Potty Training My 2-Yr-old

Sorry, you can't rush this. She won't do it until she is ready and you can't make her. I would be prepared for 2 in diapers and hope for the best.

Have you tried spending the day naked? Most kids really get the hang of things when they pee down their leg once or twice.

Spend the day in a bathroom or kitchen that has linoleum floors. Have the potty chair ready, chocolate chips for treats, coloring books, maybe a movie if you have a tv available, lots of juice in sippy cups....

After pee running down the legs a few times they fully understand the whole concept of what you are talking about and will do much better when you try the underwear.

I trained one at 19 months this way and two at around 26 to 27 months that way. It worked for me every time.

My daughter seemed a "little bit" more resposive to the toilet although I was still having problems completly potty training. Our family bought her very pretty underwear that she liked VERY much and wanted to wear so we made a BIG deal about "saying goodby" to diapers and "hello" to underwear. I explained that there was no more diapers for her and that she was a big girl now. A few...few accidents in her big girl pants and she was potty trained. I called her nightime pull ups "night night underwear" and now sometimes she's even getting up from bed to go potty and then going back to bed. Good luck! :)

Sounds like she needs more time. We have a son the same age and he has pooped and peed (is that how you spell it?) a few times lately but we don't really push it. He also went through a phase when he wouldn't go near the potty. I've started talking about older kids that he admires that use the toilet. We also let him have some naked time after his bath and that is when we have had success.

I hate to say this, but I think you should wait for her cues instead of pushing it because a new baby is on the way. I hear that if you wait until they are ready, the process is pretty easy. Good luck!

You did everything right except wait until she is ready to train. As other posters have said, give it a couple months and try again. Especially with the constipation issues, you need to get those resolved first.

I just went through the same issue. My daughter will be 3 at the end of April and I tried around Halloween to potty train with no luck. I put it off until after Christmas and had no problems at 32 months. She actually potty trained herself. She knew when she was ready. It took 2 days with no accidents and about 4 days to figure out how to go number 2. A week later I didn't worry at all about any accidents. A lot of people told me that at 2 they should be potty trained so that's what I tried, but I think they need to be closer to 3 and don't push them it will come naturally to them. Hope this helps.

It could be that your daughter may not be ready. I potty trained my daughter when she was about 2-1/2. I understand your frustration b/c you have a little one on the way, but with a new baby, she could regress. You might want to table potty training until the summer - when it's easier to take clothes off and you can try different tactics. One thing I will say is kids that age will not tell you they have to go. You literally have to just sit them on the potty after they drink or eat - the first few days, you might have to sit them on the potty every hour. It does get better though! Good luck!

It takes time and playing with the pottying thing is a good way to make it seem un-intimidating.

In the meantime, Bummis makes a cloth trainer that doesn't leak and is washable. They run big so a medium or small might be best. www.bummis.com I bought 5 and washed them daily (make sure not to use softener).

I switched to cloth diapers around that time to save money and diapers for two seemed to be a lot. A local woman sells them: www.lovebugsco.com

You are rushing things and only training the adults, not the baby! Wait til she is closer to 3. At 3 all of mine were easy to train! Ask your pediatrician!

Hi J. - This might sound a little odd, but the only way I could get my daughter to realize she needed to go was to go bottomless....no diaper, no training pants, no pullup. We did this in the summer so it was a little easier to roam around the house like that, but she could wear dresses etc and it wouldn't be as chilly. A couple of times of peeing on the floor (she really didn't like messes), I could see that she was trying to hold it and didn't really know what to do, so I'd try and get her to the potty (sometimes we'd make it, sometimes we didn't and sometimes we had minor "stand-offs"). But I used rewards (stickers/fruit snacks) and would remind her of them. I also read that sometimes they are confused because they think they need to "push" pee pee out, but really it's "letting it go" so when I got her on the toilet, I'd say, ok, let's let our pee pee go... and then one day it just clicked, the rewards started coming...she realized what she needed to do and then I would start putting panties on her in the house (she picked them out). We graduated to wearing big girl panties out and about (but I actually kept a training potty in the back of my car for emergencies).
Hope some of this helps, hang in there.

