OT: potty training help PLEASE!

[bartleby1]

I am getting frustrated and desperate which I realize is not helpful when trying to potty train, but I don't know what else to try. I'm hoping someone has some magic words of advice.

My DS turned 3 in May. He will sit on the potty and will pee as soon as he sits down. He even has enough control that he can start and stop a bunch of times while he is going (he thinks this is neat ). However, if I don't bring him to the potty often enough he will just go in his pull-up. He never poops on the potty, just in his pull-up. This has been going on for months and we just can't get any further. I'm not sure if it is a case of "being too busy playing" or whether he just doesn't understand the urge to go? If I leave it up to him, he will just go in his pull-up all day long. He doesn't care if he is soaked or stinks.

He is supposed to be going into pre-school in September but he can't go if he isn't potty trained, so time is limited. Also, we will be in disney for the second and third week of August so I was really hoping to have made progress by then. Once we come home, I only have about 2 weeks before school starts.

I know that everyone says they will learn when they are ready but I'm getting desperate and running out of time. He is supposed to be going to school with his best friend (they were born a day apart) and it is going to crush him to see his best friend in school and he can't go.

Any advice or helpful hints? I did a search on the internet and a bunch of downloadable books came up claiming to potty train in 3 days. Has anyone tried these? Are they worth the money? Are they legit?

 

[MelFas]

My 3 year old was the same way! Same exact! What I found worked was... the cheerios! I put them in the potty and it was like a miracle... he wanted to sink them... he wanted to go every 15 minutes to go sink the cheerios!

I would also get him out of the pullups... those in my case at least... were a deterant... why should he stop playing to go potty if he could just go in the pullup? I still have him in them for bedtime though.

As for the pooping... once the pullups came off... he would only poop at night... so we took something away from him... my DH puts him to bed every night and does "one story and two minutes" (stays in his bedroom till he falls asleep, usually more like 20 minutes but hey we call it two minutes) anyway... we told him if he doesnt poop in the potty like a big boy... no more two minutes... that happened one night! he lost his two minutes and poof he pooped in the potty the next day and every day there after!

we also had told him he could go and "build a bear" after he mastered the potty, so of course he got the buzz lightyear outfit for him too!

hope this helps!!!

Melissa

 

[bartleby1]

Thanks for replying, Melissa. I will try some cheerios. Maybe that will get him.

I've tried rewarding with M&Ms which worked for one day until he decided he "didn't like them anymore". I then switched to stickers which seemed to be working until he said "stickers are for babies" ( I don't know where he got that one from).

I tried letting him run naked. He just peed all over my house, yuck. I tried putting the heavy cotton training pants on him. He peed and pooped in them so often that I couldn't even get them clean anymore so we wen't back to pull ups. It just seems like he could care less. He'll sit in it for hours if I let him. It is so darn frustrating. My older DD trained at 2-1/2 in a matter of days. Now I've got mister happy-go-lucky who wouldn't care if the house burned down around him.

 

[adisneymama]

I have not potty trained a boy, but I would second getting rid of the pull ups. One thing that helped with DD was to leave her naked from the waist down. I never thought I would do this, but I too was at my wits end. I knew she knew what to do, but was being stubborn and lazy. Once I decided enough was enough, I put her potty chair on a towel in our den and stripped off the bottoms! She had 1 accident and couldn't stand it! Within 4 days she was completely trained poop and pee! I did put her in pull ups at night just until I finished out what I had left. She never had any accidents so she hasn't been in a pullup in over a year now. She just turned 3 in May. Good Luck to you! It takes a lot to potty train! Have fun at Disney and I hope he gets to go to school with his friend! Maybe he could watch what his friend does in the potty and that would help?

 

[adisneymama]

Sorry we must have been posting at the same time. I see you've tried my ideas. Hope someone else can give you some insight! Good Luck!

 

[java]

Yes take off those pullups. Put him in some underwear that he really likes and then good luck. We had 2 really bad days- I even threw out underwear to get the point across that they get ruined and you can't use them again.(mean mom moment) but he is finally totally trained. He'll be 3 in October. If it gets very bad Tagewt sells "training underwear" that is a little thicker to absorb so he is not peeing all over the house. You can do it. Don't give up And don't stress the school thing most are pretty lenient with a pullup during the first few weeks- and remeber how long is he there for 2 hours? Have him go right before you leave and you should be fine.

