Potty Training Help Needed - Victoria,MN

Naked time is amazing! We spent a week with a naked 3 year old before letting him pick out his own underwear and he did great.

I had/have an additional difficulty: my two sons are autistic. With my oldest, I despaired of his ever being potty-trained, but when he turned 4, daycare said he had to be trained in order to go to the 4-year-old class. They suggested just putting him in underwear and seeing if the discomfort of being wet would teach him to use the potty. Sure enough, he trained himself in a day. With my youngest son, it has been more difficult. He is 5 and still not trained. But I am being determined and I am sure we will get there yet. One tip I read about it putting a TV tray in front of the toilet with a toy or activity that he doesn't get to play with any other time. Then just encourage him to sit and play and wait to see if anything happens. His teacher says that after one or two "productive" sits, he should get the idea of what the potty is for.

I know how frustrating this is, my daughter has completely figured out how to tell me she has to go potty as she is going.

I think you are just going to have to stick with it. if you have a floor that can handle it let them run around naked for a few days so there are no barriers. Also if you have little potty chairs i would let them sit on them to watch a cartoon or read books to them while they are on the chair. basicly the longer you can get them to sit on the chair the more likely they will go while on it.

to get my now 4 year old potty trained we spend an entire day naked watching cartoons sitting on the potty chair. (this is way more tv then he normally watched in a whole week but it worked)

I also have twins and this worked for us. We just did this the end of May beginning of June. We did the let them run around in panties, they each had one accident I told them well when you feel like that again go and sit on the potty and it worked. Lexi (more shy one, more timid one) asked if she could put a pullup back on and I let her. Abbey (the leader, the daredevil) has been in panties ever since. About a month ago Lexi asked if she could wear panties and I said yes and she has been wearing them ever since. We have had very few accidents, the only times our panties seem to get wet is if they don't pull them down far enough when they go. Good Luck training twins is quite the different experience!! (and no I didn't have any experience beforehand, my son is unable to be potty trained).

M.
mom to Ryan 10
Abbey and Alexa 4 on Saturday

My vote is for naked time. The first morning we did this with my daughter I think she had about four (or more!) accidents. She freaked out after she peed on herself every time. I explained to her if she went in the potty chair then it wouldn't get on the floor or on her feet, and from that point on she's been using the potty chair. I never did treats or rewards, just the natural 'reward' of not getting it all over herself, and being able to flush if you go. I make a big deal out of the flushing so she feels really special when she gets to do that! :)

We did naked time at home for a full week or two so she really 'got it' and she could feel the success of getting to the potty. The next step we took was to try undies. She kept getting to the potty, but not quite in time because she had difficulty getting them down. I decided to try sweat pants with no undies to aid her success in learning to get her pants down. I think that helped a lot cuz they aren't so tight and it started her in the right direction of holding it just that little bit longer. Now we're working on getting both the undies and the pants down and she gets it most of the time with just a few new misses occasionally.

One thing that i also found that helped us was when she saw her friend (6mo older) use the adult potty. The next day at grandma's she told me she had to potty even though she had on her diaper, and we went into grandma's bathroom and i sat her on the adult potty since that was all they had. She resisted at first so i reminded her she was being a big girl like her friend. Apparently she liked that and now she's even started using public restrooms when she's got a diaper on! (I still help get the diaper off, of course!)

But anyway, that's my two cents.. Try naked time and if they're still not getting it, then wait on it awhile.

The best advice I ever got from seasoned moms was.....it'll happen in a day if they are ready. If they aren't ready, let it go for awhile and try again when they are ready. It really is true. You can push it and frustrate yourself and them.

I was just reading an article in Parents magazine about potty training. One of the things they suggested since it is summer, is to just let your child run around naked outside for awhile. The thought is that when they feel it running down their leg, that might be the "a-ha" moment that they need.

That was our hardest part too - getting our daughter to know the feeling of having to pee without actually peeing and then making it to the bathroom. We just set aside w whole weekend and took her to sit on the potty every 45 minutes. I bought her a sticker book and let her pick out a whole bunch of stickers and explained to her that every time she peed in the potty she could put one sticker on the "Potty Page", and every time she pooped in the potty she could put two sticker on the "Poop page"! Worked like a charm. She was potty trained in 2 days!