Attempting to Potty Train (AHHHHHHHHH)

Take him out of diapers and put cloth training pants on him. This is a little messy, but most people (including little people) do not like to be cold and wet. It will help him to appreciate the potty :-).

He's ready. You just need to take away his crutch (diapers). Go to www.3daypottytraining.com My son will be three in Oct. He's VERY strongwilled. He's been potty trained for a month now. We do pull-ups at night though. My other son is 10 months old. You can do it. He's ready. Good luck!

We used a "prize bucket" that sat in the bathroom (with a lid). At first, whenever she sat on the potty, she got a treat. Then, she figured "that" out and it became a game. Next, she got a treat when she actually went potty. Now, we've been working at it so long, we're trying to get through the night dry. Everytime she gets up from a nap or from bedtime, she gets a sticker on a chart. After 20 of each sticker, she gets this really cool toy. She gets the toy on Friday! This system worked for us (Jadyn will be three in October), and for my nephew (Jack will be three in August). Good luck. I also have a short, simple book about going potty, which describes a very proud mommy. If I forget to tell my daughter I'm proud of her, she asks, "Mommy, are you pwoud?" :o)

It sounds like he may not be ready. When I had my first daughter, two friends had sons right around the same time. One was 8 days older, the other 4 weeks younger. Josephine was potty trained one month short of her 3rd birthday. Neither one of the boys got interested in potty training until almost 3 1/2. If he wants to pee in his diaper, there isn't anything you are going to do to stop it. You could put him on the potty every 30 minutes, but if he doesn't want to pee there he simply won't. He'll wait until his diaper is back on. Now you could try putting him in big boy panties - either the padded training pants or the normal ones (NOT pull-ups). He may find that he doesn't like the feeling of being wet in those and want to go on the potty. We found that our girls equated pull ups to diapers - and they pull the moisture away from them. We used the padded training pants with a vinyl cover for both of them and it worked really well - and remarkably fast! For night time with our youngest we used Good Nites Night Time Underpants - she thought they were regular panties but they absorb like a diaper and she never figured it out. Good Luck!!

He is still pretty young for potty training, especially if he isn't consistently dry at night. Dry at night was always the FIRST sign of readiness. Certainly he is aware that he is going in his diaper, and can talk about it, but that doesn't mean he is ready. It just means he can talk about it. Plus, getting him "trained" before #2 arrives in a few short months...he might regress when the baby comes anyway. I would wait until he is consistently dry at night, then go cold turkey with real underwear, no more diapers, no pull ups. I had two pretty close together. Two in diapers isn't so bad. It's alot easier to train when the child is ready, rather than when you are ready. Otherwise it's a matter of who is training who. I think it would have been harder to have a newborn AND be on top of a 1/2 potty trained toddler at the same time. I would recommend waiting until after the baby arrives two or three months, be sure he is dry at night, get some cool underwear and go for it.

Even if you did get him trained before your baby arrives, chances are he'd regress after the baby comes. It's very common for this to happen, so I'd just relax, encourage him, definitely don't push him, and it will happen when he is ready.

I understand completely. My son just turned 3 the end of may and I thought he would never potty train. He was so difficult. He knew what he was doing and would tell you he needed to be changed as soon as he would poop or pee in his diaper...but refused (threw huge fits, cried etc) to sit on the potty. Finally this past weekend we had a breakthrough. I just asked him to come into the bathroom with me because I needed to show him something. I had some apple jacks in the cupboard so that is what I used, but any cereal can work. I put a handful of them in the toliet and pulled down his pants and took off his diaper and told him that we needed to try to sink the submarines with his pee. He started to pee (you might have to help him aim and he might need to stand on a stool) and he laughed and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Then we just kept doing that about every 45mins to and hour. Well we have been doing it now for 4 days and he has had a few accidents (usually when he is outside playing) but yesterday he was dry from 8 am to 8 pm. So don't give up...it will happen. But don't get frustrated or angry with him. They all do it in their own time. Make sure you make a HUGE deal out of it when he does go and let him know how proud you are of him :)
Hope this helps!
K.

Sometimes I think no matter how ready we are and how ready the kids are it just takes time. With our three year old we finally just put him in underwear and I did insane amounts of laundry for about a week. I refused to put him in a diaper and he HATED the wet feeling in underwear. As soon as he would pee he would start crying. Eventually he started asking to go potty but it was a long road!

Good luck!
C.

E.

I wouldn't push it. If he is actually saying "NO" (even if it is just to exercise his strong will), you may have a losing 'battle'...literally. You may want to focus on encouraging him to WANT to be ready. Something that could likely do that is to let him wear his big-boy underwear UNDER his diaper or pull up. This way he thinks that you think he is a big boy but he is not being pushed (and therefore trying to NOT train just to spite you). The best part about this strategy is that the underwear will feel horrible once it is all wet (unlike those pull-ups that make him feel nothing), so he will begin to learn the cues from his own body. And he may dislike it so much he may get "inspired" to want to train. Also, there are not as many messes for you to clean up (the pull-up catches most of it), yet it is accomplishing the same thing as just wearing underwear alone.If you don't want to wear the pull-up, maybe try a plstic/vinyl liner you put over cloth diapers.

