Potty Training - Grand Haven, MI

We made a potty chart for her to put stickers on when she went potty. Little stars for #1 and big starts for #2. We also put everyone in the family on it, including the dog. (I couldn't rack my husband and I all the time, so I would add stickers at night sometimes.) It made it fun for her and she helped make the chart. Good Luck!

My daughter was EXACTLY the same, even down to the dance conversation and "changing her mind". ARGH! I was so frustrated. I started potty training her around age 2 1/2 and it took a good year. She is so headstrong! She had to do it on her own schedule. If I pushed at all, she pushed back until I finally gave up and that's when she pooped on the potty for the first time. I'd keep mentioning the dance class thing, offer rewards, but mostly don't mention it except to occasionally ask if she wants to sit on the potty. One day she will say yes! Please send me a note if you want to talk more.

I offered treats to my son when he went on the potty. I would offer him a piece of candy or a trip to the store to pick out a toy then it became a weekly thing or a waking up dry thing etc.. He did very well and I also made him wear underpants as much as possible and did the naked thing for a while . Good luck I hope it works out for you!

First don't ever let anyone tell you that she should be potty trained by now. Every child is different and if your not readt to deal with it why push it. My son was three and he wasn't potty trained and of course my husbands fathers new wife was all over me. I just told her that he is not ready and neither am I. I dislike that women so I didn't care what she said, but it still bothered me because she was always so rude about it. When my son turned four I couldn't stand the fact that I was diapering a 4 year old so i took all his diapers away and made him go naked. Needless to say it was a mess but well worth it. As soon as he started he didn't stop and he hasn't had any accidents except in bed. The only problem I have is he won't poop on the potty. He is afraid of it and screams to high heaven if we even try to put him on it. But the pee part he has down pat. Good luck and just keep trying.

I can tell you what I did with my son... He had already been showing interest for a few months and would go on the potty before bath time and when getting ready for bed and such (well, sometimes), so one morning, I took off his diaper and put underwear on him and told him that he was a big boy and that we were all done with diapers. I took him to the potty about every hour and had him try to go. Sometimes he went, sometimes he didn't. And, yes, he had accidents. I would just clean him up and tell him that it was ok and next time tell me when he had to go. After about 3 accidents, he would start to go, but then the wet feeling would remind him what he was doing (they have to break themselves of the habit of just going when they have to go), he would tell me and then he would finish in the potty. At nap time and at night time, we would put a pull-up over his underwear to protect the sheets, but NO MORE DIAPERS!!! I didn't want to confuse him. He was trained in less than 3 days. Our first few outings, I did put a pull-up over his underwear just in case, but we never had an accident, he always told me when he had to go and I would ask him on occasion. He was also dry at night after 3 days. I put the pull-up on him for about 3 weeks, but when I realized that I was re-using the same pull-up over and over, I decided that I could give that up. Now, going poop was a different story. He knew when he had to do that and would go hide and then tell me after to change him. After a couple of days of this, I decided that bribery was the only answer. We went to the store and he got to pick out a toy and we put it right back on the shelf (this was after we mastered staying dry). I told him that after he went poop in the potty 3 times, we'd go back to the store and get it. The next day was the first time and he never had an accident again. Good luck!

Honey, sounds familiar. Our daughter is smart as a whip, but didn't train until she was almost four. She, too, wanted to go to school but we ended up not being able to send her until halfway through since she trained late. However, we decided not to make it an issue. She loved the "Potty Power" video from the library and that really did help. And we did stickers for every successful completion. Once she filled a sheet with stickers (this was just for going pee) I said she had to do at least one row for poops. And then she could wear the underwear that she had picked out, and I would call the school and tell them that she was ready. Just don't stress about it. They'll do it when they're ready :)

My friend just loaned me a little alarm to help with potty training my son at night, as well as my two yr old daughter during the day. She used this on her kids and it worked perfectly. Basically, there is a clip at one end that has a sensor to sense for wetness, that you clip onto the pullup inside the diaper where it would normally get wet. The alarm goes off and helps the child associate the alarm and the feeling to go potty. It's nice because you have to reset it, so you know you will take your child to the potty every time. My friend said it took her son 3 months to get the night time potty training down. I hope this suggestion helps you in your training.

I'm having that same problem right now. He's ready and we put him on the potty every ten minutes but he doesn't go. He'll got literally two minutes later.

