"Toilet Training Advice"

I would just do it when she wants to. Toddlers are very smart but unless she is waking from naps or bedtime dry she is not ready.

All of my kids expressed an interest in the potty around 18 months and then in fade.

They all potty trained completely in a week when they were ready.

This might sound strange but I found a little wee-minder that what it is called at wal-mart for my daughter. It comes with a watch kind of thing a book and a movie. It can be set to different lengths of time and then it sing about going to the potty place and usually no matter were she is she will want to go. This was a great help for Daycare because she just got to buzy to go. She is doing a great job now.

I would switch her to underwear cold turkey.

My daughter was like this too and we found that taking our little potty chair with us and keeping it in the trunk of the car was the solution (our trunk was large and we just kept some ammonia water and paper towel in a rubbermaid tub for quick clean up along with purell for hand washing and TP). She just felt safest there and there were no really loud flusing noise from multiple stalled public restrooms. This only needed to be done for about 4-5 weeks before she started to adjust to going on other potties. It helped that our Target store and our grocery store had a potty next to the pharmacy that was a single person restroom. She is now almost 4 and will go potty anywhere but is still sometimes bothered by the loud and echoing noises of public restrooms (automatic flushers and loud hand blow dryers). A friend of ours gave us the idea because she did the same for her daughter and kept a little potty in the back of their SUV. If it helps why not and with anything it will not last forever. Hope this helps.

First, does she stay dry at night? If not, she may not have the control needed to switch to underwear. Does she have verbal skills to tell you that she needs to go before actually going?

Does your daycare have an appropriate potty facility? Are they willing to help you train her? She is kind of on the young side, but sounds ready. It is tough when you can't be home to work on it all day. Your daycare people will have to be willing to work with you on it.

Make sure she's getting enough water and fiber (fruit and vegetable sources) to ensure she is not constipated. If she has a fear of restrooms other than the one at home, this may help alleviate that (unless it is for some other reason... you might want to look into this a little further=ask her why she's afraid/doesn't want to go potty at other places and whether it is due to the people there, or the place... something might be kinda fishy here). If she is simply having to sit a while to go, the extra fiber in her diet may help her have her BM more quickly.

Your daughter is still pretty young and I am impressed she is doing so well with the potty! My advice is, don't push her, but follow her lead. Let her put on big girl underpants when she wants to, and if she wants a diaper let her wear one. It's best to avoid a power struggle which can just prolong the potty training time, I think. Hope that helps!

My children are a ways passed potty training, but I work at a daycare center also. You've received a lot of good advice. Just be sure she is ready, there is nothing causing her fear to use the toilet(as in loud flushing sounds or automatic flushers which scared my son to death. Also large toilets that little bottoms worry about falling in. They make cushioned mini-seats that fit into the adult seat. They work great, and are very portable!), and that your childcare center is willing to work with you. If you want to switch to underwear(I feel they can tell the difference in wetness better than a diaper or pull-up, which makes them feel dry)it would be good to do so when you have some free time to be with her. Have her try every hour or so to figure out her schedule. A weekend may be all it takes for her to get the hang of it. Your childcare my be willing if you know how often she really needs to go. Best of luck!

yes go cold turky and she will get use to it after a while !
C. N

She is still awfully young to worry about it. She obviously doesn't feel safe using any other potty chairs. This is normal. Let it go.

Potty training is like a light bulb effect... When it clicks it clicks otherwise you are just training yourself to take her to the potty... It's been my experience that this lightbulb effect doesnt click well till about the age of 2 and a half or 3 years old not always but that has been my expierence. I wont even start to train till that age it has backfired to many times. I tell people to start on a long weekend or a week off from work . we do full undies for two to three weeks and pullups at night and naps if it doesn't click by then then we stop for a month or so and start again. Children can controll only two things in their lives at this stage of the game, and thats what goes in their mouth as food, and how much and also what comes out as pee and poop. sorry to be so blunt. We the grownups in their lives controll everything else. Pretty overwhelning for a child. Not to worry it will come.

R.,

There is a small window of opportunity that your daughter is in right now for potty training. After that window passes, you'll find that you'll wait another year before underpants time. The tricky part is deciding who is trained--her or you (knowing her cycle, so to speak). My suggestion is that when she asks to go on the toilet, be very supportive.

Once my kids realized they were controlling using the bathroom, and discovered the perks of underwear (convenience, doesn't take as long, less mess, etc) they went from diapers to 'big kid pants' in a weekend.

My boys were both trained early, my oldest at 20 months, and my youngest in undies full time at 15 months. I believe there is a window of opportunity from a year to about 20 months, after that you end up with a 3yr old in diapers waiting for him/her to decide and it becomes a battle.

If she's going well when at home, then she is doing excellent and knows what she is doing. Switch to underwear. We use cloth diapers, and used cloth during our training process, but once the boys were consistently using hte potty, we went to undies and of course there were some accidents, and we had to get them there quicker, but it did make the process much faster.

Good for you for following her cues! She may take a step back, but keep at it, she'll make a big leap forward after.

R. - You will get lots of advice. I found out with my son that when we went out to dinner or any "non-home" location the best way to get him to potty is to sit on the seat with him. I straddled the toliet, held him between my thighs. This way he was not afraid of falling in and it made it very "natural" for him to relax.

As for the diapers - get rid of them. Your daughter is smart enough to tell you and now you have a comfortable way for her to use the bathroom while you are away from home. Good luck!

R.,

You have gotten a lot of good responses, but I just wanted to put my 2 sense in.

I started potty training my daughter on her 2nd birthday. We had issues in the beginning (especially popping) but I had to hide the diapers and pull-ups. We told her that they were for babies. Daycare probably wasn't to happy with me sending her there with just panties but they were really encouraging her. She had 3 accidents the 1st day and had fewer and fewer each day after for about a week. It is now 2 months later she is fully potty trained at home, out in public, at night, poppy and potty, everywhere and she is one of the few kids in her class that is.

We did give her candy every time she went, then switched to everytime she went poppy, and now it is every time she goes by herself. We also bought her a Girl Potty book, at the end it says do you want to be a big girl now and she always loves that part and screams Yes!

Good luck, and my advice it get rid of the diapers and only put them on at night if you have to. We started with a diaper and her panties on top at night and it worked well.

M.

My son used to do something similar. He wanted to wear his diaper to daycare but would wear underwear at home. I never pushed him because children who are pushed before they are ready, sometimes start having accidents where they were doing great previously. He told me when he was ready to go to daycare with out a diaper. Both of my children never had bed wetting or accidents in public. I tried the cold turkey switch to underwear only once with my daughter & she walked directly down the stairs & squatted to pee in front of the door & that was the last time I ever tried to rush things along. All children are different & need to do it when they are ready. Hope this helps!

She's doing great for her age! I would just stick with what you're doing and be really encouraging when she does use the potty. Sometimes when you push them then they regress. Toilet training almost always involves some steps backwards along with the progress, but if you switch her to underwear cold turkey it might discourage her.