Potty Training a Boy Help!

We just trained our son, also at 2 1/2.
First, you can put his underwear under his diaper: this way the mess is contained (less washing for you) and he feels the wetness. The diapers are so efficient that children don't feel when they are wet. As a result, they can't associate the "need to go" feeling with the wetness result.

Then, make a big deal of the potty. We had a potty dance. It sounds ridiculous said like that but it works because at this age, they crave attention and are so happy to get attention! They want to go in the potty because they want the potty dance (or any other attention)

It worked for us. I still put him in pull-ups at night (the training ones with a drawing that disappears if wet). He has been 10 nights dry in a row. I just ordered a protection for the mattress and when I get it, he will go to sleep diaperless. He already wants to be without diapers at night and accepts them only to check the picture is still here in the morning.

Be patient, good luck!

We put J on the seat backwards so he is facing backwards and that will make the job easier when he stands up. When that happens you can put cheerios or little pieces of toilet paper with boats drawn on into the water and have him "Sink The Boat". It gives them something to aim at and that makes the job of cleaning the toilet much nicer.

We do mini M&M's and jelly beans for reward, 1 for pee and 2 for poo. As for stying dry at night, we don't expect that until elementary school

since your son is waking up wet they only suggestion that I
can make is...limit his beverages 3 hours prior to bed, this way when he goes potty before bed he will either wake up dry or with very little in his diaper. We have been able to get to 2 hours before bed on limiting liquids and most mornings our 2 yr old wakes up dry and we immediately put him on the potty and he goes pee and also stays dry throughout the day so long as we take remind him every 1 1 /2 hrs that its potty time and ofcourse after a meal and he already tells us when he needs to poop since he hates it in his pants,. the more you work with him the better, we have heard that if the child doesn't want to than don;t force them, but you just have to remind him that he wants to be a big boy for mommy and daddy. Our son showed interest at 12mos but we have been working on this for 1 yr, it takes time but we are almost completely there so long as we are paying attention and make sure that when he gets all wound up in his play that we give him a 15 min warning till potty time so he can wind down. Good luck with the potty training

You know it sounds like you doing good over there. He has an interest in using the potty and he uses it. Those are huge plus's toward good potty habits. If he stills wets at night and a naps I would have to say he's just not ready for more than what he is doing for now. Keep it positive and take what he can do and make a big ole deal out of it. He may want to continue to please you and make more steps forward. I think taking him to the potty every hour or so is a good way for him to learn when he needs to go and how to hold it. I just trained my 2nd son about two weeks ago. He showed little interest and really didn't even care if he got wet in trainers. I thought he'd never get it but after taking him to the potty every hour or so and moving the little potty into the play area he surprised me. It took just a few days and he was in underwear! Treats are good too. We keep a candy jar with his name on it in the bathroom. One for pee pee and two for poo poo. Also letting him pick out some big boy underwear is great incentive. But as I said before he really needs to be able to stay dry during at least naps for him to have the control needed to be completely potty trained.
Best Regards,
C.

Boys are so much harder to potty train and it just depends on what they want to do, boys will be boys. :) My son took forever to train, we tried everything starting at age 2 when he started to gain interest in the big potty, so we bought a little singing potty chair and started there. We got close but then he lost interest. Then we tried potty training again around 2 1/2, the same age as your lil' one, and the triumph was up and down for a while. (Maybe 2-3 months) Then a friend of ours told us her son was very difficult to train too, and her solution was just to put him straight into underwear! We took a trip to the store, let our son pick out his own underwear,then after a couple of accidents through the week and much encouragement, TA-DA! He was completely out of diapers/pull-ups/training pants, everything! The accidents were actually there for him to feel and this made him realize when he needed to go and when to say something or run for the potty. Of course we had little rewards all through the training too, hope this helps you! Good luck! :)

What I did with all of my boys was had them run around the house with no underwear, diaper, pull ups, or pants on. You have to watch them a bit more carefully, but they do learn in the end where to go potty. It didn't take me too long to train my boys when I did it that way. Only put a diaper or pull up on at night or when you have to go somewhere. Because they don't wear things during the day, they learn when they do go in their diaper or whatever that it's uncomfortable. So, I would try that and see if that works. Good luck!