Potty Training Do's and Don'ts

I highly recommend using potty training pants with plastic pants rather than pull-ups. That way, they get the wet feeling and will potty train faster! Hope this helps and good luck!

Every child is different. My biggest learnings were... 1 - DONT rush it, if you do it takes longer and is harder on everyone, so I'm glad you waited. Even now if he's not showing interest in a potty, wait for his cues. 2 - Don't ever use punishment or make them feel badly about accidents. It's all about positive reinforcement. 3 - Be patient (easier said than done).

We had good luck with just going cold turkey at home - no diapers (except nap time) for a few days. Can't leave the house, but it did seem to work well. I took her to the store to buy big girl panties (her choice of design) and then explained there would be no more diapers. When she did well, she got a HUGE positive reaction - potty dances and songs (glad no one heard them but her) and tons of praise.

Definitely read up on the subject either on-line or through books, if you haven't already, this will help you to know the many steps there are to take when potty training, and how to emotionally deal with your son, and yourself, when he has "accidents" or doesn't obey. Also, get a book for him, that shows pictures of kids his age following the steps, read it with him often, and help him to be excited about doing what they are doing.

Next, for my son, we tried pull-ups for quite some time and it seemed to enable him to not use the toilet because it didn't matter if he had an accident or not. So we took him completely out of pull-ups and into "big boy" underwear, except for at night. It has definitely seemed to help him remember when he needs to go, besides us reminding him. Although he's done better as the weeks have gone by he occassionally still has accidents; so don't get discouraged if this happens with your son, it's totally normal.

The best advice I can give you is to take it one step at a time, it will fall into place when he is ready, while you are encouraging and teaching him. You know your child best, so no matter what has worked for others, or what others think is best for your son, you will know what needs to be done each step of the way. Just pay attention to how he reacts and when he gets scared or discouraged, be there to support him. Now, having said that, stay firm with what you decide to do; because just like most things with kids, if you are consistant with it, even when times get tough, they learn to trust you and trust themselves, that they can do it.

I know this seems to be like a chapter in some book, but I'm almost done. Just one example to support my last comment. My son has struggled on and off with the pooping in the toilet part. He would go and hide, and still occassionally does, and would rather poop in his underwear or pull-up than go in the toilet. So whenever we could catch him bending down we would tell him to run to the toilet. He would start pushing and then jump off and say he was done. I learned that he was scared, obviously, so I would sit next him. I asked him why he didn't want to poop in the toilet; he would say, "I don't know", and I would ask him, is it because you're scared and He would say ya. So I told him I would hold his hand and he could squeeze my hand while he went. I continued to do this or rub his back (anything that seemed to comfort him at the time). My husband and I had to help teach him how to relax even though he was scared. My point is that even though he was scared and often it was frustrating to clean out poopy underwear or have him not obey and I wanted to just put him back in pull-ups, I had to follow through with teaching him how to go in the toilet and not back down just because I know how it feels to be scared. I knew that if I didn't follow through with what we had started that it would teach him that when things get tough/scary or if he would make it tough for me/us that I/we would just back down and go the easy route.

So stick with it! If it's honestly not working and he is regressing, change things up a little, but don't give up. Unfortunately this isn't one of those things that you can push your kid to learn. So don't become controlling about it, but stay consistant. Once you reach a certain stepping stone, stay consistant with it and don't move on to the next step until you can see he is ready. I think it's best to take a little longer in one step, rather than pushing too quickly to the next and having to step back because your frustrated and he wasn't ready. Again, good luck! Just like knowing when your kids are ready to move from bottle/nursing to solid foods and so forth, you will know when he is ready to move from one step to the next through out potty training. Trust yourself and he will trust you to help him know what to do.

Check out the book called "How To Potty Train In a Day". It takes a bit of advance planning...but worked really well. Strangely, I did the whole program and it didn't work that day...but two days later my son asked to wear big boy underwear and he never went back. Other than a few accidents in the middle of the night, he didn't have a single accident once he made the decesion. The night-time accidents ended once we got smart enough to have a liquid cutoff early in the evening.

Good luck!

M. H

I have 3 well past "mmmommm, I'm ready for you to come wipe my butt!"

if I were to do it all again, I'd start with announcing happily that I need to pee or poop and then go do it, come out, wash my hands noisily, and then eat an ice cream cone.
I'd do this ad nauseum for weeks until junior wants an ice cream cone so bad he is peeling off his diaper and peeing in the potty on his own. then we would go to wash and help ourselves to ice cream.

if it were me.
A.

I just wanted to say that I have three boys, and they were all different. I did use the potty training in less than a day and my son, who was showing little interest in the potty, was trained in two days. It worked great. We never used pull-ups or diapers with him from day 1 of potty training. Second son wasn't as easy - had the poopy problems! He was "potty" trained from just over age two, but the poopy training took much longer. I ended up using a pull up to save MY sanity. But once he actually went poop once on the potty, he never had another accident. Third son was very interested and was close to being fully potty trained when he was about 19 months but then we moved and he regressed. I just put him back in a diaper and didn't make an issue out of it. I ran out of diapers when he was about 2 1/2 and I told him he needed to go on the potty. So, after a couple of days he was totally potty trained! I went cold turkey on the diapers with him and didn't leave the house much for a couple of days.