He has one diaper left. I told him that we don't have any more diapers and he has to use the potty now. I can tell he understood me because he said his word for underpants, telling me he has those left. I'm hoping his anxiety about getting muddy will also help with getting wet or 'dirty'. He hides when he goes poo.

I was a lucky one. I didn't potty train my first 3 boys. My ex husband did since he worked nights. If this is your only child in the house, why don't you always leave the door open when you go, she's not going to remember that when she's bigger but she'll she that you do it and you can pull the "you want to be like mommy in the kitchen, in the garden, and now in the bathroom" line. My mom said she did this with me and my sister, but my sister had a problem with -- oh my -- mom's hair. So she shaved. I know TMI, but hey, we gotta raise our kids and can't ever get too much advice. Sometimes it's the strange that works.

Good luck to you.

"Potty Free Before 3" is a really helpful book. Hope it helps!

Children's neurological systems mature at different rates. When they can sense uncomfortable fullness and wetness, then they are ready. People who question why your daughter isn't potty trained yet are only showing their ignorance. Many kids are potty trained at 4 who weren't ready at 3, my son included. Check with her doctor to rule out physical problems at your next checkup, but don't let ignorant people make you feel that you or your child are defective. If their child was potty trained at 2, they were lucky, not better parents. You can answer," We weren't as lucky as you were. Her bladder is maturing more slowly".

Good luck, L.

I have a Daycare and I have found there is one thing we have no control over when it comes to our children. Potty training. No matter what we do or say when they are ready they will do it. We worked with one of my daycare boys for 3 months. I finally told the mom to put him back in diapers. One weekend he decided he wanted to wear big boy underwear and we never had 1 accident after that weekend. He was almost 4!

L.,
I'm inclined to agree with your doctor. It's not a good idea to push it. I pushed with my oldest, encouraged with my middle, and it still came down to when they are physically and mentally ready. And if you think about it, all the so-called book writing experts have totally different opinions about it.

But you could look for DVDs with dance on it and "over-feed" her with them. Either she'll get so hungry to dance that she'll understand the requirements. Or she'll be stubborn enough untill she's ready that she'll put off dance.
It'll work itself out. Encourage her tho about dance. "I think YOU'D be such a lovely dancer!" The more she hears stuff like that the potentially more likely she'll want to start dancing with all its prerequisites.

Hi L.,
I have teenagers now, but when my children were this age I bribed them with something they liked. For instance my daughter ( who was easier to train) loved the movie Bambi, so everytime she would use the potty to poop I would give her a little stuffed animal from the movie. As for my son, well he was harder to train. He would only wear those speedo type swim wear which was a hassle to find in Oct. and he wasn't completely trained until he was almost 4. So I invented the pee pee fairy, and everytime he would use the potty the pee pee fairy would leave him a wrapped brand new match box car.(He loved these cars and they were only 97 cents at the time) I went and bought a bunch of them and had them wrapped and waiting. He loved this and before I knew it he was potty trained. So see if you can find something she might really like and go with it. You said she wants to go to school and do dance, maybe buy somethings small related to these to intresets and give them as rewards when she goes on the potty. I wish you luck I know how hard and trying this can be, I thought my son would never beable to go to school. But she will come around. Try to make it fun and not a chore. Hang in there.
L.

One of the reasons she may not want to potty train is....you have a new baby at home. My son did not potty train until 3 years 4 months. I knew he could (he did sometimes and had been pooping on the potty since he was 1 y.o), but, didnt' want to give up diapers. He was smart too. I did a reverse psychology thing. It sounds extreme, but (after trying everything else) he trained in a day. I began treating him like his younger sib, took away privileges of a 3 year old and told and told him if he wanted to act like a toddler like his sib, I would have to treat him like a toddler and he would have the same priveledges. I even told him he had to take a nap in the crib. Ha, ha. He looked at me like I was nuts...but, he began starting to use the potty immediately.

Just make sure she is ready and make it fun. Give her a lot to drink and then 30 minutes later, read to her on the potty until she pees (even if it is for 30 minutes). Celebrate it!! Pull ups don't work.....we only used them outside of the house and for car rides initially....buy her underwear and let her soil them. Tell her it is okay and just change them. Good luck.

