My 3 yr old son will got potty (only #1, no #2 yet) when I take him but will not tell me when he has to go. I have him in pull ups. Should I switch to just underwear? Is he too comfortable in the pull ups? I did bribe him with mini M & M's in the beg to get him used to it but don't need to do that anymore. Also, any tips for getting him to go #2? Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance!
Going through the exact same thing right now.
We make it through the day as long as I'm telling him when it's time to go.
(Oddly, for the nanny, he goes on his own.)
I took mine out of Pull Ups because he would just go in them. Now that we switched to underwear all day (still diapers at night), we've made a lot of progress.
How does he do in just underwear? Has he gone potty by telling you first, or always you asking him? We started asking my son constantly ( he just turned 3 in june ) and he would go, and we would either have him in underwear all day or he would run around in the buff! But it was kind of frustrating because he would have accidents frequently. So we switched to pull ups, and we noticed that when he was wet, he would tell us and demand he be changed. So then we eased back into underwear after about a week of him demanding to be changed. He never looked back. As for going number 2, he would tell me he had to, and he would try but he wouldnt go, and after doing that 3 or 4 times in a row he would finally go. I didnt force it, just kept encouraging him. He;s in pre-school and they are big into stickers after the potty so he gets excited about that. If it's too hard, then he's not ready to be trained. Its true when they say, when they are ready its easy.
Take the pull-ups off. He is not stupid; he knows that a pull-up is a diaper; the only difference is the way it's put on. He has been "taught" to pee/poop in a diaper so why should he tell you he has to go to the bathroom when you've provided him with a diaper to go in? He's smarter than you realize!
We used M&M's when my kids were little.
We started with our boys "making bubbles" in the toilet after watching me do it. My wife made a big deal of it and handed me some M&M's which she showed our sons as they watched me. (You cannot have a bashful bladder and do this.) She clapped her hands and made a big deal out of it.
It worked almost the same way with #2. Observe, reward, imitate. BTW, if they just pass gas, you reward them anyway because at the early stages they cannot tell the difference.
I have a large glass jar (probably 2.5 gallon size) filled with all kinds of fruit rollups, halloween sized candy and treats for my grand kids. I have more success in getting my grandkids to go to the bathroom than my kids do because of "Grandpa's special treats."
Good luck to you and yours.
Switch to underwear, take him every 30 min to try and potty. Get a sticker reward chart and each time he goes, he gets one. Watch his body movements and if he goes to hide and go potty---hang in there!
M
UNDERWEAR!!! my son is potty trained for #1, 2 and now at night. All due to underwear. Pull ups are ridiculous. Just another diaper. They are only made for pure convenience. As underwear is messy with accidents.
You want your child to speed up in his potty training. do the switch. Deal with the accidents. Praise like hell, encourage his bowel movements, and make him clean up his first few accidents of having a bowel movement in his underwear. It will change his entire outlook on going in his underwear. worked like a charm for my son :)
Switch him to underwear, my 3 year old can't tell the difference between a pull-up and a diaper and will always just go pee or poop in a pull-up...waste of time and money. Sticker charts have worked well for peeing, m+m's candies are working great for pooping! He knows if he poops he gets some m+m's, I'm going to stick with that until it becomes a regular thing.
A lot of three year-olds won't say when. Just put him on a potty schedule, and take him there.
I would put him in underwear. As far as him telling you when he needs to go... I think that just is going to take a bit more time and patience. Keep on taking him regularly, and keep on suggesting to him that he can tell you when he needs to go. One thing I did that helped with our two daycare children was to make up charts for them with each step of going potty listed. One of those steps was that they told us when they needed to go. After using the toilet, they got to mark off each step they had completed and we gave them positive feedback on having been successful, including being sure the parent who picked them up got to see what they had done that day. Our chart included going #2, but if they didn't do that, we commented that it just wasn't the time for them to do it that time, so they would get to mark that one when it was time and they did it.
#2 is a more difficult part of potty training for the child to get, so that again may just take some time and patience. However I think being in underwear will also help that process.
