In october I started to potty train my 2.5yr old. For about two weeks I made a full on attempt and my son never seemed interested in even making the attempt himself. He would refuse the potty, get upset at putting on training pants (not pull ups) and never took on the reward system. So in the beginning of November I stopped as I found out too we were moving a month later. Felt it was a great time to stop as alot of new changes were about to begin.
Now my son will be 3 in April. We started potty training about 3 weeks ago (January). Now with pull ups. He fights us (me, my mom and day care), cries, screams, crosses his legs, hides when we walk him to the potty, refuses and doesn't stick with the reward systems we set up (jelly beans, toys, stickers). A few times we brought him to the potty kicking and screaming. We try to make him understand its okay and tell him everytime he goes he gets so excited. After a few talks and a few minutes of his tantrum, he settles down, goes pee and then immediately jumps out, and starts running around happy as can be. Giving ppl high fives and all proud of himself. He even asks for his jelly beans.
I don't understand any of this. How he just flat out refuses, when he does finally does his deed, he is so proud of himself. Is he truly not ready or is this a sense of ownership with his pee/poo? He has to have some sense of control? We have done everything we can to make this experience a positive one. Let him pick his potty, underware, pulls ups, even pick his own rewards. Everything to give him a sense of being a big boy with independence. Yet nothing we do sticks. Not even his rewards and we go with things we know he truly enjoys having (i.e. trains, cars, candy).
At this point I am at a loss as what to do....even his montessori school can't even get him to go. He tells them "no thanks". Ugh!
I need help! What do I do from this point? Just throw in the towel and just let him go at his own pace? I know he won't be going to college in diapers, but if i want to enroll him in pre-school programs they require him to be potty trained. I don't want to be limited in what my son can do because he is still in diapers.
What else can I try that I haven't already done? Any input would be greatly appreciated. THANKS!
souns like he is just not ready. give it a month of no potty talk and then bring it up again (unless he brings it up before then). Good Luck :)
It sounds like quite a bit of what you have tried so far is reasonable, EXCEPT for not letting him initiate the process when he feels ready. Being able to use the toilet consistently and successfully MUST eventually be within the control of the child, or else he's simply not trained.
For that reason, the young families I've had the opportunity to observe who have the most positive, and generally quick, results, are the families who teach about using the potty, offer plenty of positive messages and images about how great it will be, and then leave it up to the child.
Somewhere between 2+ and 4, virtually every child that doesn't have developmental issues will simply announce they want to use the potty, and they do, and they are usually accident-free within a week at most. This happens without constant coaxing, charts, rewards or bribes, or punishments. The child is ready to take this big developmental step, and feels motivated to make it work. Just like when they were ready to walk or talk – they do it. And feel rightfully proud of their accomplishment.
Your son could be close to that breakthrough, but if you are forcing him to go, kicking and screaming, he'll never have a chance to find that out. Would you consider just telling him it's his decision, and you trust that when he's ready, he'll do it?
It might take a few weeks for him to trust that. He may not quite have all three "readiness factors" in place yet, so it could take even longer – this is often true for boys. But when he has the physical/neurological development, the cognitive development, and the emotional maturity working on all burners, he will train himself.
you just can't force this. whether it's about control or not for him - HE is the one that has to decide. it sounds like it's possibly built into this huge drama now, so he has negative feelings associated with it. i had to start and stop about three times with my son - and he was nowhere near as "against" the potty as yours seems to be. boys train closer to 3 normally anyway. i say give it a few months and try again. keep making it a positive thing, but put it in his lap. i'd say if he's closer to 4 and you're still having these problems, then maybe start to worry. remove the stress (yours AND his) over this and just accept that it will happen eventually. it's hard to wait, i know! good luck!
I'm not sure this is going to help, however my mom always said when they are ready they will let you know. Which interestingly enough happened with my daughter. Now one of my sisters will tell you quite a different story, however for me I had to let it go and when my daughter way 2+ she let me know. I would continue to encourage him to go, etc... and perhaps not make such a big deal out of it when he has an accident.
Hope it helps
Our first daughter started using the toilet at 3 1/2 and our younger was around 3. We did no "training". Told her that this was the toilet, read potty books, and had a potty DVD. They were both in pull-ups. We had a "potty" but we also had a an insert for the adult toilet that we got at Home Depot. I think we encouraged them to use the toilet but no rewards, etc. One day they started using the toilet and the transition was quick after that. Our preschool allowed diapers so we didn't have the push that it had to happen.
I'm right there with you. I have friends with kids that aren't trained until 4. As you're finding, you just can't force it.
My DS will be 3 in June. And we're facing the preschool challenge, too, where he can't go unless he's trained completely - meaning totally independent in the bathroom.
We're not there. He'll go for our nanny. All by himself, taking his clothes off and on. With me, I have to tell him that it's time, and then he'll go. But he won't go on his own. Sometimes he fights me like you're experiencing and then I just give it up.
I don't have an answer either. I think we've just resolved that he won't go to preschool if he's not trained. It's not the end of the world.
My plan is to just wait for the day that he's ready. I try to put him around big kids that do it on their own. That seems to be what he's most interested in. But that's hard for us, since he's the oldest.
