HELP DS "still" not pottytrained!!!!

[mindy327]

YIKES! Time is getting close. We booked over a year ago, and have been planning this trip for 2 years. With all intentions for my DS to be fully pottytrained. He more than willingly will go pee, but to poo! Forget it. He's 3 and a half and will not go. He insists on the pullup method for this one and TELLS US when he has to go. Its all toilet fears Im sure. I have read other parents have the same issue, and was told to be patient. I am really getting scared well have to retract the Oceaneers Club and put him in the Flounders Reef Nursery. I know that he would rather play and see charcters but I am honestly at my witts end. From a frustrated mom, Please help!!! ANY suggestions to help move this process along would be more than taken at this point. 2 months 2 days and counting! What would you do?

 

[swilphil]

I feel your pain. BOTH my sons had issues potty training, luckily we weren't planning a crusie then. It does seem like the more you push it the worse it gets.

The best piece of advice I ever heard was to put the diaper or pull up in the toilet, and let your son go with it in there (but don't let him flush).

Something we did was to take the pull-up away except for bed time, and take it off very first thing in the morning. It's better to deal with a few messy pants than to keep dragging it out. My pediatrician told me to have my son sit on the potty after dinner or a big meal until he goes. Then his body will get to be somewhat regular. That did help.

Do take pull-ups on the cruise though. I've heard they will let the kids wear them if you take them in their jammies late at night. The official policy is no pull ups, but I'm sure you'll be able to get some time in the club. Has he watched the Disney Cruise video? That may be a big incentive to use the potty.

 

[kcashner]

First, do what you can for the next 2 months. That means get rid of the pull ups immediately even if you have to deal with some messes. Some kids regard pull-ups as another form of diapers, but do well when switched to regular pants. Then, take him to OC in "big boy pants" (not pull-ups). Explain that if he wants to play, he MUST use the potty. Go to the club every hour or so and escort him to the bathroom. Sit him until he goes! If you take him and he remains dry while in the club, there is no issue.

If he has one or two accidents in the club it won't be an issue--they will page you to come and clean him up. Beyond that, they will not allow him in the club without you.

 

[jeast]

Take the pull-ups away except for night time. He will learn quicker than you think when he has to waddle around with poo.

If you decide to go cold turkey, be prepared for a week or two of pure chaos, screaming, and total messes. But, if you are totally consistent and don't give in to him, NOT ONCE, he will give in. You can't give in even ONCE or you've set yourself up for months of wishy washiness in him. Consistency is key.

It may sound or feel mean at the time, but I promise you it won't be on his list one day when he's sitting in the therapist's office.

 

[Crazy4Disney06]

My son was very easy to potty train. We never did pull ups or training pants, we went right to big boy underware. Yes I did have several messes at first however, I think pull ups are too much like diapers there for the child thinks it's ok to go potty in them. I think you should take away the pull ups even at night, reward you son every time he goes in the potty with a sticker or some other small reward and you will be suprised how quickly he will catch on.

 

[dizzi]

TAKE AWAY THE PULLS NOW!!!!!!!!!!

Sit him down and talk grown up style to him.

LEt him know WHY youa re doing it.......exactly why...........

So that he can go in the kids club and have soem fun and that not only that it is time to go poop in the toilet like all 3 year olds MUST!
DADDy does not use a pull up!

He may scream and cry but he will eventually go and when he does have a BIG REWARD READY!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[OurMsBrooks]

Now I am probably not the person to give advice on this, because my kids took a long time. But I have a friend who struggled with this problem who tried what sounds like a too-simple solution, but it worked.

She got her son, sat him down and had a talk about being a big boy and how they weren't using pull-ups anymore. Then she took him on a tour of the house. In each room, they stopped and she said, "Do we go potty in this room?" And the little boy would dutifully say "no." Then they went in the bathroom, and he answered "yes" to her question. I know it sounds crazy and too easy, but it WORKED.

Hope that helps. Best of luck!

 

[TheM&MBoys]

Hi Mindy327- I just recently went through this with my DS who is also 3 1/2. We will be cruising in May. I tried everything and then decided to show my DS the Disney cruise site everyday as a motivator. I showed him pictures of the Oceaneers Lab. We talked about all the great activities and fun he would have with the "big kids". I also explained to him that Mickey Mouse doesn't allow children to wear pull ups on his boat except babies and that either he would be with the babies on the boat or we would have to call Granny to stay with him while we had fun on the cruise. (I know this sounds cruel but we tried everything and we were at our wits end). Well it worked! He is now completely potty trained...even at night!: Every time he uses the potty he says "I'm going on Mickey Mouses boat!". I hope this helps...I feel for you.

