Help! Potty Training a Late Potty Trainee

The Chuck E. Cheese website has a couple great charts and one for potty training as well. It is a two week chart and at the end of the two weeks he can take it to Chuck E. Cheese for 10 free tokens. I take my daughter there every other friday just for the games, we don't like to eat there.

Good Morning!

My son helped me make his chart - we took a piece of paper (colored, white) let your child choose, drew lines down it and he got a sticker for each time he went. He got to select the type of stickers he wanted to use, batman, bob the builder, smiley faces, etc.

You can also get free charts at the Chuck e-Cheese website to print. Pampers and other diaper companies also have them - for free. Our potty came with a chart too.

To really encourage it you can start simple give a small reward every second or third time he goes in the potty. Then as he gets better at it, 5 times, a week.

We let my son choose the prizes (small matchbox cars, coloring books, candy, etc. - whatever will motivate your son)! Sometimes stickers can be the prize.

Good luck! When you least expect it, there will be accidents, but it gets less and less. My son turned 4 in May and he had one yesterday morning before getting out the door for school.

E.

Hi R.!
Look for info by John Rosemond (www.rosemond.com). I'm way past the potty training stage (9 year old), but just read a great article on older kids (3,4,+)that hold their poop. He had a great suggestion, but you have to be willing to try it. The results are fast according to him and it made a lot of sense. I've had several friends with this problem in the past and wish I could have recommended this advice!

Here is the article I read (in local paper): http://www.buffalonews.com/185/story/257091.html

Let me know if it works!! :)
A.

Hi R.. My daughter is only 11 mos old and I have no personal experience besides what I have read and learned from other friends. Some kids fear losing their poop, like seeing it go into a toilet scares them because they see it as part of themselves. Have you tried flushing his poop from his diaper down the toilet while cheerfully saying "bye bye poopooooo" EVERYTIME he goes. Also have you let him watch you or your husband go poop? This may seem weird to have him watch but if he sees that you are open about it and not ashamed of your "dirty poop" maybe he will be more willing to try himself. Do you tend to say something like "oooh your poop is very stinky, lets get you out of your yucky poopy pants". (Thats kind of an exaggeration, I know) but I have heard of children becoming very ashamed of their poop only because we as care givers tend to say negative things about poop, so they interpret it as a negative bodily function that they should be embarrassed of. Does he have a tiny baby potty? Try a booster seat that goes on top of the real potty so he can do it in an adult way and give him lots of praise like "you are such a big boy to sit on the mommy and daddy potty" even if he doesn't go, he tried. I have also heard many times to stay home for a week, no matter what just be home and consistantly put him on the potty every half hour to 45 minutes. Leave him alone to go by himself, again because of shyness or embarrassment. Give him a sticker everytime he tries, pee or poop. When pee comes out (because he has already done this) make it an extra special sticker or two stickers. If poop actually comes out cheer him on and praise him tons then give him his very special treat for pooping...a hot wheels toy car (the small ones for like a dollar) that you already have hidden for the special moment. Also my mom said that kids will digress after the birth of a new baby. maybe he is stressed about this or some other significant life change. Try not to scold him, he is probably already feeling uneasy about not having your approval on the matter. And last but not least cut everybody some slack because in the end he will go potty on the toilet and you dont want to set him up for "failure" in the bed wetting department, which often happens when kids feel too stressed out from the pressure. Hope this helps, even though I'm sure I will have difficulties in this department once we get to that stage. Good Luck and God Bless!

Hi! I made a potty chart for my 3 year old. I just used regular notebook paper and wrote poo-poo on it and told him each time he pooped on the potty he gets to put a sticker on the paper and after there were 5 poops/stickers (I just randomly picked 5 but 3 might be better to start off with) he gets a prize. He was really excited about this and would try pooping when there was no poop! After he got a couple of prizes, he no longer needed the chart or the prize, he was pooping on the potty! I just bought the $1 stuff they sell at target, but hey, a prize is a prize and it worked for him. Hope it'll work for you too!

Hi R.,
My son aslo was late to potty train for "Number 2". I think that the approach depends on what the issue is with going to the bathroom. If it's just that he doesn't want to stop and sit down, a chart might do the trick. In my case though, it was that my son was holding it for sometimes up to 5 days! Then he would run around the house in what we thought was trying to get it out, but it turns out that it was his way of trying to keep from going. We had tried prune juice and mineral oil in liquids to no avail. We were so concerned that we took him to a pediatric gastroenterologist who worked a miracle for us! He ended up putting my son on a very mild laxative called Miralax. He said that my son must have associated going #2 with pain at a very young age and was now trying to hold it. He told me to put him on the drink for 2-3 wks (I don't remember because it was 5 yrs ago) and then come back, but not to even suggest the toilet. Once he was "regular" we would introduce the reward chart and the toilet. In only one week on the liquid, my son ASKED to go to the toilet and it was all taken care of from there!
Good luck.

i am a stay at home mom....but, my youngest was "late". I had a chart i had gotten from the discovery store. every time he tried he got a sticker. pee went quickly once he wanted to pee. poo was a harder one. he found his own way once we found a "reward" that he wanted. it also took several frustrating (held internally for the most part) (try not to humiliate or scold, one thing like "oh, now that isn't what a big boy does that wants to go to school") i had to bite my tongue after several messy carpet clean ups...*sigh*. realize that they will do it their own way. he still won't sit to poo...he stands and backs up to the toilet. AND he wants to do it in private. we are working on the amount of toilet paper (NOT the whole roll) it takes to wipe up afterwards.

good luck. some are just a little more "bright" and "knows his own mind" than others.

Hi R.! This is a tough one, as children this age can be real control freaks (I mean that in the most loving possible way :) ), and they will latch on to things others can't force them to do - poop, eat, sleep, you name it - to exert their control over their own bodies.

In general I would recommend loosening up and allowing him to poop in a diaper if that's the only way he'll go - without judgment. A lot of us rush to potty train our kids because of peer pressure or the pressure the preschools put on us. It sounds like your son is fully capable of going on the potty, but he just doesn't want to "let go". This is not something you can push or rush.

There's a great potty training technique out there that involves having your child teach a stuffed animal or doll how to use the potty, and after that they will generally do it themselves. It involves candy bribes too, which I know people like to avoid but in extreme cases can be really helpful! There are several books out there on the subject. Try this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Less-Than-Day/dp/06...

Some of the "train in a day" books teach you to have "potty parties" - avoid those for your son, they work for some kids but my instinct tells me that if your son is working on control issues, a potty party will just scare him off.

I hope this helps. Good luck, and hang in there. This is a major milestone for kids, and some just need to do it at their own pace. He'll get there!