Potty Training - Advice

Oh, the fun begins! My daughter also showed interest around her 2nd birthday. . .now she's 2 1/2 and she's just going on day 4 of "no accidents". We did the whole "letting her pick out her own potty". . .we read books about it (have you seen the everybody poops book?). . .we started off by taking her to the bathroom when we went - ok, not my husband, but me. We took off her diaper and she sat on the toilet when I sat on the toilet. Sometimes she went, sometimes she didn't. We then moved on to rewarding her with M&M's. . .that didn't work for her. . she would just sit on the potty and make a peeing noise with her mouth! (she thought she could fool us). We then moved on to a sticker chart. . .now THAT worked really well. We let her pick out her own stickers too. . .she got 1 for pee and 2 for poops. This whole time we had her in pull ups. But our biggest incentive was her wish to ride a school bus (I don't really understand why) so we told her that when she had no more accidents we would take her on the school bus (thank gosh my mother-in-law is a bus driver). So she's been on track with that. She's always been good about toilet training but she still had 1-2 accidents a day. You're going to laugh at this, but "Santa" also started calling our house. My daughter absolutely loves Santa so when she would go to the bathroom, my husband or I would call her from our cell phone pretending to be Santa and tell her that we were so proud of her. We followed this up by saying that we would come see her at the Mall (Santa arrived to our mall on November 11th). We continued to tell her that Santa didn't want any "accidents" on his lap when she went to go sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for X-mas. So on November 11th, we took her to the mall to just SEE Santa. She waved and told him that she would come back when she was a "big girl" and "had no more accidents". . .and now it's November 14th and she's been accident free! I know, my husband and I are crazy. . .but hey, whatever it takes to get her out of the darn pull ups. We tried putting her in regular underwear, but after 2 days of "accidents" in them we went back to pull ups - but we always called her pull ups, pulls ups, not diapers. Anyways - I hope you had fun reading this and wish you the best of luck in your potty adventures!

Read the book, "How to Toilet Train Your Child in Less Than A Day" - it probably won't happen that fast, but it has a great method to get the job done. You should be able to find it at the library. Good luck!

This may sound cruel but it really works, do not put her in pull ups just go right to underwear. My daycare recommeded this and my little one is doing great(she's 28mths)until you put a pull up on her and she knows she will not get wet. There is a web site I think it is babybestbuy.com that had vinyl lined pants for just .99 cents a pair and they work great to keep the wetness in but let your little one feel it. They didn't work for my daughter because she had already gotten used to not liking the peeing down her leg feeling and these confused her, but I will try them with my new son we are expecting when the time is right. Most of the kids in daycare that are in pull-ups still are not trained and they are so proud of the progress we have made with her. Just keep at it even thru all the messy clean ups it will be well worth it.

Good Luck,
K.

I just finished reading this article on babycenter.com

http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/toddler/toilettraining/4...

http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/toddler/toilettraining/4...

My son is 22 months....I think it's going to be a long time training, but he pees in it almot every night after his bath, and he pooped Sunday night and tonight! :) Good luck!

I agree with the no pull up advice (except for maybe overnights, depending on if your child wakes up dry or not). I found introducing the potty around 2 works great. Let her go when she feels like it. However, after talking with several people 2.5 seems to be the magic age. I struggled for about 4 months with my daughter, and suddenly at 2.5 years old she just got it.

Good Luck and don't get frustrated with her. If she is not ready try again in a month or so.

E.

It's tough, but if you can, limit the amount of time she spends in pull ups. The more time she wears regular underwear the better. With my daughter I had her in pull ups all the time & it took months to train her. On the advice of a friend I put her in underwear. She pointed out that other than not having tabs, pull ups were exactly like a diaper. My daughter didn't really the difference between them. After one accident in her underwear she was using her potty all the time. With my son I barely used pull ups. He was a breeze to potty train.

Hi C.,
What worked best for us was to put our daughter on the potty as soon as she awakens. Throughout the day, we'd put her on the potty 10-12 minutes after she's eaten and had liquids. Then when she's done, 1 hour after that time. I did this when I babysat for a friend and it worked on her daughter too. She always missed her daughters pee but I always caught it on this schedule. There was a trip to the potty just before bedtime also. Now, catching a poop...that's a different story! We usually had to wait for the "I've got to poop" face and then rush her into the bathroom. At that point, we made a big to do about pooping on the big girl toilet instead of the potty. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn't. Many times she was afraid to poop on the toilet or the potty. This was quite frustrating to us but we had to remain consistent with her and let her know that pooping in her pull ups or panties was unacceptable. Eventually, she caught on and at age 4 she does it all by herself and cleans herself well also.

Good luck
M.