Pottytraining

I would definitely try to potty train now. I too used the "Potty Training in One Day" method with my daughter. She was 20 months old and a friend wanted to try with her son who was 26 months. We thought it might be fun and help if they did it together. I didn't really expect this to work for my daughter at that age. We set up on the patio with snacks, lots of drinks for kids and mom and potty chairs and a supply of under pants for the kids. We let them go without diapers and sometimes with no pants. It was no stress and by the end of the afternoon my daughter was potty trained and the friends son wasn't. She only had 3 or 4 accidents from that day on. I did use diapers for a month or so at night and after a couple of weeks of her being dry in the morning that went away too. One side note I used cloth diapers 80 percent of the time and I think that made a difference. My friends son was did start to use the potty that day and was doing well with in a few days. Good Lucky!

If your daughter is ready to go farther with potty learning, introducing changes might work. If she's not ready, pushing her could make things much worse. There's a good book by Terry Brazelton, I forget the name. He stresses that kids are self-motivated to learn to use the potty, and they don't need rewards or to be pushed. They learn when they are ready, physically and emotionally. It's very common for toddlers to regress when a new baby comes, and go back to needing diapers anyway (or maybe just having lots of accidents.) You just have to go at your daughter's pace. It's such a challenge to have a new baby in the house, making potty an issue on top of it can be very stressful. I'm not saying you shouldn't do anything, just that I think very small changes can be big to a kid. Maybe take her to the potty more often, ask her if she needs to go frequently, try some nakey time, see how she responds to that.

I think trying to pressure your daughter to potty train herself because disposable diapers are expensive (as noted by a previous poster) is really unfair. If you are concerned about the expense, invest in some cloth diapers that can be reused indefinitely.

One thing our daughter likes about pull-ups is that she can go to the potty by herself without help. She can also change a diaper altogether if she needs to. I wouldn't say they're necessary, just that they might work for some kids but not for others, and you won't know really until you try them.

Good luck!

I personally wouldn't want 2 in diapers-big expense. Also, your time factor will be greatly changed. so i would go for it now, while you can still have some great one-on-one time. We have used the potty training in a day or less (you teach a dolly to potty- child does everything from pulling pants down/up to dumping chair and flushing-and use many salty snacks and lots of drinks for rewards) with our oldest 2 children with great success. It ended up being more than a day for it to stick. with my oldest-girl-we started when she was 26 months. I took the phone off the hook and devoted an afternoon to her. She did great with dolly, but was scared when it came her time to go. We spent about 4 hours that day teaching, and after several peeing/pooing in the corner, I gave up and went back to diapers. about 3 weeks later, she announced one day that she was ready for the big potty, and had only 3 accidents from that point. So, though we didn't go to bed that night potty trained, after only 4 hours of working with her, she knew everything she needed to know to be self sufficient in the bathroom. The method worked similar with my son, but took 2 tries before he decided he was ready.
I have really liked this method, as it trains the child to do everything instead of training the parent to watch the child for clues. I'd be glad to tell you more about the method if you're ____@____.com, I would encourage training pants instead of pull ups. I've seen a lot of my friends buy pull ups for months upon end-and I tried it at first,too, not wanting the mess. But it doesn't seem to be enough difference between pull ups and diapers. I would recommend training pant that are thick to absord more moisture, rather than plain underpants at first.
This has gotten quite long-sorry. Hope all goes well, and let me know if you'd like more info on the method. God bless:)

I went straight from a diaper to big girl pants. I didn't want to waist the money on something that was just a glorified diaper. Each day the accidents decreased, the first day 3, then 2nd day 2, etc until their were no accidents. They figured it out fairly quickly and were potty trained both day and night in two weeks time. It wouldn't hurt to try it. She may have a few accidents after the baby comes, but maybe not. It will probably be less stressful doing it (or at least trying it) before the baby comes so that she doesn't feel as pressured with your attention on the baby as well. Good Luck!

You might try just sitting her on the potty before bath, when she wakes up, and before she goes to bed. Don't make it a big deal, just part of your normal routine. We let our second son run around the house nude for a couple of days, then went straight for the real undies. We used the big potty, which was great! (a lot less mess). We rewarded with his favorite stickers he would wear on his shirt. Everyone would comment on them when we went out. I wouldn't suggest using pull-ups. They really aren't much different than a diaper. I hope this helps. I say it's definitely worth a shot to potty train her before number 2.

She is a little young, I think, but it is worth a try. You're right, the pull-ups are a total waste of money. Even with the cold sensors, it didn't bother my daughter. In the beginning we put underwear on her and set the timer for every 15 minutes. She would go potty and we'd applaud and cheer. Running some water can help stimulate her to pee. You can also use stickers later on as the applause wears off and isn't as rewarding. Eventually you can start to add time in between potty breaks.

When I potty trained my son we went straight to training underwear and then I put the plastic pants over those. Pull-ups are just diapers that come smaller packaging and you pay more money for them.

I would give it a try before the baby gets here. If you can get her totally trained quickly, then hopefully it won't be an issue come May. My son was about 30 months old, but had been going on the potty on occasion from about 20 months old. We never really pushed the issue, but thought he was doing well, so we explained to him that he needed to go on the potty and he wasn't going to wear diapers anymore. It went amazingly well, after five days of an accident or two a day, he was trained and hasn't had a daytime accident since (it's been 2 to 3 months now). We bought Elmo underwear and stressed that he did'nt want to pee-pee on Elmo. That seemed to work quite well. He was very concerned about Elmo :) My advice is to commit to a week of messes, and if no improvement is shown in a week, go back to diapers and try it again in a couple of months. We did use pull-ups before we forced the issue, and as far as he was concerned, they were just slightly different looking diapers. Personally, I think they make it harder to train a kid, not easier. We did get extra thick "training" underwear, and that worked well at containing the wet, but since it got him wet, he caught on quickly. Good luck with the potty training, and the new baby!

