Help with Potty Training - Spring Valley, NY

Hi A.,

My oldest is in the same place. She will be 3 in October and has shown all signs of readiness but refuses to poop on the potty. I have tried everything from immediate awards (m&m's) to a big reward (a baby doll bed she really wants) and she still will not go. She is in big girl undies all day except for her nap she wears pull ups. She will even go as far as to tell me she has to go potty and run to the bathroom and pee all by herself. She knows her body and understands the feelings. She will poop in her undies and want to be changed immediately... she does not like to walk around with poop in her underwear, she has that awareness but just won't go on the potty. She will say tomorrow mommy! I realized I need to listen to what she is saying... she will go when she is ready.... tomorrow. So be patient, this will come in time. I know it is stressful, being a teacher and going back to work next week, my goal was to have her trained by summers end... well we are half there! I hope that with the start of Pre school she will make the changes she needs to make herselfuse the potty. Good luck and don't let it stress you out.

Hi A.,

I feel your frustration! My son will be 3 in September, and has exhibited all the "signs of readiness" for potty training for months now, but just wants nothing to do with it. We've tried on and off throughout this year and have made no progress. We've decided to back off and just let him decide when he's ready. We do continue to talk about all his friends & cousins his age who use the potty, and occasionally ask him if he wants to try. He's become very good at saying "NO!"

We will be sending him to daycare full time next week. He's been there before, but has been home with me for this past year. I'm hoping that in his return to being around the other boys that DO use the potty, he'll start to pick up on it and want to be part of that crowd.

One of the things we try to do as much as possible at home is to dump & flush his poop in the toilet after changing him. That way, he sees the appropriate place for it, and he gets to participate by flushing & washing his hands.

I take a deep breath and repeat to myself
It will happen eventually....it will happen eventually....

Good luck to you - and try not to stress about it!

I'm not up to potty training yet with my son, but I was just talking to my sister yesterday about potty training. Her daughter was almost 4 and had been going pee in the potty for months without a problem, but she was afraid to poop. My sister said that she just decided she had to stop using pull ups, so she found some really thick cotton underwear to put her in, in case she had an accident. She said within about 4 days she was using the potty for everything. I don't know if you're using pull ups, but we kind of agreed yesterday that pull ups seem to be more for us than for them, and can kind of hinder a kid's training because they know the diaper is there. Good luck :)

I am in exactly the same situation with my daughter.
Recently I found this website that had some good suggestions.

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weeklyquestion/a/04_potty_...

I'm giving it a try so every time she asks for a diaper now I first ask her if she would like to try to be a big girl and go in the potty. She says no and I tell her that I'll put a diaper on her, but she must stay in the bathroom to go poop. I try to get her to sit on the potty, but she is not ready to do that yet so I have her just stand near the toilet. After she is done, we take the diaper off and put the poop in the potty, make a big deal about it, wipe her off and let her flush the toilet.
I am hoping that she will eventually sit on the toilet with the diaper on and then after a while I can either cut a hole in it or remove it. We are taking baby steps, but we will get there when she is ready.
Best of luck!!
B.

Hi A.,

Potty training can be stressful! Some boys just take longer. Some of the signs that they are getting ready is when they hide or go off by themselves when they are going in their diaper. My nephew was 4 before my sister-in-law got him trained. My son is turned 3 earlier this month and we spent the summer working on this. I'm happy to say that we are out of diapers except for at night. He is starting preschool in a few weeks and he must be potty trained in order to attend. We never told him that he couldn't go to school unless he was trained. We put him in pull ups for several months and encouraged him to use the potty and when he did we gave him stickers, candy, etc. However, we were not making real progress. One suggestion was to put cheerios in the toilet and have him aim for them. However, that really didn't work for us. I purchased books and videos about potty training and he went with my husband to the bathroom to see what to do. Other moms had suggested that we take time during the summer and just put him in underwear. In June of this year, we knew that we would be home for four days and we put him in underwear and just kept taking him to the bathroom. It was a ruff first week, there were many accidents and we changed his clothes several times a day. We also purchased a portable potty to leave in the car to use when we were out and couldn't get a bathroom quickly. He still has accidents and I still need to make sure that I remind him to use the bathroom. Besides a potty seat in the bathroom we also have the seats that go on the toilet so he can sit on it without falling through.

Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions.

S. D.

I have twin boys that will be four in a little over two weeks, and we have only recently got them both to poop in the potty. The first one has been doing it for almost six weeks, but the other has been completely stubborn and only started about ten days ago. It seems like we tried everything possible... prizes, popsicles, candy (we got desparate), anything and everything. Pre-K is coming up very soon and I had to really start pushing the issue. What finally worked with the more stubborn child, which didn't work a month ago, was taking away the safety net...the pull-up. It had served its purpose well with peeing, but now was hindering progress. My point is, some kids, especially boys, will take their sweet time, and something that may not have worked even a month ago, may work now. I wish I could give you that micacle cure, trust me, I looked for it, but I can't. All I can say is don't let up, no matter how discouraging it may seem.

A.,

My daughter turned 3 last November and didn't potty train until this summer. You son will do it when he's ready. Let him have control of this one thing...it is his body after all. If he is having some genuine fears, help him out by addressing them, but otherwise have faith that this too shall pass. Take care.

D....mother of 5, 3 of them didn't potty train until 3, one is too young yet

I had a similar issue with both my boys, the thing that worked best was a naked weekend. Run around the house naked, the would not potty on the floor and they had no diaper so they had to use the potty for everything. GOOD LUCK.

My son struggled also. His pediatrition said it was normal for boys to take longer, even close to 4 years old to be fully trained. My son just became diaper free, and he is 3 1/2. I backed off when he resisted and kept him in pull ups until he was interested in the potty again. It took us probably 6 mos going back and forth from potty to diapers to be trained. An elmo potty coloring book with reward chart was the final nudge I gave, and it worked. We drew a star for each potty task, and he got to pick out a prize at the store when he filled up a row. This motivated him a lot, and now he just goes on his own. Our next task is to get him to actually wait for a potty to be around. He likes to pee in parking lots and on the beach.

Stop giving him diapers. That is what i did! And it worked! My daughter had to poop and I refused to giver her a diaper (which almost killed me from guilt) but it worked in ONE day@!