The Great Potty Training Question

I struggled with this question for months, my daughter would fuss and cry when we tried to get her to pee on the potty. She started pooping on the potty and only there when she was nineteen months old! So I knew she could do it. I almost had her trained when last october/novemeber (by making her go with me everytime I went, which was often b/c I was nine months pregnant) and then my son was born. Back to peeing in diapers! ahhh. Then three weeks ago one morning we woke up and she had wet in her diaper. I told her if she was going to pee in her diapers then she had to change them. She didn't like that idea and cried at first, then she started going to the potty. I was also rewarding her with an m&m when she was successful. We have had only a few midnight accidents. My daughter was two and a half in jan. I wish you luck!

The advise I got when my son was 2.5 was "let him go at his own pace" Best advise I ever got. It worked for both my children.

We had no stress over the potty. My son trained himself at 3, my daughter at 2. Be mindful that 2 is very early for most kids. This is not one of those situations you want to "keep up with the Jonses" How you manage will have an emotional impact on your child. Best not to make the potty unpleasant.

The other really helpful suggestion I got was take the child to pick out her very own panties. She will know they are there when she is ready, they will serve as a motivator but dont use them as leverage, leave it to her to decide. Tell her "you let mommy know when you are ready to wear your big girl pants". She is not going to forget they are in that drawer.

Leave the training potty out where she can use it herself at any time she chooses. Make sure her clothing & pull-ups are easy for her to get up & down. Have "open door" policy where she can see other people in you house going potty. Know her signals, the first time my son went on the potty was at a friends house, more exciting I guess, I saw him go to a corner & his face was turning red. I asked him if he wanted to try to go on the potty & he did. If he had said no, I would have let it be.

Your Mom instincts will be your best guide for your family. Hang in there, try not to rush her if she is not quite there.

P

Just to let you know so far you are doing everything right. It's good you waited a few more months when she cried when you put her on the potty. For right now I wouldn't push the issue. Let her sit on the potty and play with it if you have toddler potty that is. Let her sit on it naked and or with her clothes on. If she doesn't do anything that's fine. She will eventually. It may be that she still isn't ready. My daughter is almost 3 and 1/2 and still has major accidents all of the time, once in a while she'll go a couple of weeks and have next to no accidents. Your daughter will go when she is comfortable. I know this isn't what you want to hear but it's best to just let her explore the potty first, the next step is doing something in it. #2 is usually what takes the longest so be prepared for that. If you want to, go ahead if you haven't done it already, you might want to get a potty seat addapter for the public potty. That will help ease her into using a big potty in public. I bought two, one for the house and the other one stays in the car so we don't leave it somewhere and for the public potty. I hope this helps. Just take your time. It will come together soon. Take care, J. A.

I have trained about 26 kids and here are the things that worked for us. First, stop training her for a couple of weeks so she isn't worrying about it.

I bought a doll that pees in a little potty at the store. She came with a bottle that we filled with water. I told my grandbaby that we were having a "potty party". We had balloons and cake and made a really big deal about it. I bought her a new potty chair that played "how dry I am". Then we gave the doll her bottle, let her pee in her potty and clapped and got all excited. We did it several times and then Jade wanted to take off her panties (we bought her "new big girl panties for the occasion") and use the new potty she had. She was so excited and we clapped and got all excited for her too. She was so happy that she ran around all day with her panties off, peeing in her potty, which was in the living room, by the way.

Okay so I tried that book "potty training in 1 day" which sounded great but did not work for me. I know it has worked for other moms and that is great. What it did do was jump start the training and also help my daugher understand what needs to be done. I definately recommend a reward system. We did stickers just for trying. My daughter LOVED that and got to pick out her own. We did jelly beans (2 or 3 small ones) if she did go. She does still think now that she is trained that jelly beans should come her way which makes us laugh. I just went through all this and it is exhausting. If you really feel she isn't ready then don't put pressure on her or you...just come back to it. We did that and it was the best thing we did. My daughter just was not ready at the time. If she is just sitting there now, that is a great first step. We used the pull ups so we didn't completely reverse back to diapers. That doesn't really help to train them but helps them understand these are different like panties. Those character panties help too. What really made my daugher go was at preschool they teamed her up with someone who already had it down (someone her age) who would assit her (with the teacher monitoring this). My daughter is an only child so a sibling would not work in my case. My daughter would say "I went on the potty just like Susie" who was her friend. THAT is really what did it for her. She said "I have princess undies like Susie" and she just wanted to be like her friend. Good Luck. It is not easy (or it wasn't for me). Maybe it will go better for you!

