I began sitting my little girl down on the potty to see if she would pee fairly early, about 6 months ago. She did pretty good initially. She would pee maybe 25% of the time because I would sit her down when I knew she hadn't peed for a while. She is now 2 weeks away from her 2nd birthday and will have nothing to do with the potty sometimes. She comes and tells me when she has pooped. She says"poopy diaper, need new diaper". She always goes to the same spot(under an end table in the livingroom) to poop. Sometimes before she pees she will even say "pee potty" but when i take her in there she will sit for maybe a minute and hand me her diaper and say "diaper on". From what I have read these all seem like cues that she is ready for potty training. I have tried making her sit longer but she just screams and does everything she can do to get off the potty. I have tried putting the potty where the end table is when I see that she is going there to poop but she refuses to sit on it. I figure trying to hold her down on it can't be a good thing. We have tried a special Elmo potty chart with stickers that she gets if she goes on the potty, offering her a sucker if she goes, offering to let her watch her favorite show if she goes etc. I had the potty in the bathroom but then I tried putting it in the living room. The times I have gotten her to sit on it for an extended period of time she wont go but as soon as her diaper gets back on she pees and pees and pees. I have tried pull-ups. I have tried panties with her character on it she likes and telling her she can't pee on Dora so she has to go on the potty. She pees in the panties anyway. I feel like I must be doing something wrong because it seems like we are regressing now when I thought we had been making some progress for a little while. Any suggestions on something different I should be doing or even a book that I could read that worked for you and your child would be so helpful!
It sounds like you are starting her to early.I have 8 children and started them all at 3.some trained themselves earlier.but ,3 year olds have better bowel and bladder control,they are also more logical and realize that the pee and poop is coming from them...when they are 2 they really can,t make the connection.
I know changing diapers is a pain.but,if you will just wait a bit ,potty training will be a breeze.
It sounds like you are both doing great, but she just isn't quite ready. My daughters both showed the same signs of readiness as yours, and I started training them before they were 2, but neither of them was truly potty trained until they were 3. My son was a few months after he turned 3. I hate to say it, but I think you just have to wait this one out.
We just started the potty training game 2 weeks ago, my son will be 2.5 middle of April, and what really helped us was a prize box. I didn't really like the idea of bribery at first, but hey it worked. I got a shoe box wrapped it in construction paper, wrote his name on it and decorated with markers and stickers. I left it near his potty so he could see it and would say " do you need to pee?" if he said "no":, but I knew he was due for as potty break I would say do you want a treat, and then he would jump up. After each time I would let him pick one item, and I would write down the time and what he did on a piece of construction paper, and if he went on the potty he got to take a sticker and put it on the paper. It was a about a week and half of actually having to give him a treat each time, but now I give him a treat every now and then b/c for the most part he just doesn't ask for one anymore. The trick for us was just really making a big deal out of it, really getting excited when he did it, and showing slight dissappointment when he went in his pants. Also, I stopped pull-ups usage after day 2, i felt like he was confused it was to much like a diaper, I got him undies and he just wore those instead. But the Big trick for us was that we didn't leave the house for a week, not even for 10 minutes. Homebound for a week was tough but it made all the difference. Anyway, best of luck; hope this helps a bit.
She is not ready. You will know for sure when she is ready.
Many children do not potty train till almost 3. You can spend a year on this, but until she is ready, it is really just you putting her on the potty and sometimes she will , but most times she won't.
I agree that she's not ready. Our daughter will be 2 tomorrow, and she has no real interest right now either.
Our son was past 3 when he was interested in potty training - our pediatrician said that boys physiologically develop their ability to recognize the need to use the bathroom much later than girls on average.
In my experience with friends and neighbors, the kids who are pushed into potty training are the ones who have the most regression and accidents. If they're ready, it seems to be a much easier process.
We're going to wait until she's going extended periods of time without wetting her diaper and other cues as to when to be more aggressive with the training. I certainly wouldn't discourage you, but I'd also recommend not making it a big focus just yet.
Good luck.
potty training is a looonngg process for some kids. My dtr was selective about her potty training. She was potty trained at her daycare before she was fully potty trained at home. She was 3 before we really started focusing on it. Before that, we bought a potty and let her try, talked about it a lot, let her watch mommy on potty, read books, etc.
She eventually was successfull... in her own time. Yet, when she did make the change to panties, she only had 2 accidents!
Poopies was another story! She would ask for a pull up when she needed to do poopies. This went on until after she turned 4. Thankfully she had a lot of control over her bowels and always waited until she got home to do her poopies.
She is almost 5 now and fully potty trained. It was quite the process, but I feel like we let her have some control over it and that way it was not a stressful or negative experience for her.
Oh yea... we also added some "incentives" for her. A chart... a "prize" of her choosing when she went poopies on the potty 10 times, etc. She still took her time completing the chart... but she eventually did.
Hang in there.