My biggest piece of advice would be not to use pull-ups. I did use training underwear so it didn't make as much of a mess in my house if they had an accident. Training underwear is just thicker than normal underwear and more absorbant, but it definately lets your child know he or she is wet. Potty training is something you have to commit to - it takes patience and consistency on your part. I see a lot of parents who go back and forth between underwear and diapers or pull-ups so they can run errands, etc and it seems to take them months to fully train their child. Maybe start on a long weekend so you don't have to go anywhere and your hubby can take your daughter.

GL!

Patience & a stack of towels to wipe up the oopsies. Boys take longer to train than girls (something to look forward to w/your daughter)-at least in my experience-and they've got horrible aim. I had to set a timer to remind all of us it was time for our trainer to potty. Whichever "He" was training went potty first thing, just before eating, just after eating & in 30 min intervals for the first hour after meals, & the timer was set for every hour otherwise. He potied just before bed & just before I went to bed. Cut off the fluids when you get about 2 hours out from bed. If he's absolutely gotta have a drink, buy the little dixie cups that are the size of a shot glass, the kind the dentist has. If we eat dinner too late even now, I know my youngest will wake up wet (like this morning, ug)
If he seems ready to train (my older son wasn't trained til after 4 but my younger son wasn't quite 3) take him to the store to pick out a pack of big boy undies. They get washed up & sit in a visible place til he's dry during the day (1-2 accidents in a 4 day period was good enough for me). He got to pick his big boy undies & has something to look forward to.
I never used pull ups or anything like that. I got diaper liners (same thing as the thick maxi pads so I started getting those & we called them "potty pads") & put those in training pants w/rubber pants when we started overnight training.
Just read everyone else's responses. I never punished for accidents but if it was an obvious lazy pee (for instance when my youngest whipped it out & peed on his bedroom floor w/the bathroom being the next room over) they had to clean it up. My older son was a slow poop trainer & would often (at first) poop his pants so he didn't have to go sit on the potty & do it there. When it seemed like he should have it down but just wasn't taking the time to go, he started helping me clean him up. Then we moved to him cleaning up & standing in the shower so we could wash him off the rest of the way. My baby is 6 & a heavy sleeper so he has some accidents now & then overnight-he gets up & gets right into the shower.
Good luck!

I wish that I had known how long it really takes to potty train. For some kids its right away, especially if they are ready. For some kids it takes a whole year. Also of course that boys are different in potty training than girls. For, boys you have to choose whether to potty train standing or sitting. If you try sitting and change the boy to standing too soon, he gets confused, which is probably why my son took a long time. He still sits going potty. We started our 3 1/2 year old around 2 1/2 years and had him sitting down, but he wasn't truely potty trained both day and night until about 4 months ago. Good luck with your potty training adventures.

My experience was to wait until my son was ready...so this meant I waited until he was 4.75 years old. It was not easy waiting all that time, listening to other people try to tell me what I should be doing, but it was so worth it in the end. We tried potty training when he was younger, but it always ended with us both in tears so we decided to not mention it again and let him direct his own potty training. Waiting for him to decide when he was ready was the best thing I've ever done as a parent. He decided that he was ready and never looked back. He's never had one accident and neither one of us have had any tears about potty issues ever again.

First, you need to get the book "Potty Training in a Day" and read the whole thing before you try. Also, I have found that bribery is the best trick EVER. With my middle son, I just did a big bowl of toys and candy from the dollar store and he got to pick out one every time he peed or pooped in the toilet (not if he just sat on the toilet he had to go).

You will have a bit of a prob if your son has the constipation problem. My first boy was the same way, so here is what I did. I put corn syrup in everything he drank, usually 1 to 2 tablespoons. I did not use any medicine after a while, they just didn't seem to help and I got sick of filling him with drugs. If he was real bad I also put mineral oil in his drink with the corn syrup. It worked like a charm. The Potty Training in a Day worked perfect and he was peeing in the toilet with no accidents within 1/2 day - REALLY! He did however hold off on the pooping for a couple of months after, guess the book was not called "Poop Training in a Day" = ) I think it was a bit rougher on him because of the constipation. My second son did not have the same problem and trained on both right away.

Good Luck!

Three is not "late" for starting to potty train a boy. Average age for boys is actually about 3 1/2 (meaning about half of boys aren't trained till later).

Some don'ts:
Don't push him. If he is clearly not interested then wait a few weeks or a couple of months.
Don't scold him for accidents.
Don't compare him to other kids who may be already using the potty.

Some do's:
Praise him for every effort, whether he is successful or not.
Read books about going potty as long as he is interested.
Try going to some playgroups (or playdates) with children near his age who do potty. The positive peer pressure (seeing them do it) may be an incentive.

Potty training can usually be very fast once a child is ready. Both my boys were trained within a week or two, once I waited till they were ready (my older was a couple months past 4, my younger around 3).