dear J.,
i am in the process right now and two weeks ago i couldve wrote the exact note that you just did. the first week or two is very rough then it seems it all falls into place and everything works out just fine. i am sure that your daughter is ready. when you do try again plan to stay home as much as possible for about a week and have her only in underwear or naked on the bottom. everytime she pees or poops in the potty make a big deal about it and maybe give her a treat. we gave her a chocolate raisin. here is another thing that made a huge difference because we had a constipation issue because she held it one day since then i have given her a few prunes each day i sold them as giant raisins and if your daughter likes raisins this should work. this has made bm's less scary and potty training much easier. best of luck. it is hard.

Potty training happens at age 3, not 2. You can verify in the book "Toddler 411" or other resourecs.

You probably don't want to hear this, but it sounds to me like she is just not ready. Forcing this issue will result in a lot of stress and trauma for the whole family. Potty-training is developmental. She's not letting you know she's wet because she's not mature enough. Just let it go. I had two in diapers at once; it's not that bad. When she's ready, you'll know because it will go much more smoothly and be over in a matter of days. Just give it a rest and try again in a few months. She's so young yet, and I can tell you from experience that prolonged potty-training is no fun for anyone. What would be worse with a newborn in the house: changing a few diapers, or following your two year old around with rags trying to catch her before she goes pee or poop on your couch or rug?

I think in general, it's the child that potty trains the parents and not the other way around. I did hear recently (on Supernanny?) that you can tell that a child is ready to potty train when he or she wakes up from her afternoon nap with a dry or barely wet diaper. If it's soaked with pee, then wait a while longer. In retrospect, I think this definitely applied to us with our son. He's pretty well potty trained now (at 3 and 2 months), but we didn't start the process at all until he started to show interest in it. We showed him the tools and waited for him to make the approach. We also didn't seriously potty train until he was past 2 1/2 and he showed a lot of interest.

If you do want to speed along the process, I do agree with the moms who said to just put her in underpants. To get over the last hump with our son, I gave him lots to drink during the day, had him in underpants and sweatpants (easier to get on and off) and set the timer for 60 minutes. Every 60 minutes, we sat on the toilet and read a book. His baby sister just had to deal with waiting for us that week. If he didn't go, I'd set the timer for another 15 minutes until he peed. He had about 4 accidents a day for the first 4 days or so. Eventually if he started to pee in his pants, he was able to stop it and then tell me he had to go potty. He's doing great now with very, very few accidents. We even can send him to preschool and go shopping in underpants and I don't really worry.

Oh, I just thought, too, that maybe you'd want to wait until the baby is born so that you can point out the difference between babies and big kids? I use that a lot with my son vs. my daughter. We also read books about potty training, both on and off of the potty! And, mini M & M's work great as a reward.

Also, our son has/had constipation issues too and the pediatrician said we had to get that cleared up before we could even consider potty training. He is on Miralax and it's really helped. In addition to a 1/2 cap every other day, he eats TONS of fiber, fruits, vegetables and fluids. Maybe you could talk to your daughter's pediatrician to get some ideas to ease her constipation first. For us, it was a matter of having 6 months of pain-free pooping so that his memory of pain and anxiety would be erased and he could start using the toilet without any fear or pain.

It's a long process that requires LOTS of patience. Good luck and good luck with the new baby!

Just don't use pullups, it confuses them. They never feel the dis comfort. Get big girl panties with her favor princess. Be firm, no rewards... unless the task is done.
They know how to win our hearts over and manipulate. I had the same problem with the boy. I believe with him it was the place that he was in charge.
With the constipation, give her foods with fiber and fruit. that part you do have control of, watch her diet. Stay away from processed food as much as possible.