Children have very little they get to control. When they use the bathroom is one. When she is ready she will go and not until then. Have you let he pick out her own big girl underware? Some times the more you pressure the worse it gets. Your doctor is right. Don't feel pressure from everyone else. We tend to make conversation about children with respect to the next milestone that should reach in thier lives. When she is ready she will give you a little sign. Relax ans enjoy the time while they are small.

D.

I read the other advice from others and have had great success with the dress with no undies idea. I have 5 (going on 6) children and potty training always seems the daunting task. But with little girls the dress trick does seem to work, especially with spring/summer coming! Even around the house it is fine. (Boys in long tshirts at home works too.)
I also made a point with all of mine (contrary to popular beliefs) that wetting wasn't acceptable. I didn't allow it to be their choice. Going on the potty was expected NOT ELECTIVE. So, to help them along I put them on the potty every hour, even when they said they didn't have to (which is every time!) and if they refused or didn't have to go I let them down and set a timer (so I didn't forget) for 15 minutes. Then I put them back on. If they didn't "need" to go, then the timer went on for 15 minutes again. This continues until success, when I reset it for 1 hour. Some of mine learned quickly to just do it so they didn't have to keep getting back on (sometimes kicking and screaming...again we EXPECTED it, so there wasn't an option). Our family believes as the mommy you get to pick since you know what is best, otherwise they wouldn't need a mommy. As tiring as this sounds, perservere as eventually they do potty train.
Another thing is we never used pull ups/diapers except at night. Once they start potty training it is straight to undies. Messy at first, but well worth not mixing them up with "it's ok to pee sometimes in my pants, but not others".
Another trick with the older ones is making them take care of their wet panties to the laundry. It may seem fun at first, but they start to not like it after a few rounds of it. HOpe this helps for new ideas that you may not have tried. Because you work, you may not want to try this until a Friday night when you can get a few solid days under your belt before they return to school/daycare:) By the way, if it doesn't bother you that she isn't potty trained then don't let others persuade you to do it if you aren't ready to commit. Our family potty trained early at just turned 2, but that is because I couldn't stand paying for 2 babies in diapers (I'm cheap:) ) That being said, it DOESN"T MATTER if YOUR LITTLE ONE ISN"T.

Hey L.,
First of all, don't worry what everyone else thinks your children should or shouldn't be doing at a particular age. Every child is different! I tried getting big girl panties for my daughter (which we picked out together) and putting them on over her diaper. In a few days she handed me her diaper and said she was finished wearing them. She wanted to go shopping for silky panties with grandma & mommy! Such the girl she used to be! Now she is a Black Belt at age 10. Enjoy the girl while you can! But my son took 8 months to train! That was a disaster! :o) Hope you find an answer that helps soon. Potty training can be the pits! Good Luck! L. B.

3 is the magic age -- it happens almost overnight! Don't panic! Both my daughters were almost exactly three (a little past) when they decided to use the potty at last.. I thought it would never happen. One day my first drank too much apple juice at a neighbor's house, and her pull-up nearly disintegrated. She was embarassed about it, and I think that made her decide to start using the potty.
Hang in there.

try putting glitter in the toilet, sounds stupid, but tell her its magic and will make to pee come out when she sits on the potty, worked for me. Make it really fun for her and she might try it. Good Luck.

Fear not! haha My little guy is 100% potty trained and has been since he was 30 months. He is also a smart cookie, and so I'll just share what we did that seemed to work out quite well. First, we bought some of the BEST potty-training DVDs around:
1. Bear In The Big Blue House Potty Time
2. Elmo's Potty Time
3. Time to Potty (for Him or Her)

He watched them and just LOVED them so much. We put his little potty chair in front of the tv when he was watching them and he couldn't wait to sit on it "just like Elmo" etc. After a few weeks we moved the potty into the bathroom and his interest was still there...and the rest is history. I SWEAR by these cute DVDs. They are sweet and gentle and they make potty time interesting for little ones. Give them a try if you haven't already. Good luck and don't stress...she will NOT go to college in a diaper!!! :) K.

A friend of mine just came into town and said that she used a potty training book to potty train her daughter in one day and it worked. Here is the link she sent to me:

http://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Less-Than-Day/dp/06...

I have a 3 1/2 year old and she has been potty trained for over a year. Her daycare trained her. I have an 8 month old son as well so I may use this on him when the time comes.

I hope this helps.

