I'm curious about the finer points of potty training. My son just turned 3, and we've been working on this for over a year. He's only pooped himself 3 or 4 times in the past few months, and he gets VERY upset with himself when he does. Also when he only has to pee, sometimes he can do it without any help. He can push the stool over to the toilet, get his pants & pull-up down, flush, and even wash his hands without help. (I also have a 2 month old - so this is a huge deal for me!)
There's just a couple things I'm not sure how to manage.... first of all, how did you teach your child to wipe, and at what age? My son will get himself to the bathroom and sit down when he needs to poop, but I don't really trust him to clean up after, so I make sure he calls for me when he's done. He wants to be independent, and occasionally he will ask to wipe himself, and I don't want to discourage him from trying! But when I let him, he ends up getting his arm dirty, or his shirt, or just smearing the mess around. He does wash his hands but not very thoroughly, and he likes to stick his fingers in the baby's mouth!
Also we're trying to graduate from pull-ups to underwear. We have good weeks and bad weeks. He can dress himself, and some days he will take his pull-up off and put on underwear without being told, and manage to stay dry most of the day. Other days I will have to beg, plead, or bribe him to wear underwear and he'll throw a fit until I let him wear a pull-up. It's not about the new baby, or lack of attention, he will tell us that he is a big boy and he does not want to be treated like a baby!
We have rewards for him keeping his pull-up or underwear dry, and we try not to pressure him. We keep a jar of sweet tarts in the bathroom, and he gets 1 for peeing, 2 for pooping, and 3 if he washes his hands too. We praise him when he remembers to go, but we don't scold him when he doesn't. He will ask to go to the bathroom when he's at a playgroup without me, or when he's with a sitter. But I would love to ditch the pull-ups for good! We'll try anything :-)
We tried ditching the pull-ups cold turkey last Friday, and he did really well for almost a week! He was even taking himself to go pee without even telling anyone. But yesterday he regressed and peed himself 4 times, and we had to leave him with a sitter & she put him in a pull-up while we were gone. Guess we'll have to start over again!
We just told my 34 month old daughterahead of time that in a week we are throwing the pull ups away. Then the night before, we took her to buy undies at target. And we gave her rewards. I did read that you should lengthen the rewards from going once, to staying dry a day, to a week and so on. Good luck
My son potty trained at 2.5. He turned 4 in Oct. and just started wiping himself in the last month or so.
Ditch the pull-ups. Talk to your son and let him know that you won't be using them anymore so it's not a surprise and then ditch them and don't look back. Yup... you may have some accidents, but the pull-ups are nothing more then a diaper... and he knows it.
As far as wiping .... my daughter has been potty trained since she was 22 months old. However, just now... at 3.5 are we starting to teach her to wipe. I felt like previously her arms were just not long enough to get back there. Flushable wipes. They are wonderful. She uses the flushable wipe to wipe and then some TP to dry. I don't want her to get used to ONLY using the flushable wipes. Right now, we still go in with her... she does it and then we "check" when she thinks she's finished. The goal is to get her doing it all on her own by fall when she starts preschool.
use wipes for the poops, my daughter was potty trained when she was 2, for the longest time i had to wipe her rear. but her poops tend to be clean ones, tmi. but now she does it on her own. but if it is messy she asks for help. i am not sure about the pull ups, because i did not use them on my daughter because they tend to be dependent on them. i went straight to big girl undies for her, when i first started training her i just let her go with out undies for a while because they delayed her time to get on the potty. having to take her bottoms off. buy him what ever big boy undies he wants, like if they match his pull up. like toy story or cars.
you sound like your doing every thing right., it takes every kid different times to be ready for the potty.,
My son is just slightly younger than yours so we're dealing with some of these things too but thankfully he didn't like pull-ups so we didn't have to go through that extra transition! At the time I wanted him to wear them, but I'm glad it worked out that way!
A couple of thoughts: if there are any kids he knows who wear underwear, casually mention it to him. My guy was ready to train physically, but he didn't want to until he found out his little buddy was wearing big kid undies. We also made a big deal out of picking out underwear - he really wanted the Cars ones, his favorite movie at the time.
Propaganda. I find that if a book or a video can say it instead of me, the message goes a lot farther! You could see what your library has about underwear.
Like I said, we never did pull-ups, but I know it helps my son to have some time to get used to a change. We'll tell him, "in so many weeks, you're going to ..." Obviously he doesn't really understand how long that is, but he seems to understand that this change is going to happen soon but not right this second. He might be upset at first, but by the time we get to the actual change, whatever it is, he's usually just fine with it. I think if you show your son his supply of pull-ups, and tell him that once they are gone, he's going to wear underwear. You could keep the bag out so he can see how much closer he's getting to that day, and remind him casually once a day that when he's done with them he'll get to wear his new big kid undies.
As for the wiping, I only wish mine wanted to wipe himself! I think that's awesome. You could try what I do when we brush teeth - my son gets a turn and I get a turn. That way he gets to feel like he's doing it on his own, but I know that his teeth are actually getting clean.
It sounds to me like you're doing a great job! Good luck!
They make flushable wipes for kids, and well adults too. that is what i used to teach my kiddos to wipe. Just gets them cleaner with less effort, and won't hurt the plumbing.
I would just get rid of them. Maybe tell him "This is the last day you get to wear pull-ups, and then they are all gone and you get to wear big boy underwear!" You might have a fight for a little bit, but if you are consistent and just tell him that is how it is going to be he will accept in quickly. He will also learn more control. Maybe start on a weekend so you can have some additional help, but I would bet in just a few days he will be completely able and willing to use the potty every single time. Good luck!
He won't have any pull ups to wear if you stop buying them from the store.
I'd stop the pullups, sounds like he is ready for that for sure. The wiping thing just takes practice and dexterity. Make a picture of a poopy but with some crayons and tell him how he really needs to make sure the paper gets the exit cleaned, and of course show him what germs look like and he will be more than happy to wash his hands thoroughly.
Usually by age 4 you dont have to wipe the butt anymore unless they have a bout of diahrea.