I am so not above bribery when it comes to potty training. My daughter received m&m's, gummy bears and even money to put in her piggy bank. I used to tell her how yucky diapers were and how they didn't feel good on her skin..she began to believe the same thing. Other mother's have suggested buying underwear they'll like...my daughter didn't really care either way about that. The one biggest suggestion I can give you- be systematic about it. Bring her very regularly- even if she doesn't have to go- kids thrive on schedules- make this part of yours.

Good luck- it's absolutely awesome when it happens!!

I just trained my 2 1/2 yr old. What worked for me was going bottomless all weekend. I just kept her in a nightgown or long shirt with no diaper or undies. Yes, there will be accidents but it got her to realize when she had to go. Then, when she would go in the potty, rewards and lots of praise do wonders. By day 3, there were no more accidents and going to potty was fun. Its been almost 2 months and there have been only 2 accidents that I can think of and they were while she was napping. Good luck!!

If she is truely ready to potty train, take away all diapers. Yes it will mean more work on your part as far as cleaning up after accidents and laundry, but it will work. Both of my girls were trained at 2 with this method and in 3-5 days they were completely potty trained. I did no diapers at night as well. Just regular panties. Good luck!

Hello,

Have you tried predictable times (first thing in the AM, just before the bath, etc)? Or trying to time it where you take her a certain amount of time after meals and taking in a lot of liquids (20-30 minutes)?

I wish you success!

T.

instead of a book try giving her a popsicle! her fav flavor of course....then praise her like crazy when she goes. do this for a week or two then wean her off the popsicles.

Relax. The success with both of mine came from reading lots of potty books that are funny (Does a Pig Flush, My Big Boy Potty, etc) while sitting on the potty and when cuddling. I allowed lots of naked time so that nothing could catch the pee or poo, outside is good for that. : ) I also kept fun big kid undies (princesses for my daughter and trains etc for my son) next to the diapers and we switched when they said they wanted to wear them. When an accident happened, I would clean up and then give them a disinfectant wipe to help (they couldn't just walk away and leave it for me). Relax, and when she is ready, it will be easy! My daughter was about 2 and 3 months, my son potty trained 2 weeks before he turned 3. He had fewer oopsies than she did. Oh, we went from diapers to underwear, I am not a fan of pull ups.

I think that each of my 3 gave me signals that they were ready to train. I do know that I cleared my schedule for the first week of training. I was very consistant each day with going in and sitting on the potty. By the end of the week they were well trained. I do know that I bought their own little potty chair. My nephew was very afraid of the big potty, so I set up their own space in the bathroom. They had a couple of books, their own toilet paper, and fun soap to clean up with after.We did some shopping before hand for new undies,they weren't allowed to wear until they could use the potty. It was a fun week for them. I don't think that they realized my motives. Good luck.

Oh the life of potty training!!! About 2 months ago, my friend purchased a fabulous e-book written by a lady named Lora Jensen's. Her website is www.3daypottytraining.com. My friend was successful with training her 2 1/2 year old daughter from the very first day of potty training "boot camp." So, she suggested I check it out (of couse I thought it would never work for my 2 1/2 year old son). I purchased the e-book and he was potty trained that very first morning! No kidding! It is absolutely amazing! The only issue is that you have to follow Lora Jensen's method exactly to a tee! I prepped my son for a couple of weeks ahead of time. Everytime we went to Target, I let him pick out a pack of underwear and I kept telling him, "It's almost time to throw your diapers away and wear your big boy underwear...aren't you so excited?!!!" I really got myself pumped up about it (which is important, YOU also have to be ready) and also got my son pumped up about it. During the training, I also made 3 charts (dry, wet, and poop) and let him pick out stickers to put on them. And then we also had small prizes stashed for when we were super proud of him (like if he was dry, said he needed to go potty and went). We just did this on Feb. 14 and he has been successful since! I have really been wanting to share this with EVERYONE I know. Please give this a shot! It REALLY works! Good luck!

The book Toilet Training in Less Than a Day worked like a charm on my 27 month old son (15 months ago). You can find it on www.amazon.com. It is very a positive and rewarding experience for the child, and breeds independence and self confidence.

you cant do it until SHE shows signs. telling you when shes wet or poopy, can go long periods with out wetting and goes pretty much at the same time every day. until those are met you will not have much success. if shes showing all these thats great and just keep at it! i set a potty timer for every hour and man it worked great! as soon as she heard that timer go off it was a rush to the potty! good luck and dont get over stressed no one goes to college in diapers!