Sounds like she's not motivated to use it yet. One thing we did was have "potty books" with our son. He'd sit on the pot and we'd read to him (or he could look himself). They have to get relaxed for anything to come out, so books and toys seem to help. You can also set a timer and have her sit for, say 5 minutes, before she gets a sticker. I would not do training pants until you're hitting better than 50%. You can do a no-diaper day but you need to have her sit about every 45 minutes and have a backup pee-pad that she sits on (on the couch, for example). With my son one day of no diaper was enough to motivate him to use the potty and help him learn to recognize when he had to go. (FWIW stickers lost their allure in our house after a week or so - we moved on to single m&m or sweet tart candies instead. These were a very powerful incentive and we continued to use them for several weeks after he was trained, which kept him on task.)

Be aware that potty training is often the first thing to go downhill when kids are adjusting to change. So you may want to wait until a month or two AFTER your next baby is born so that she doesn't regress. I had my second in June and was able to easily train my then-28-month old son in September.

Bring HER potty down every morning with her. Put it in the bathroom only. If the door is open you can get it in there during the day. You don't want to confuse the child with toilets in a bedroom. Let them learn that the potty is in the bathroom. You don't want her pottying all over the house. Run the water in the bathroom sink and you sit on the tub until she goes. Put her on the potty each time she drinks something. Then and only then does she get a sticker. She knows how to "play you" to get what she wants; don't fall for it. Good luck mommy.

J.,

I went through the same exact thing in early Jan with my 2.5 year old daughter. I'm also due in March and thought, what perfect timing to have her trained before the baby.
Well, we went through 4 days of torture with a ton of wet and dirty panties and no success. I ended up putting her back in diapers. She's fine with it.
My pediatrician said most kids aren't ready until closer to 3, and why would I train before the baby anyway? He said she will most likely regress when baby comes. Too much pressure now. Just wait and relax it will happen when she's ready.
From what I've heard it shouldn't take long at all to train. It's a neurogenic thing, their brain has to know when the bladder is full. Good luck with the new baby!

My kids are 21 months apart and I, too, wanted the same things you do. We were making progress but lost all of it when the baby arrived (which I expected). My oldest is now 2 1/2 and is showing some signs. Everybody tells me that if you push it too hard, then it can be harder than it needs to be.

my kid is the first grandkid so very spoiled, stickers and m&m's are like big deal. so of course i used the bribery method. he is 2 1/2 and trained. my doctor told me to tell him to sit on the big potty like a cowboy on a horse. so he gets on and off by himself. he faces the tank, so he rests his hands up there where it is cleaner. then in the begining he would get a train or a hot wheel if he went pee or poop. better motivation for him. try the dollar store. you could get a 100 pcs puzzle of some character and give her one piece everytime she does it right. only costs you a dollar and way more exciting to the kid than a sticker. i know the charts and m&m's work for a lot of people but my kid was definatly not one of them. good luck

I think the first thing to realize is that nothing went wrong -- sometimes it just doesn't go well. My son was using the potty with zeal at 2 1/2 and then all of a sudden lost interest. So we tried again 6 months later.

A couple of suggestions to consider when you try again. These are from my experience and those of the women I know, so see what appeals to you:

- Make sure your daughter knows she only gets the sticker if there is pee in the potty, and after she washes her hands (it's nice to get that into the routine early!)

- Try something other than stickers. (I must admit I used chocolate to jump start the process and then switched to stickers and a prize system.)

- Try putting her on the potty every 2 hours and having her try to go. Sometimes that type of schedule can both help guide you during the training and also helps the child know that it's coming.

- If you think she needs to poo, try reading with her or something that helps her relax (apparently that helps and will be less traumatic). My son likes to play with his fave toy while on the potty. Sometimes it's too big a toy, but we manage!

- If you haven't used it already, try Joanna Cole's Big Girl Potty book. She always writes such wonderful stuff, and there is a page of useful tips for parents. I have found her books invaluable for potty training and for preparing for a new baby.

Good luck!
C.
Mother of a 4-year old and 1-year old