Don't know what early start philosophy you followed, but the one I followed had me "playing" with the potty for an hour every morning, with the key thing being putting the poop in the potty. I put my daughter in trainers at 18 months, and now at 24, she is almost 100% trained (including nighttime, we are having an issue at the moment, where she will pee if she has her undies on but not her cloth diaper. who can understand the logic of a 2 year old!)... The one thing I learned, however, is to KEEP AT IT. Consistency is key. Either the pee goes in the potty or it doesn't. If it does, then keep saying "pee goes in the potty." Also, they always go two steps back before going forward.
In any case, I think the key is getting her to poop on the potty. Once my daughter started doing that, everything else clicked. At the suggestion of one of my books, I started watching her when she would go off to her corner. For the first few days, I just talked to her about what was going on, and when she had gas, we talked about that too. Mostly, I tried to get her to focus on feeling the pressure. We also read "everybody poops." This helped immensely in getting her to stop hiding behind a chair when she went. After a week, I then just took her to the potty. Mind you, every day for two months I had her watch me put her poop in the potty. This is essential, if you ask me.
I also didn't bribe.Once she went on the potty for few times, I put her on a potty schedule and that was that: first thing in the morning, after snack, before lunch, etc. Praise works much better than other things (though I did use stickers when she would put up a lot of resistance). The key is to tell, not ask so: do you want to use the potty before snack or after snack. Do you want to use mommy's potty or my potty. Do you want to walk to the bathroom or do you want me to carry you. Create a happy dance and when she puts pee in the potty, do it and dance around. Then call grandma, call dadda, call everyone and tell them what a big girl she was.
It sounds to me like your daughter understands but is having some performance anxiety (thus going in the diaper after being on the potty). To help her overcome it, don't make a big deal out of it. Just keep saying "pee goes in the potty." Do all changing in the bathroom, do everything in the bathroom --that's where pee and poop go, end of story. It also sounds to me like she is still trying to figure out "control" (I see potty training as three key stages: 1. understanding dry and wet, 2. control (being able to relax enough to go on the potty on demand, and 3. timing. I read somewhere that they have to have 10-15 hits (pee in the potty) before they get how the muscles work. They will then spend more time trying to figure it out (a day to weeks, depending on the child's age). Your job at this point is to get the timing, so she can get the control. Load her up with water and try to get a hit. Keep trying, only show positive emotion, and when she does it, throw her up in the air and tell everyone around you, and let them praise her too for being such a big girl.
My daughter wanted her "big girl" undies so badly (elmo) that it motivated her to put her poop in the potty --three months after peeing consistently. I told my daughter that if she put all her poop in the potty for a week, she could have elmo undies. For nap, I told her she had to go 5 days with no accidents, and then 5 days dry at night as well. It really motivated her.
We have been "potty training" our 2.5 yr old since she was 18m, pretty much doing what you were. I would just keep up with the VERY low stress encouragement, having her sit on the potty at times you know she will pee. We started with first thing in the morning with the incentive of chocolate milk (which she LOVED but rarely got). If she sat on the potty and peed, she got choc milk while she watched Sesame Street (really regular milk with about 1/4 chocolate milk mixed in). This turned out to be the magic incentive for mornings and it became a regular thing. Then at other times, like after nap or before bed we would read books. I have a little potty on a rubber backed rug in her bedroom by the changing table and a stack of short books and potty books (Once Upon a Potty is a good one) and we would just sit and read books. If she peed she got the sticker chart or an m&m. No pull ups, no panties just sitting and if she peed, great. If not, that's great too.
Over about a 6-8m period we did this and eventually she started telling me when she needed to pee and I took this as a good time to really put effort into it. I let her put on big girl panties if she peed in the potty, and if she kept them dry she got to keep them on but if she had an accident she went into a pull-up. Over the last 2 months she has spent more and more time in panties and has even started asking to go to the potty while we are out doing errands. I think in another month we will be out of pull-ups completely (we already got rid of all the diapers, making a big deal about it being time for Big Girl Pull-Ups and Panties).
Another big incentive for her has been pre-school. She is REALLY excited to go to pre-school and we have been there for an open house so she has met the teacher and seen the school. So, the mantra now is "what do you need to do to go to the pre-school? BIG GIRL PANTIES AND PEE IN THE POTTY!!". We say this a lot and it seems to have helped when she doesn't really want to go sit on the potty.
Good luck. The low key, no judgement or stress, and lots of sitting reading books approach seems to have worked for us. Maybe just back off the panties/pull-ups etc. and just focus on keeping her on the potty enough to have some success. Find what motivates her (like the choc milk) and use that to encourage her.
I am dealing with the same thing with my almost 2 year old son. I am not making it a bad experience but for the past 6 months I have been slowly introducing the idea when I am in the mood to deal with it. Don't back off completely. I have read one book that says that in other countries most kids are potty trained before 18 months. The wait until they are ready approach was based on a 1960's era study done by a psychologist payed by pampers. SO the study was biased. I think that we wait too long in America. I am not sure how to help you but I found this information useful in allowing me to continue with what I feel is best for my child regardless of what doctors and others say.
