Potty Training! Toddler (and older) moms, come in!

[dvroxy]

Any suggestions for those who have been successful with potty training? MacKenzie is not even interested in it one bit! I figured when her cousin started potty training (he is totally trained now!) she might get excited. I have tried the idea of special panties, tried a few different pottys, and even bribed her with candy (which I hate to do!)

Just trying to get some advice from mommies who have been successful!

[mrsjenrn]

I would love to hear this, too! I need pointers!

One of my coworkers did a 3 day potty training thing where they hunkered down and stayed home and did nothing but focus on potty training. She also has a 10 month old. She said the first day and a half was awful, but then something clicked and she is potty trained, but for peeing only.

[mrschelseap09]

I am interested as well.... Lila's potty just came in the mail on Monday. She loves to sit on it but I don't know how to get her to understand that she actually has to potty on it, hahaha.
My friend's son was born the day after Lila and he is basically potty trained.

[tashaandsage]

Potty training sucked for me. Beckett was showing all the signs of being interested at 18 months, so we began...and it took unil a month before he turned three before he was completely trained. He would go in the potty a lot of the time, but then would just decide he didn't to do it for a week. And he wouldn't wear pull ups for some reason so it was either back into diapers or a lot of accidents in his underwear.

I tried every trick I heard and nothing worked until he all the sudden ready and after a couple days, I knew he finally had it. I wonder if despite him seeming very ready and interested, it the problem was I started too early. I know lots of people who began at 18 months or a little after, and their kids got it very quickly, although it was usually girls. Girls are supposed to be so much easier, so at least you have that going for you. I wasn't successful until he was truly ready, so my advice would be if she doesn't seem interested, I wouldn't push it yet. And there's nothing wrong with rewarding her when she does good, but instead of candy, you could do a sticker chart. We did that and he loved getting to get a nice sticker. Of course it didn't make him potty trained right away, but it made him feel good about his accomplishment.

I'd heard about people having great success with the 3 day potty training that Jen mentioned, but I just couldn't do it myself. I couldn't handle 3 days of a naked baby pooping and peeing all over the floor. I'm too neurotic for that. I'm going to probably start Maisy a little later and hope she is a lot easier than her brother.

[tashaandsage]

Aug 8, 2012 15:29:47 GMT -5 mrschelseap09 said:

My friend's son was born the day after Lila and he is basically potty trained.

That's insane for a boy to be trained so early. I'm jealous.

[tashaandsage]

Also, I just read your post in the pg/mom check in and saw that the reason you want to get it going was because of preschool. School will probably help when all of the other kids are using the potty. My niece was trained in a week because of school. Unfortunately for me, Beckett was one of only 2 kids working on potty training in his 2 year old class, so that didn't help him any.

[mskateb]

I'm going to assume this is one of those areas where kids vary wildly, and every single story will be different. I also think a lot of moms, hmm, let's say they embellish. Maybe not, and maybe my kid was just slow at potty training, but I think there's a big difference between starting to use the potty and being potty trained.

Also a disclaimer: I was NOT in a hurry to potty train. I guess I'm just lazy, but diapers are so much easier than dropping everything to find a bathroom. And cleaner than having your child pee on the carpeted floor in Hallmark. So, yeah, I guess I got used to the convenience of diapers, lol. I can't wrap my brain around the rush to be the youngest to potty train of all things.

I learned two things with Lily. First, potty training is a process. One step forward, one step back, et cetera. Second, there is NO POINT in frustrating yourself if your kid just ain't ready.

So here's my story, for whatever it's worth. I didn't do anything special with her. We made a sticker chart, and sometimes she remembered she wanted a sticker and sometimes she didn't. She responds really well to praise and positive reinforcement, so it was somewhat effective. Beyond that, I don't really know what we did. It just kind of happened when she was ready. She was DEFINITELY fully potty trained at school long before she was at home, and more independently, too. At school, she told her teachers she had to pee and off she went. At home, I had to remind her and ask her, and then she had an accident anyway. Eventually the accidents were fewer and then gone. With poo, I don't know, again, we didn't rush anything. She just went when she was ready. I don't remember any accidents with that. At night time, we stopped using pull-ups when they were dry every morning.

Maybe the strategy is different for every kid, but for Lily, it happened in her own time, her way, and anything we tried to do to intervene was pretty useless.