 

[Skuba2]

We counted the number of poops. LOL! I also knew when they had pooped and when to expect another. The cruise may be too disconnected to him to use as a reward. I kept a really sharp eye on my kids for the signs they were going to poop. Most kids have them. Then--swoop--up they went and off to the potty. I'd sit them on it and sit in front of them and encourage the heck out of them. The funny thing---laughing seems to help move things along. LOL!

Potty trained for the clubs isn't just being dry. They need to be able to manage themselves in the bathroom alone. Undress, wipe, dress, hand wash. The cms never went in when my kids were there.

You can manage him though. All is not lost. If you keep track of his "poop pattern" , then you should be able to predict the next one and intercept him at the club.

Oh what fun.

Good Luck!

DG

 

[NHdisneylover]

Okay, this will NOT help you potty train your son, which I know is the ultimate goal. But, it may get you thorugh the cruise:

How long can he hold it between when he tells you need a pull up and when he goes? When I taught preschool (many moons ago) some kids seemed to be able to give tons of wanrnng. If he can wait 5-10 minutes after he says he needs to poop, can you teach him to ask the consulers to page his mommy (but not to tell them why)? They will page you if he asks (unless they know you are at Palo) and you could come get him and take him to the restroom and put a pull up on him.

 

[strega7]

Your son sounds like what my son went thru. Only we never used pull ups, he was pee trained for awhile, and he would tell me to put a diaper on so he could poo. I was lucky though because he refused to poo in his big boy underwear (I would make him clean it if he did). Anyway, one day I finally said no diaper, we will go to the potty, he thru a humungus fit and said that he didn't have to go. I repeated the process of no diaper and on day 3 he couldn't hold it anymore. So there he was screaming he had to go and needed a diaper, and of course I said no you have to poo on the potty, so I picked him up as poo's were about to fall out and held him on the toilet, all the while he was screaming. Finally the poos fell out in the toilet, he stopped screaming, we applauded and cheered him on and then let him pick out a special toy at the store. Promised him if he could do it again without the screaming, we would come back and get the toy. Without fail, next time he had to go, he told me, went to the toilet, and he has never missed a beat since.

Every child is different, it sounds like you are really close...just see what happens if you refuse to give him a pull up the next time he has to poo. I think if I remeber correctly I let him know I was not buying anymore diapers and I would count down until the last one was gone, and when he asked for it that one time I reminded him there were no more diapers. I hope that helps . Marci

 

[mrstimster]

We are also going on a cruise in May that was planned 2 years ago. We purposely waited until this May so DS could go to the club with his sister - he turns 3 on May 2nd. We were sweating it out until recently. I actually just today cancelled my Flounders reservations and switched him to the OC after 1 week with no accidents.

My advice is similar to that which has been expressed already:

Get rid of the pull ups - except at night. My DS did NOT like the feeling of the pee or poop in his pants. It was a real stinky pain for several days but then he got it. Be careful though not to change him to quick. As painful and stinky as it is, make him wait a bit before you change him. If you react to quickly there is no discomfort and no lesson learned. I used to make him stand in the bathroom while I slowly went to get a change of clothes.

We also told our DS that he couldn't go into Mickey's Clubhouse on Mickey's Boat until he was trained. He saw videos of when his sister was on the Magic and so it was easy to use as bribery. Our DS also will say "now I can go on Mickey's boat" after he uses the potty.

One other thing about Potty Fears. We found (after some time) that our DS was not so much afraid of the Potty as the flushing. He didn't like the noise or being near it when it flushed. First we promised not to flush until after he was out of the room. Then, after some of the fears went away, it became his job.

Good luck!! I hope you find what works for you because, as we all know, every kid is different. Sounds like we might be cruising together. I hope our DS's get to play together in the OC.

 

[KensJen]

We had the same situation last year on our cruise. My son just would not poop in the potty, especially in a new place and around new people.

But we knew he always went at the same time every day and we just made sure he was with us at that time. And my son is stubborn, he would hold it for a long time if he had to.

He was fine with peeing in the potty, and wore underwear and had a great time in the clubs. He saved pooping later at night, when he was back in the privacy of the bathroom in our stateroom.

Usually at 3.5 kids are pretty predictable and will likely hold it until they are comfortable. If not, you may get paged, it is not the end of the world. I'm sure he'll be fine to go to the club though, try not to stress about it.

Hopefully you'll get some potty pixie dust your way...

