Phasing out PTing rewards

[Deleted]

How do I phase out PTing rewards? He's 3.25. DS has been PTed for a month, no accidents. He still uses a pull-up at nap and bedtime, that will continue for awhile. He gets 1 m&m for pee, 2 if he uses the potty when I ask him to (like before we leave the house), and 3 for poop. Using the potty is going REALLY well, so I'm okay using the rewards awhile longer, but would like to phase them out soon. How do I do that? He definitely knows he gets m&m's to go potty, he'll run to the bathroom saying "I need to go potty and GET M&M's!"

page do you have one of your trademark "perfect things to say to your kid" to cover this situation?

[mainelyfoolish]

When I did it with my DD, I had a jar of candy in the bathroom. When she was good at using the toilet, I told her that when the jar was empty, she would earn a big reward (for her, a princess play tent) and then there would be no more candy.

My DS is now potty training and I didn't use candy at all this time. So much easier. Live and learn.

[Nenibay]

We had an "end prize". When she longer needed diapers she got a big doll she wanted. Then, we reminded her that she has to keep being a big girl and use the potty to keep the doll. It took a few times to realize she no longer got gummies each trip but it worked well for us.

[arch01]

We were just mysteriously all out of M&Ms and would distract him with something else to do to get over the tantrum.

[pattieice]

I used marshmallows as the reward and it kinda just phased out on its own. After a little while he stopped remembering to ask for one each time and I stopped reminding him. Then I eventually showed him that he bag was empty. It took a few weeks but it happened.

[mlt]

We "ran out" of M&Ms and showed him the empty bag and said something like "because we are out of M&Ms how about you get a prize if you use the potty without accidents for a week." And then after he got the prize (it was a Thomas car he wanted) he kind of forgot about rewards.

[Deleted]

Jun 22, 2015 7:19:40 GMT -5 pattieice said:

I used marshmallows as the reward and it kinda just phased out on its own. After a little while he stopped remembering to ask for one each time and I stopped reminding him. Then I eventually showed him that he bag was empty. It took a few weeks but it happened.

This is what I'd planned on doing. But we're a month in, and he still asks for his rewards EVERY TIME. Memory like an elephant, this one.

[pattieice]

Jun 22, 2015 7:43:46 GMT -5 @supergreen said:

Jun 22, 2015 7:19:40 GMT -5 pattieice said:

I used marshmallows as the reward and it kinda just phased out on its own. After a little while he stopped remembering to ask for one each time and I stopped reminding him. Then I eventually showed him that he bag was empty. It took a few weeks but it happened.

This is what I'd planned on doing. But we're a month in, and he still asks for his rewards EVERY TIME. Memory like an elephant, this one.

Wow. That's tough. I think we were done with the marshmallows at a month. Your son has a steel trap!

[nachos]

I cut back from every time to at the end of the day at first.

Dry by bathtime? Great! You get your M&Ms then! That stretched to two, then it got much easier. The kids forgot about it eventually.

[Deleted]

Jun 22, 2015 8:50:01 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

My friend who recently potty trained switched to a daily reward for staying dry all day - she bought a pack of matchbox cars and he got to choose one at bedtime if he stayed dry all day. I think she talked up how he was doing soooooo well and was a big boy yadda yadda.

We're going to end up with 30 matchbox cars if we use this method! I'd rather dole out a few m&m's, heh.

[drloretta]

If I remember correctly, we started doing a thing where DD got to pick out a prize from the dollar section at Target if she went X number of days without an accident. After we saw she was consistent, we told her she was a big girl and didn't need to get a prize any more. She was OK with that.

[Deleted]

Sorry @supergreen, we don't use rewards in parenting or PTing so I have no experience with this!

[redpenmama]

We did M&Ms too. I phased them out gradually. Once we got pee down, we only gave them for pooping. She gradually forgot on her own. Every now and then, she asked for one, and I just told her we were out, which was true. No tantrums (and she had fits about everything).

[laurenh]

We had good luck switching from chocolate chips to stickers and then we just stopped once she was in undies around the clock. She still sometimes asks for a chocolate chip and we say not anymore and she usually drops it if we change the subject.

[lolo]

Jun 22, 2015 9:04:08 GMT -5 page said:

Sorry @supergreen, we don't use rewards in parenting or PTing so I have no experience with this!

I would be interested to hear how you did it, either here, in a PM, or a separate thread.

[jsillyfun]

We did treats for like 2 months and then she stopped asking. She asks every now and then and I let her have it but it's rare now.

[Deleted]

Jun 22, 2015 9:45:28 GMT -5 lolo said:

Jun 22, 2015 9:04:08 GMT -5 page said:

Sorry @supergreen, we don't use rewards in parenting or PTing so I have no experience with this!

I would be interested to hear how you did it, either here, in a PM, or a separate thread.

Honestly we did not do anything too different from what I hear on here, we just didn't do rewards. We had DD1 running around naked and we kept an IKEA potty chair in whatever room we were in. We talked a lot about peeing on the potty. Then when she would start to pee, we would rush her to the potty and celebrate with her over anything that made it into the potty, even just a few drops. Clapping, shouting, high fives, etc. We even made up a song in the style of the "We did it!" song at the end of every Dora episode (she was obsessed with Dora at the time). 

So basically we "rewarded" her with praise and genuine enthusiasm. She got the message. It took about 3 days when she was 2 years 5 months.

DD2 is sort of following suit now... we let her run around the yard naked in the afternoons and she is sitting on the potty chair and peeing on her own. We are not making a formal attempt to train her (I'm not ready yet) but we do express our excitement and enthusiasm when she pees in the potty.

[Deleted]

Jun 22, 2015 9:04:08 GMT -5 page said:

Sorry @supergreen, we don't use rewards in parenting or PTing so I have no experience with this!

Fair enough! Thanks for checking in.

[gibbinator]

We ran out of stickers and told him so BUT HIGH FIVE HURRAY GOOD JOB WHAT A BIG BOY MORE HIGH FIVES I'M SO HAPPY WHAT AN AWESOME JOB HIGH FIVE LOW FIVE TOO SLOW HAHAHA YAY!
He quickly forgot about stickers. High fives are the new currency.

[GotWine]

Once DD was fully potty trained I stopped giving her chocolate chips for using the potty. Now she can earn them by using the bathroom completely independently. She is perfectly capable of doing it, but sometimes starts whining that she wants company. It isn't always a possibility for me to stop feeding ds, or whatever I'm doing, so I let her earn some chocolate chips for doing it all by herself.
I told her that it's her reward for practicing a new skill and once she masters that skill she we can find a new skill to focus on to earn treats.
She usually only remembers to ask for a treat after using the bathroom first thing in the morning. During the day she is usually more focused on getting back to whatever she was doing beforehand.