This is just a suggestion, because every child is different. My oldert son and daughter were totally different in their ages and desires and what "worked". I'm sure my 7 month old will be her own unique way too (and I don't look forward to it:)...ughhh).

Good luck!!! Hope this helps.

I hate to tell you but I wouldn't push it. I would leave it alone for awhile and try again in a few months. It sounds as though he is telling you he's not ready yet. Just be patient. Perhaps get a basket of toys and stickers things he'd like and set it on the back of the potty and let him know that when he uses the potty he gets to pick something out of the box and leave him to think about that. Maybe seeing the box there will help him to use the potty. Good luck.

Hi E.,

I understand your frustration. I have 6 1/2 year old twins (boy/girl) and I waited until they were almost 3 to begin potty training. My daughter learned fast (about 3 days) and it took my son about 3 weeks. I waited until the fall to potty train them because we go to a pool during the summer and I didn't want to confuse them about not wearing diapers any more for training and then having to put the swim diapers on them to swim. All I can say is when you decide to begin, DO NOT use the diapers again during the day. You will be doing a lot of laundry and cleaning up a lot of messes, but switching back and forth between diapers and big boy underwear just confuses them and makes it worse. You may have to use a pull-up at night (my son had to use a pull-up at night for almost a year after potty training). We used the M&M's for rewards also and they loved it.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

C.

Oh, those little boys! First of all, don't panic - lots of kids (boys and girls) aren't trained till they're older than yours, no matter what you hear. It would be great to have him trained before #2 comes, but if you try to rush it probably won't work. The second thing is that they really do have to be physically and emotionally ready to train themselves, and I think that's what it comes down to. I was expecting my son when my daughter was 2 1/2, and we had tried a couple of times unsuccessfully to train her. One thing we figured out was that with disposable diapers, she really didn't feel uncomfortable when they were wet, so why would she care? We let her pick out some 'big girl underwear' and told her she could wear them when she thought she could stay dry. She would try one day, and if she had an accident we'd put them away and try again the next. Within a few weeks she was trained. But she was motivated, and we did our best not to get frustrated when she had an accident. Our son, on the other hand, was perfectly OK with wet diapers and I could tell he was just not ready until he was 3. We used the same approach with him - got the potty chair out, let him pick out big boy underwear - but he was still wetting at night till he was 4, and we're sure it's because he slept so soundly at night that he just wouldn't wake up to go. Some kids just take longer to get there. The trick is to keep presenting it to him as a positive thing and don't get too discouraged, or he will too.

I have recently been potty training my twin girls. The thing that really works is just to get that diaper off as much as you can during the day. I have been letting them run around outside with no underwear at all. I just put on dresses, with a boy, he could just wear a lond t-shirt. The first time they peed on their legs, they were so grossed out by it, they are not interested in doing that anymore!! I don't even allow them pull-ups, to them I think they feel like it is a diaper. Good luck.

My son is 3 months shy of 3 years, and he's the same as your little guy. I sit him on the potty, and that's fine with him, but he never goes in it. If he really is about to poop, he won't go near the potty--he's afraid he'll actually poop in it! When I ask him if he'd rather pee and poop in the potty or his diaper, he always says, "Diaper!". He's just not ready. I wish he was, because I have a 6 month old, too, and would really like to start changing a few less diapers, but he understands what we want him to do and he's pretty clear that he's not ready to do that (even for M&M's!). If he starts potty training before your next one is born, remember that it's normal for them to regress when there's a new little sibling in the house...

My pediatrician probably gave me the best advice ever...you can encourage them to go, but you can't make them go in the potty. my son trained to pee easily at about 2 1/2. He won't poop until almost 4. We ended up back in pull-ups b/c I couldn't deal with the messes. Then one day (like my ped told me) he started going in the potty. Some times too much attention or focus on the potty cripples them.

Good luck...

I don't know how you are starting him on the potty, but with my son I tried to have him sit first and he had no interest. Then I read about putting Cheerios in the toilet for him to aim at, and everything went so much easier after that. He loved the game of trying to hit the target, and I think that standing up (like daddy does, in his words) felt more comfortable to him. But the best advice I have is don't make it a struggle. It ends up being a stressful time for all involved, which will just end up making him want to avoid going in the bathroom at all!

I swear it works. Stay on him like white on rice. Follow him and make him go potty every hour on the hour. Set a timer and just do it. (If you don't his next step is taking off his diaper and hiding it, or taking down his pants and doing his business anywhere he feels he likes) It will only take about a week or less of this every hour, and you will basiclly be stuck at home for the whole week. You can take a potty outside and still continue your every hour routine during the week, but do not travel anywhere because it will only throw him off and you will have to start all over. Good luck