 

[samily]

Hi Mindy327- I just recently went through this with my DS who is also 3 1/2. We will be cruising in May. I tried everything and then decided to show my DS the Disney cruise site everyday as a motivator. I showed him pictures of the Oceaneers Lab. We talked about all the great activities and fun he would have with the "big kids". I also explained to him that Mickey Mouse doesn't allow children to wear pull ups on his boat except babies and that either he would be with the babies on the boat or we would have to call Granny to stay with him while we had fun on the cruise. (I know this sounds cruel but we tried everything and we were at our wits end). Well it worked! He is now completely potty trained...even at night!: Every time he uses the potty he says "I'm going on Mickey Mouses boat!". I hope this helps...I feel for you.

Oh my goodness, this sounds like what we did- the mean mommy that I am ! My son was turning 3 a few weeks before our cruise last month and was not potty trained and I was getting nervous! I knew he was ready because he would tell me when he was going & wanted to be changed right away. A few weeks before his bday I told him that diapers were not allowed on the airplane or theMickey boat, so if he wanted to come he needed to go on the toilet; if not that was fine but he would need to stay at Grandma's house while the rest of us went & I would miss him sooo much. We would talk about all the fun things on the boat that he would miss. Bless his little heart, about a week later, he started going on the toilet and has been trained since- only 2 accidents in 3 months and they were during nap time! And I swear everyday until the cruise he would tell me at least once a day after he went that now he could go on the mickey boat and wouldn't have to stay home with grandma (grandma was a little insulted he didn't want to stay w/ her- I guess no one compares to mickey!)

Needless to say we had a great cruise and we are now a diaper free family for the first time in 9 years!

 

[Daisy5115]

I agree with the advice here to take off the pull ups while you have time to monitor him without them. A bigger worry would really be that he won't be able to swim unless he is trained. My son wasn't trained on our last cruise and he had to stay in the Mickey Ear with a tiny sprinkler and it broke my heart that he didn't understand why he couldn't go in the pool with his brother. They are very strict about this rule (as it should be) but swim diapers mean no swimming on DCL. He did swim in the ocean in Cozumel. He loved Flounder's and we took him to the Oceaneers Club to visit with me in attendance. I was surpised that for some reason he didn't really like it in there and the swimming was more of an issue.

It will be fun regardless, we had a blast even with the not potty trained boy.

Karen

 

[QJ411]

Our DD (2) is also having a tough time pooping in the potty. I think all the advice here is great and I will try out a couple of the tricks! We're sailing in 2 months and I don't want to pressure her to be potty trained but as the previous poster said about the swimming...it would break my heart to see her play in the sprinkler fountain ear and not understand why she can't swim in the big kids pool...and she will not be a happy camper. We try to tell her about the big kids pool as incentive, but at her age, if it's not instant gratification, it's nothing.

Good luck with the potty training...and thanks for all the advice, I'm going to start tomorrow with taking away the Pull Ups...here comes the mess... but it's worth a shot!

 

[CRSNDSNY]

You've gotten A LOT of advice here. We are in the midst of potty training our nearly 3-year old.

What finally worked for us was letting her run around with no pants on and also loading her up with fluids until she had no choice. She was just scared to actually do it at first but after she got the first pee down, she got so much better.

Maybe let it go for a week or two with no mention of potty and then start sneaking it in in a different method again.

Perhaps if he senses how important it is, he is just being stubborn. I'd just let it go for a little while.

Many hugs to you! I know how frustrating it can be!

 

[crisi]

Neither of my kids trained until 3 1/2. For my son it was an issue of mastery - he wouldn't until he could with no mistakes. My daughter was stubborn and had some issues with not wanting to grow up. For her, talking to the peditrician about being a "big girl" and then taking away the pull ups and putting her in DIAPERS when she had "accidents" (which both the peditrician and I were sure weren't accidents - they were stubborness) - solved the issue, but it was two weeks of hell.

Pull ups were enough big girl for her to have it both ways.

 

[samily]

The not being able to swim in the Mickey pool with his brother & sister & having to stay in the one ear for the babies was our big concern as well, more so than the kids club. That was the reason that we chose not to cruise when he was 2 and just did the parks that year. However, when we were on the Wonder last month, we found they had added a baby/toddler's spray & splash area next to the Mickey pool and that the Mickey ear which had been previously for the swim diapers was now part of the regular pool- no more diapers. Not sure if this is also on the Magic yet or not.

 

[mindy327]

Thanks for all of your responses! They are greatly appreciated, from a mom who now knows someone can feel my pain. My only concern about just stopping cold turkey, which may work, or telling him "Mickey cruise doesnt allow pullups to play with the other kids.
Kaden, my son is (BY NO MEANS mentally handicapped) but he is severly behind on his speech and comprehension. He wouldnt understand that. So I suppose I will use the run around the house naked-until he goes- method and do it for a week. Let cross our fingers. Ill let yall know how it goes.