The criticism from other people should not interfere with your daughter's life, yeah? In fact, the critics of the world are probably something your daughter should be protected from... they add nothing of value to anyone's life and undermine people's confidence and their capabilities.

There is no such thing as worrying 'too much'... or, rather, all worrying is 'too much' -- it doesn't affect anything except your mental health, and it pollutes your relationship with others.

So... this bright girl: are you (you personally, in the privacy of your own heart) actually concerned that she will not figure out how to use a toilet before she's 20?

It may well be that one of the reasons your smart lass isn't trained is because although she says she wants to try this and that, she may in fact not feel ready, and can hold it off by doing nothing differently than she did yesterday -- she understands the deal you've made. One real fear of precocious children is that they will not be able to do easily that which they wish to do. So, they become the great procrastinators of the world.

Get a dvd of children dancing, and let her dance along in the living room. Play with music and dance in your home. When she's comfortable with dancing, she may well suddenly train.

Both of my girls figured out the potty suddenly, my oldest with no accidents ever. She knew that 'everyone else' didn't wear diapers and wanted to do the same, but she also knew that 'everyone else' didn't have accidents. I think she waited until she knew for sure that she could manage it. On the up side, that meant that at no time in her life did I ever have to drop everything and rush to a potty with a child on the verge of letting go.

Leaving it made my life easier -- we didn't have pants pooed in, or shoes soaked in pee to clean up, just another load of laundry every week (the total amount of diapers we used by then).

There are some serious, lazy-yet-efficient, benefits to just waiting until the kids come to it themselves. No stress, no activity, no figuring out what will work, no bribery to keep track of...

Yeah... someday (when I get around to it) I'm going to write a book about lazy parenting...

L., This what we told our grandson, he would cry and say that it hurts when he would get a RASH. We just reasoned with him and would let him know that if he was a big boy and USE THE POTTY HE WOULD NOT GET A RASH. They love to learn and reasoning is part of that process.

Good Luck

Potty training is never easy and can get very frustrating for the parents, it just takes time. With my daughter who just turned 3 in March (she has been potty trained for about 8 months), she was very interested in going on the potty. I am not sure if that is because I would take her in the bathroom with me when I would go so she would see how to use the toilet. But anyways when we started potty training we just switched to underwear during the day so she could feel it more when she would go. Since the diapers absorb so much it is a different feeling with underwear. That seemed to work so you could try that. We also gave her M&Ms if she went on the potty. If nothing works then maybe you just need to wait until she is more interested. I am not looking forward to potty training my 15 month old when she gets a little older. My 3 yr old is very smart and caught on quickly so we will see what happens with the next one. Good Luck.

I would love to have this advice as well. We have tried all the tricks with my daughter as well and she refuses. My daughter will be 3 in June.

Hi L.,

my daughter, Aradia, will turn 3 in May and is just potty-trained now. She is also very smart and extremely articulate (in 2 languages!) I will just tell you what I did and you can consider whether or not you think it might work for you.

Because I had my second daughter just 15 months after the first, I couldn't bear the thought of 'training' Aradia. I just didn't have the patience for that. Instead, when she started showing a little interest we picked out a toilet for her (she got to choose between my two favorite) and then we put it in the most-used bathroom (the one the girls are always following me in to all day). The point is, it was just there for her to see and to sit on or play with the pretend flush (that claps and cheers when pressed). About 6 months ago we picked up 'The Potty Book' for girls. Aradia likes to pretend to be the main characters of all the books we read, and so I played on that with the 'big girl, Hannah' from the book. I had no intention of 'training' her, much to my mother's disappointment, but just to expose her to the idea. So, we started reading that book together quite often, with me stressing the difference between babies and big girls (i.e. big girls wear underwear and only go potty/poo poo in the toilet). Everytime she was in the bathroom with me I would explain that I was a big girl and didn't have to wear diapers because I only went potty in the toilet. Then, everytime she cried and moaned because she hated diaper changes so much, I would explain that all she had to do to stop having diaper changes was to stop peeing in her diaper and go on the toilet instead. We switched her to pull-ups, I recommend the Dora (think they're Pampers) ones, because they are less bulky than the others, feel more comfortable like underwear, but have a strip that makes the child feel wet, but keeps your carpet and furniture dry! I would also tell her that 'Aunt Jen goes potty on the toilet, Ava (closest little girl friend) goes potty, and any other person she admires goes potty only on the toilet so they don't have to have diaper changes (you may have noticed the repetition).