I think pull-ups are a waste too. They feel like diapers. I am having issues with my 3 year old and potty training myself. My first son, I just put him in big boy pants and after about a week or so he started going to the potty. But he didn't like being dirty. My second child would sit in poop for a week before he started to care. I would start out with the potty chair in your bathroom and let her sit on it when you go potty. Then I would talk about the potty a lot and maybe even give her a sticker or something cool every time she goes. We do one sticker for pee and 2 for poo. LOL I defintely wouldn't push her to use it if she doesn't want to because your just hurting yourself in the long run. Just make it a positive thing and use positive reinforcement. Just keep in mind that she will be potty trained before kindergarten.

Hi N.,

First since you will be having a new baby in the house here in a few months I would make the transition from diapers to pull ups...babies wear diapers and big girls wear pull ups. You can also start dabbling in potty training for instance take her to the potty at key areas during the day when she wakes up in the morning, after nap, before bath, and before bed, I would start with those areas first.
I would save the majority of the potty training for after the baby gets here and when the house is settled back down. So like when your new baby is about the 3 month mark. My youngest one was born just before my older daughter turned 3. She was potty trained 2 months before her 3rd birthday. We went cold turkey from pull ups to panties.

Here's an example for you.... One of my daycare girls will be 3 in June, her little brother is expected to arrive somewhere around mid-Feburary. Her mother has taken her to the potty since she was 18 months old. So now she can tell you when she has pooped, sge can bring you a pull up and wipes, she can even pee on the potty when she has to go and stay dry all day in panties, she has all the classic signs that she is ready to be potty trained. So 2 months ago we tried she stayed in panties the whole week and dry all day even thru nap but she wouldn't poop on the potty. She went 4 days without pooping and went for 2 weeks like that. When she has to poop if you set her on the potty everything "locks" up so her mother and I agree that it will be better to wait until after she has her brother and we wait until he has been home for awhile.

For me I waited altogether until my 4th was about 4 months old and then pottytrained my e yr old. The first week, first day we had 3 accidents the 2nd day we had and the 3rd we had 1, the rest of the week we didn't have any. The following week we had one accident on a Wednesday and since then we haven't had any, not even through the night.

So what is my opinion ....WAIT. Have you ever heard the term slower in faster well that applies to this case. Every child is different but no matter the child or the parent there will be a transition period when you bring a new sibling into the house not just for the child but for the parents also. No reason to cause more stress and there isn'tany more needed. JMO though, W.

When we potty-trained our son this past July (he was 2 1/2 years old) we tried the whole pull-ups thing and taking him to the bathroom every 30 minutes. He would NOT go in the potty. Someone told me that he just didn't know the feeling associated with it so we just put on underwear and went with it. When he peed in his underwear he freaked out and HATED it. He only did it a few times and learned REAL quick to tell us when he had to go! Kind of messy? Yes. Quick for us, though? Heck yes! I don't know that every kid hates wet undies, though. That was just what worked for our son. I would say that he's had less than 10 accidents total since that time, most of them being at daycare. He was also never the type to start playing and "forget" to go to the bathroom, which was good for us because we would forget to ask him if he needed to go! Good luck with the potty-training and the new baby!!

A.

Hello, I am a mom of four and have had four different experiences with potty training. My first was four and I tried the whole training pants with him and it wasn't until I decided enough was enough with the training pants that I was able to get him trained. He basically used the training pants as a diaper. My second wanted to be potty trained just like his older brother and just decided on his own just after his second birthday to go on the potty, so he was no trouble at all. With my third, she also did the training pants for a bit, but with her, she had to get trained or she would not be allowed to start preschool at 3 years old. So we took a weekend trip out of town and put underwear on her. We told her that she could NOT pee in her pants and get her car seat all dirty. We had to stop about every 45 mins to hour at first for every feeling she had but for that time in the car, she did not go in her pants and could tell us just when she needed to stop to go potty. She was already not going in her training pants thru the night. With my last child it was the worst. We tried the training pants, went back to diapers, we tried the not putting the pants on her at all during the day to make her go on the potty. She would pee on the floor. We tried the cloth potty pants with the plastic. She would pee in it and then take it off and bring it to us to change her. We just finally one night ended it. It was 10 p.m. and we had discovered that we had run out of diapers. I told her that I was fed up with diapers and explained to her that she was old enough to go to the potty on her own and to wear big girl underwear. She looked up at her daddy with her puppy dog eyes and said " daddy, mommy won't go buy me some diapers." And my husband confirmed back at my daughter that diaper time was done and that we would no longer buy any more diapers for her and that we would only buy underwear. Our daughter immediately stopped crying and yelled back to us "FINE, I'LL WEAR THE BIG GIRL UNDERPANTS" And from that night on, she went on the potty. I know that each child is different and the way that you choose to train them may be different as well. I have a friend who trained her girls at a year old and by two, most have some idea of what going on the potty means and are capable of going on the potty on their own. My girls were potty trained at 3 years. So whatever way you choose, good luck! I hope my stories help you in some way. Take Care!