose intrest fairly early. And the stripping thing was very common too.

While supervised, I let my kids run naked. It actually helped with the potty training thing (although they were all about 2 1/2 when we started this). When they absolutely had to keep clothes on, I made sure they were in Onesies or one piece rompers. They're too hard for little ones to wiggle out of!

Good luck!

Sorry- but it seems kind of early to be potty training.

My advice would be to give it a bit longer- but different strokes!

Good luck-

I don't have much potty training help for you, just some advice. She is awfully young to be potty trained. I know people will respond and tell you how wrong I am, but I can tell you from my experience (I am a SAHM who babysits) I wait until they are ready. Once they are ready it is a breeze. She's not even 2 yet. Neither one of my own kids was potty trained before 3. Well my daughter was trained about 2 months before her 3rd birthday and my son was 3 1/2. I just potty trained one of my babysitting kids and he's 3 1/2. I also have an almost 3 year old girl and boy (babysitting kids) they are no where near being ready yet. Put her diaper on backwards and that way she can't get it off. i had to do that with one of my own. That should solve the problem of her getting her diaper off. Relax the potty training will come. When she's ready.

She's probably just not ready yet - she's still pretty young and with a baby in the house...- not to say it's not possible, but if you wait til she's ready it will be much easier for everyone. As for the not keeping diaper on - get zip-up footie pajamas and put them on her backwards. My niece is very wiley and we tried everything else, tape, etc, and she got through it all, but once we put the pajamas on backwards she couldn't get them off to get to the diaper. Just get them a little big so they don't choke. Good luck.

One thing that helped my daughter, who is 3 1/2 now, was that I took her to the store and let her pick out her big girl panties and she knew that when she wore them she would have to sit on the potty. I tried pull ups, but the real thing just worked a lot better for us.

My two two year olds started pottying at about 19 months, then lost interest for quite some time, then started up again. We are now using a kitchen timer that is their "potty clock" that goes off every 1/2 hour and they say "potty time" with so much excitement. If they go, good, if they don't, then we try again in 1/2 hour. For now though, since they can take off their clothes, we always put them in a onsie at nap and bed times, becuase after 2 messes, we couldn't go thru hand prints on the walls and cribs etc....

Also, on Huggies website, go to the pull-ups section and sign up for them to send you a potty training DVD to watch with the kids and you can print off reward charts. I received ours last week, but haven't watched it yet.

There is a link from mamasource you could try if you want. I have a friend who is going to try it. Potty training in 1-3 days. If you can't find it google "potty training in 1-3 days". Good luck. By the way my daughter was fully trained one month after turning two. It can be done.

I'm going to have to agree with DQ on this one. I've spoken to our doctor and he said not push the issue. When the child is ready, they just do it. He also said it shouldn't take longer than a few days and to not even try till closer to 30-34 months. I would just wait until your child is ready.

Hi J.,
I am sorry to say this but I think it is a bit to early to start potty training even if she did show interest. When I was in school for early childhood we talked about this issue and those who start potty training before two and a half run into problems. They say it will even delay progress and will take you longer then if you waited a bit longer.

You also need to think about it from a two year olds perspective. THey have the upper hand or the power over the situation. And they know this and will take it and run with it, especially if you push it on them. Just remember she will get to the age (with a little help) when she will understand she is a big girl and needs to go in the potty.

I know potty training is frustrating I have potty trained many little ones. I could guess that the cost for diapering two children is expensive and time consumming.

I guess my biggest point is do not push or be hard on yourself if she has regressed it happens to most children. Any small change in routine (going to the granparents or having a baby sibling join the family) can really cause a child to regress. I would give her a little time and then try again with a lot of consistancy.

It is still too early for her, especially if she is not showing much interest in it.... but I will say keep trying.... she needs to get this message and she will not learn it in one day. So you need to tell her constantly about this and one days she will get it. Start from small things instead of rushing on to everything at once.

Right now instead of trying all the time in the day, pick one time in a day.

For you before the bedtime will work since you said that she is making real effort at that time. Try to pick a time and do at the same time each day. At first you will ask her to do it then it will turn into a habit later on. One thing I did with me daughter was to make her sit on the potty seat and then read one or two books to her. I praised her for sitting on the potty seat regardless of her doing anything in it. I picked morning with my daughter because she liked to stick around us while we did our morning usual stuff. Mornings was easy for her because we used to put her on potty seat as soon as she was getting up from the bed. Somehow this worked well with her and in no time she started doing pi-pi in the mornings in the potty seat. She was around the same age as your daughter when I started.

Then after couple of week when I found that she is getting habitual of potty seat, I made her sit in the potty seat more than once in a day. Same as earlier I picked some more time which was convenient for both of us to do. For example, just after the nap or lunch/dinner, or before nap or before going out to play/shop/or any other thing.

Take these things as milestones or goals. It might take her more than few weeks for her to reach each goal. Help her to reach one goal at a time and then start working on another goal together.

Make it a big deal of everything related to potty training. Tell daddy, tell friends, grandma/pa or whomever you want to, but make it sure that she is listening to it. May be she might like to tell daddy or others by herself. Ask them to make it a big deal in front of her. Have a party for her (Just family or anybody who you want to invite) whenever she reach a goal. Remind her several times in a day that she did a wonderful job by sitting or doing pi-pi or potty in the seat. Or full fill her special wish for doing so. Or give her a new toy each time, for example, first time doing something, or after doing it five/ten time and so on. Kids love to make big deal of everything.

Get a doll or stuff toy for her and ask her to potty train that doll/toy by herself. I am not sure where you can find it but there are some kind of dolls which practically do pi - pi in reality, they are especially made for this training. I have a Elmo doll called potty Elmo which makes all those sounds and noises of drinking water and doing pi-pi later on.

By the way I am SAHM of two daughters. Elder one is 3 y 4 months old and younger one is 1 y 2 months old. I started to train my elder one sometime around her 2nd b'day and now she is doing everything on her own on the big potty seat. But we still have to work with the bedtime. We still get some accidents at that time if we don't use pull-up. But no pull-ups/diapers during the day time.