Finally, one day about a month ago, when Aunt Jen and some other family were coming to visit, Aradia announced that she was a big girl and was going to go on the toilet that day. So, we switched her to some underwear that Santa had brought (as gentle encouragement) and she went on the toilet all day. She was so proud. She's been going on the toilet ever since. She wears 'special magic sleepy-time underwear' (pull-ups) during naps and night. I explained that sometimes when we're sleeping we don't always know that we are going potty, so to keep her bed dry and her stuffed animal friends clean we wear these special magic underwear.

I think with most toddlers, especially the very smart ones, it needs to be their own decision. I stressed to Aradia that it was her choice: if she didn't want to have diapers anymore, she just had to stop peeing or pooping in a diaper and go on the toilet instead.

I would suggest gentle encouragement, not pushing. Not only does that give your daughter control, but also releases the stress on you. It's her choice to become potty-trained, not your responsibility. When you relax about it, I bet she will too. Especially if she wants to go to dance class. (Instead of saying "you have to go potty on the toilet to go to dance," say "all those big girls in dance class only go potty on the toilet". That way you're just making an observation, as opposed to telling her what to do.

Sorry for the book! Hope it helps a bit.

:) T.

Children will potty train when they are ready, it happens on their own schedules - unfortunately. I'm from a large family, with about 15 cousins all younger than me (only 1 is older) - in fact I've babysat most of them, there's that big of an age difference (I'm only 12 years younger than my youngest uncles). Many of them didn't potty train until well after 3. In fact, at least one of them wasn't able to go to pre-school because she wasn't potty trained yet. My oldest daughter is in pre-school now, and there are kids that are still wearing pull ups to school, their are diapers in the bathrooms and also a lot of spare clothes in totes - it is a PPI/Pre-School building only. My Grandma always thinks they need to be potty trained by the time they are two, but she also doesn't understand why mom's work. Other peoples expectations don't matter to children, they don't understand time frames, and some concepts (no matter how smart) are hard to grasp - potty training being one of them it seems. Both of my girls were potty trained by 3, my Aunts think I'm lucky, and maybe I am, but it sure seemed like the youngest wasn't going to be potty trained at all, over night she took to it. Rest assured, it will happen when she is ready, until then tell everyone else to mind their own business :)

I went through something similar with my son. I eventually just told him that we would no longer be wearing diapers. I threw the last few that we had away and put big boy underwear on him. He had two accidents that day and after that was completely potty trained (with the exception of the normal accidents that newly potty trained children go through). He was ready and I was just babying him too much and allowing the process to be drawn out much longer than needed be. With your daughter being so smart, I bet this would work for you too. Good luck with your quest!
J.

This might sound crazy but it worked great with all 3 of my kids. Put a dress on her (about knee length) and no underpants or diaper (nothing). She will be covered with the dress. Have a small potty handly. Once you remove the security of the diaper or underpants my kids used the potty. At first we had a few accidents on the floor - but they cleans up. After a few accidents - they used the potty. They didn't want to pee on themselves - yucky. We went pantsless for a 5-6 days and after that time they were 100% trained.

Good luck

hi,
Potty training can be very hard, especially when you feel pressure from family or friends. Some kids are not ready untill well into their threes. I had very smart strong willed todlers and they took much longer than others around me would have liked. However in the end it was their decision and it stuck. we gave them lots of opprotunity, and made it a routine, always before bath and before we go outside etc. I would squat down with them and help hold their hands and then say, you don't have to go but we have to sit here and count to 10. Then if they didn't no big deal. if they did in our house we cheer and march. I din't like the idea of food treats or negetive things if they didn't, we just made a big deal marching around the house and cheering when they did. As they got close to being done, but just still had to wear pull ups some times, I would set a condition. For example, they had new panties or a toy they really liked. If they stayed dry they could have what they wanted. if they had an accident it was no big deal - I would say, "It's OK lets just try again to make it next time" but then the item would go up (but in full site) for a day untill they stayed dry. Potty trainin is much about consistancy, patience and conditioning. Be patient with her and yourself, but firm in your conditions. Oh, one more thing. The dance thing is good, but it is an abstract thing a little hard to grasp. She may say she doesn't want to go, because at that very moment, that is what she conects with having to do what you are telling her. Don't worry about that. She will catch on quick.