[etteyam]

DD1 started showing interest when she was 18 months old. So we got her a potty chair and introduced her to the idea. We didn't actually start until a few months later. However, after multiple accidents during the 1st week, we quickly realized she just wasn't ready yet. A couple months after her 2nd birthday, we tried again. I took a week off of work; we were pressured to get her PTed since the preschool she was going to this fall required that kids be PTed. This time around, it clicked on day 1. Within a week, she was 75-80% potty trained. Now she's 100% potty trained during the day. What helped was getting her a potty training dolly; I had DD pretend she was the dolly's mommy and that she had to take dolly to go potty every hour. Then I made her go on the potty too. We used stickers as reward. Ultimately, PTing success depends on whether the kid is truly ready.

[mrschelseap09]

How do you get them to know that they need to potty, in the potty? Lila loves to sit on it... I have even stuck her hand in cold water to try to trick her into it and I get NOTHING. lol

[kimandross]

I have to agree with the others, you can do whatever you want, but until they are ready, all you're going to do is frustrate them and yourself. When they ask to be changed or hide to go poop, those are good signs that they are ready.

We started with Quinn a little after he was 2, as I thought that was what was supposed to happen. I really think it took so long to get him fully trained because we started too early. Had I waited until he was truly ready, it would have taken just a few days. He was finally fully day trained a little before he was 3.5.

[dvroxy]

She has been hiding to poop for a while now and around 20 months, she was actually using the potty, but now she tells me flat out "No, I don't want to." It's just very frustrating.

I went out and bought her a princess potty last night and she loves it, but still refuses to use it as a potty.

I am definitely going to try the whole no diapers thing next week when I am home all week , but I am at my wits end. Hopefully we will see some progress.

[mrschelseap09]

Aug 9, 2012 8:41:47 GMT -5 dvroxy said:

She has been hiding to poop for a while now and around 20 months, she was actually using the potty, but now she tells me flat out "No, I don't want to." It's just very frustrating.

I went out and bought her a princess potty last night and she loves it, but still refuses to use it as a potty.

I am definitely going to try the whole no diapers thing next week when I am home all week , but I am at my wits end. Hopefully we will see some progress.

This sounds exactly how my friends son was, just before he decided that it was time to potty train.

[mrsjason]

Aug 8, 2012 15:41:58 GMT -5 tashaandsage said:

Potty training sucked for me. Beckett was showing all the signs of being interested at 18 months, so we began...and it took unil a month before he turned three before he was completely trained. He would go in the potty a lot of the time, but then would just decide he didn't to do it for a week. And he wouldn't wear pull ups for some reason so it was either back into diapers or a lot of accidents in his underwear.

I tried every trick I heard and nothing worked until he all the sudden ready and after a couple days, I knew he finally had it. I wonder if despite him seeming very ready and interested, it the problem was I started too early. I know lots of people who began at 18 months or a little after, and their kids got it very quickly, although it was usually girls. Girls are supposed to be so much easier, so at least you have that going for you. I wasn't successful until he was truly ready, so my advice would be if she doesn't seem interested, I wouldn't push it yet. And there's nothing wrong with rewarding her when she does good, but instead of candy, you could do a sticker chart. We did that and he loved getting to get a nice sticker. Of course it didn't make him potty trained right away, but it made him feel good about his accomplishment.

I'd heard about people having great success with the 3 day potty training that Jen mentioned, but I just couldn't do it myself. I couldn't handle 3 days of a naked baby pooping and peeing all over the floor. I'm too neurotic for that. I'm going to probably start Maisy a little later and hope she is a lot easier than her brother.

This makes me feel better. Macy has ZERO interest in potty training and she is two and a half. Like none. I have given up on potty training for now......does this make me a bad mom? LOL.

I think it's a control issue and her Pedi told me not to push it.

:\

[mrsjason]

I finished reading this post and hearing from the older moms makes me relieved.

I swear, everyone claims that their kid was trained at 18 months and they look at me like I have 3 heads when I say I have given up on potty training. I always get the comment of "She's 2.5 and not potty trained? You need to do x,y,z....."

But again a BIG THANK YOU for letting me know I am not a failure as a mom since my 2.5 year old poops in her pants.

[mskateb]

LOL, I totally forgot about hiding to go poop. Lily used to stuff herself into her closet, close the door over her on one side, and then close herself in with her dollhouse on the other side. I think we finally used some kind of bribe to get her to go on the toilet instead -- obviously she knew she had to go!

As for her age, like I said, she was definitely potty trained at school long before home, some time while she was still in the 2s class. But at home and with us....much older. 3.5, maybe? And she's a girl so she's supposedly faster, but not so much.

But it's funny how much of this I've already forgotten until I was reading what everyone else was saying. At the time, it feels like forever, but obviously not.