Potty Training "HELP!"

I took red finger nail polish & drew a smily face in the toilet & told my boys to aim for it, I know it sounds funny but it worked. Good luck

K.,

I have 2 boys, one just turned 2 in February and the other is 7 months. Obviously 2 in diapers is not an ideal situation so I wanted to get my 2 year old potty trained asap. I was referred to the "3 day potty training" guide from a few different people. Google this and read about it. If you want the manual then you purchase it for about $20 and let me tell you. I started potty training my SON on the Monday after he turned 2 and within 2 days, he was potty trained! It is simply amazing how the guide works. It's all about consistancy and doing EXACTLY what the training guide says. If you do that, it's guaranteed no matter the age...however she feels that any kid can be trained starting at 22 months! I plan on doing this exact thing with my second son and can only think that I'll get the same great success! Oh and by the way....by following that manual, my son has never had an accident at night or at nap! It's amazing!

It can be very frustrating, I went through the same thing. We promised to take our daughter to Chuck E. Cheese, when she went #2. It took a little while, but eventually it worked. Just try to be patient, my daughter seemed to have to go while in the tub, she would get out and go, you could try, asking in the middle of the bath? OR we use to bribe with candy or something to just sit on the potty and push a few times and try to poop. Good Luck.

Hi K.,

1st thing, boys are soooo much harder but there are exceptions to every rule. My opinion give it a rest for awhile maybe even a month or so. Let him give you the signs that he is ready.

I have 2 older kids and I didn't start potty training them until they were closer to 3 and they are both boys. I'm here to tell you the longer you wait to do the potty training thing the easier it is. My daughter I started 3 months before she turned 3 and I had her potty trained in a week.

From: D. M Date: Sat. Mar. 08, 2008
Tis true Boys will do it when they are ready. Boys seem to be harder to train than girls and it does take alot longer some take till they are almost 5 beleive it or not. I trained my boys by getting a squirt bottle and pretended to be a boy and showed them how everytime I took them to the potty I would put something small and light weight like a very small cut out of a boat or something and would tell them to try and make it sink and when they did I would praise them by acting very silly like cheering and clapping and danceing I wound act very very excited and I would give them a treat right after they washed thier hands like maybe some M&M's. to teach them to do # 2 I would set them on the little potty and I would set on the big potty beside them and make all kinds of noises and faces like I was going potty also. When I started doing these things they thought going potty was fun and I got them trained in no time.

Have you tried a sticker chart. We used this in the day care center I work in. They get a sticker for each time they go. If they go 10x then they get a suprise. It had our kiddos wanting to go all the time. At the end, when they were fully potty trained, we had a "potty party". For fun, and so they didn't expect suprises anymore :) Just a thought!

With my son we took the potty chair EVERYWHERE. If he was in the playroom, the chair was there, at the park, the chair was in the car. That way he wasn't feeling like he was missing out on anything just because he had to go to the bathroom. Also, I had him naked all of the time. Granted we had a few accidents on the floor, but after just a few he didn't want to be stepping in his messes anymore. I also gave him 2 M&Ms everytime he went. A very small piece of chocolate but felt like a HUGE deal to him. Another thing to try is to put things in the potty, like froot loops, etc. and ask him to try to sink the ships. That might make it more fun, and make him want to go. Hope something helps!

Another thing: For night time, which we did once my son was trained for about 3 months, but we let him wet the bed. I used those water proof pads that you get in the hospital (cloth on one side, and waterproof on the other). Anyway, I would lay those down in the bed so I wasn't changing sheets every night. Honestly I think he wet the bed two nights before stopping. We were also sure to limit his drinks after 6:00 at night. He only got a sip of water right before bed if he really needed it. I have just seen too many of my sons friends rely on their pull ups at night to the point that they were still wetting them while attending sleep-overs.

First, what works on one child doesn't necessarily work on others. Keep trying something new until you find the trick that works with your child.

These are the tricks that worked for us.

With my oldest child, the only thing that worked, at age 3, was stripping him from the waist down and confining him to a painters tarp and the kitchen floor. I put his potty chair in the middle of the tarp (he pooped on the carpet and it grossed me out) and limited the number of toys he could have on the tarp. His train track (the most beloved of the toys) wouldn't lay right on the tarp because too many ripples. He wanted his tracks so he was motivated. I told him I wouldn't remove the tarp and allow him free reign of the house until he was dry for a week.

It worked. He had one accident on the tarp.

I kept pull ups on him at night until he was almost 7 years old since he continued to wet the bed. I really wanted the day time toileting done more than worrying about night. Boys take a long time to make it through the night.

With our younger child, it took a lot longer and a lot more patience.

If the younger child had an accident, he had to clean it up. Then, he was confined to the hard wood. Once he used the toilet, we allowed him on the carpet for 30 minutes then had him go back on the hardwood. He wanted to play on the carpet because that was where the toys are.

We motivate him with costumes. He likes to wear his cat in the hat costume and his train engineer costume. I tell him he has to go a week dry before he can wear them since it would be a bad mess that I couldn't clean out of the costume.

It helps motivate him but he still has accidents. He has to clean up the accident and I am duly sad with him but am careful not to shame him for the accident. Just remind him he will do better next time. Shaming children and becoming angry with them for the accidents makes them nervous and they end up having that many more accidents.

I take him to the toilet every 2 hours and require him to go. If he hasn't pooped in 24 hours, I ask him to sit until he goes. Yes, he does poop on command. He doesn't always like it so I set the timer for 10 minutes before he can get up. He usually poops for us.

Good luck and know he will not graduate high school still having accidents. (Someone told me this when my now 11 yo and fully toileted child was still in pull ups at night.)

B.

We had great success with our boys right at 2 yrs. I would set a timer for every 10 mins and when it went off we would sit on the potty. We did that for about an hour and then we would add 5 or 10 mins to the timer and just keep doing that all day. We did this for about 3 days and they wore pull ups at night. We kept a notebook in the bathroom and after every potty we would make a tally mark and get a special treat, sticker or M&M, or whatever. We had a stash of Hot Wheels cars so if they pooped they were able to pick one out. They LOVED that! Every kid is so different you just never know what will work, but the timer worked very well for them!! It was a pain for me, but after it worked for the first kid the second time around wasn't so bad. They wore pull ups at night for another 6 mos probably, but by 3 we were done with all of it!! It took a while to get the pooping in the potty figured out, so they would wait until nighttime to do it in the pull ups. We also went and picked out big boy undies. Good luck!

When my son who is going to be seven started potty training i went out and bought some of his favorite character stickers and a big calender and pinned the calender to his wall in his room and everytime he would #2 in the potty he would get a big sticker like bob the builder or something to put on the day! He picked out the sticker and put placed on the day and for #1 we got little gold star stickers and at the end of the day he got to see his progress and how good he was doing!!! it worked GREAT for us! which was good because i went in the hospital on bedrest for 4 days like 5 days into the sticker chart and it saved daddy alot of cleaning up!!!LOL

GOOD LUCK! mommy to Seth 7, Kaylee 4, and Cain 2!!Stickers here we come!!LOL