I had this same issue with my first. I tried at 2 & 2.5 with no luck. I used pull ups, stickers you name it. But what I discovered is in this area you do have to let them lead, I mean, you can't potty for them. What I did was put out some really cool Toy Story underwear for my son to see. When he asked about it I told him that whenever he was ready to use the potty his underwear was waiting for him. I literally had a pack of unopened underwear on the microwave, so he could just see it there all the time. I also had these cloth trainers that you can get at walmart, basically just thick underwear, it does help with the mess. Right at his third bday he said he was ready for his underwear, I told him once he went a full day with no accident in the trainer, he could wear his awesome underwear. Took three days, he never looked back and he made the decision. So you may try that. For us stickers, pull ups, all that stuff was so counter productive. Giving him his own time frame and letting him decide he wanted to, did the trick. You are right, he won't be in College, let alone Kindergarten in diapers!! He may be closer than you think :D
Have you tried offering him the option to stand in front of the regular toilet to pee? I know this won't work if he has a bowel movement to take care of, but if you get him started with urinating in the toilet, he might more easily move on to sitting for the bowel movements too. You might also want to see if a potty seat made to go on the toilet will help. They are about $10. Some kids prefer to simply sit on the toilet, even though they may have to hold on for dear life to keep from falling in.
If you try all these things and he still resists, I'm sorry to have to tell you that some kids just insist on waiting until they are four or even five before really getting the idea. I know that's a big problem with daycare, having worked in that situation. Most centers will take the child, but keep him in a 2 year old class where they are set up for taking care of the untrained children. I always disagreed with that plan, but the truth is that in order to put untrained children in the more advanced classes, the center would have to hire more help and that would increase the cost of your childcare.
i found that my daughter potty trained herself. we just made the potty available and gave her lots of praise.
if you pressure him, it might backfire. so just take it slow and easy unless there's an actual reason that he needs to be potty trained right now.
good luck mama!
He won't be going to K in diapers either so really, don't worry. My son didn't potty train till 4 or so, but that was fine with me because I MUCH prefer changing diapers to cleaning up messes.
At the time we moved here, my son was not quite 3 yet and there were several other boys who were potty trained so I felt a bit of peer pressure there, but one outing with one of the boys to a play place quickly changed my mind! This other "pottytrained" boy and my son were playing in the playplace when he pooped in his underwear and they didn't have anything to change him into, except a diaper that I had in the car. That was when I realized "potty trained" to them meant he went pee into the toilet, that's it. No thanks!!! Even if he only poops in his underwear once a day and goes in the toilet every other time, I still would rather deal with diapers than deal with poopy underpants!
So, once my son did pottytrain at 4, he was then ahead of the other boy because he stayed dry all night long and pooped in the toilet.
I am in the same situation, and I have to say all of the answers are so interesting!! The preschool he will be going to does not require potty training so luckily, we don't have that pressure quite yet, but none of the surprises, treats, or anything has worked. He is 100% able to control himself, he just chooses a diaper. He can tell me when he's about to pee, hides in a little place to poop, He is in what I call a pre-preschool right now - just 2 days a week and the instructor has been following us through this process has suggested that we take away the diapers at this point. So we keep telling him, "after we run out of these right here, no more diapers." Then, our plan is to pull up the area rugs, buy some pet cleaner and leave him bottomless. We were also told to have him help in the clean up and make it a big ordeal (wipe it up, spray the pet cleaner, then hard wood floor polish) that he has to participate in so that the potty is more appealing than the accident. I'm not sure how helpful this is since I haven't actually tried it yet, but I'm hopeful! He had a brief period of time where he was really excited about it, but then we had a kitchen remodel and a baby sister, and all of his interest went out the window. I didn't know there was a window until it was gone. Good luck to you!
Unfortunately, I don't think he's ready even though he shows signs of readiness. If he's resisting you, he wants a sense of control - especially when it comes to going pee or poo. It can't be fun for either of you to pull a screaming tot into the bathroom. I'd lay off and wait for him to come to you... almost like using reverse psychology. My son will run to the toilet when he hears that "mommy or daddy needs to use the toilet" because he likes being first. Yours will come around eventually because he'll soon realize it's "not cool" to be in diapers in front of his friends anymore!
Well for my daughter, it took running out of diapers, pull-ups,and money. My daughter turned 3 last October. I was at my wits end trying to get her to go to the potty but she would throw a fit and run the other way never making it one whole day with a dry pull-up and for sure, never ever went #2 in the toilet. Then on Feb 1st this year some money I had coming in was delayed and I ran out of diapers and pull-ups so I left her bottom half "clothes-less". She didn't know what to do when she felt the "sensation" and started crying that she needed a diaper or a pull-up. I told her I didn't have any and she needed to use the potty. If she didn't she could go on the floor but she would have to clean it....she ran straight to the bathroom. After that I put on an underwear and she's been using the potty since. She still needs an overnight when she sleeps, but when she's awake she wears her underwear and uses the potty every time. She's had a couple "accidents" but they've all been on her way to the bathroom and just a case of waiting too long. I don't know if this will help with your son but I thought I'd share. Good luck I know how you feel. :)