 

[kc10family]

Did you just describe my life? My house? My DD? Are you me?

So, I was an activated reservist and my husband was sent over to Iraqi (this was almost 2 yrs ago) so I needed childcare for my now 3 ½ yr old. A local Christian school (VCS) has childcare from 6 mths, into before, and after school care. So I enroll my DD. She loved it. She was in the infant center and loved to watch the toddlers have group potty time. The teachers in the infant center would let her go sit on the potty because she showed great interest in it. Blah, blah blah. She moves to the toddler side at 18 mths and things go well. She would pee on the potty like all her friends. Poop, no. But this will come the teachers tell me. Stickers, praise, you name it she got it.

Dad comes home from Iraqi, I have an other baby, toddler goes from 5 days a week to three days a week at daycare/school. I get deactivated and am now a SAHM, child gets taken out of daycare/school. Potty training starts all over AGAIN.

She masters the pee stuff, but the pooping is to this very day not a fun thing at all. It hurt her one time and now she holds it. It got to the point where I have to buy a baby fleets enema for her. Now she hates the “Orange medicine” (the fleets) and I figured out when she is holding it in, or should I say when it tries to come out. She will arch her back and put her hand behind her. One day I had it and I picked her up and took to the bathroom. I sat her on to potty and watched her, talked, told her to push until I saw it come out. This took a long time mind you. This went on for days.

Now every other day we sit together and I talk her through it. This is getting very old, but at least she gets it in the potty. I sent her (via mail) some things from Belle (beauty and the Beast) all about if she does well she can come have breakfast with the princesses and so on. I (Belle) sent her a post and some stickers. Each time she poops she puts a sticker on the poster, when it is full she gets the present Belle sent her.

I also hope to put my DD in preschool this fall and yes, they too have the must be fully trained rule, as well they should. I hope we make it. This (as I see it) 2 years of potty training is very old.

I hope some of this LONG note helps someone.

Have a Great Disney Day.

 

[Lyn5]

DD turned 3 in May and although she had really good control, we would only poop in the pull-up. She is starting pre-school in early September so I was starting to loose patience myself and began wondering if she was really ready. She would be dry all day at teh sitter in those thick cotton panties and as soon as she came home in a pull-up she would poop. So, earlier this month we gave up the pull-ups. I hid a few and then gave the rest away to our friend. So, she thinks there are no pull-ups in the house and she was forced to wear panties. I started on a Friday afternoon and by Sunday she was happy to choose which panty to wear. We have Nemo, the princesses, etc. She is still having a few accidents here and there, but they are mostly when we are not at home and we don't make it to the potty in time. I think she is starting to learn she has to tell us when she wants to go a little sooner than when she needs to go.....don't give up, I know how it is and you'll make it through, it just might be a little messy at first. I would definetly buy unddies your child would enjoy, my DS4 had Rescue Heros and Bob the Builder briefs. Good Luck.

 

[jodifla]

My DS is just now getting trained at 3 1/2 (we moved just as he was turning 3, which threw everything off).


Of course, all the positive tricks are great, but what seemed to help motivate my son is that all the fun stops when we have an accident so we could clean him up and what ever he went on. TV goes off, we have to stop playing, if we're outside playing then we have to go inside, etc. A week of that, and he was pretty sick of it. I did the naked thing, too, and put the potty chair in our kitchen, near the small tv he likes to watch.

I tried training him in March, and he was completey resistant (we had just moved). So I put it off until after a trip at the end of June, and things progressed rapidly.

 

[SqueakyMouse]

I hate to tell you this but both of my boys were turning 4 before they were truly potty-trained...and I tried every trick in the book. On the other hand, my dd has potty-trained herself. She has been dry during the day since before she was 2. At 2.5, she's now dry most nights. She has twin cousins who are 4 months older. Guess what? My niece is potty trained, but my nephew has NO interest.

 

[poohguys]

We started training my son at 2 1/2 he was pretty good after two weeks. I agree no pull ups. The only time we used pull ups was at naptime and at bed time. After a few months he did not need to wear the pull ups at nap or bed time anymore. Let your ds pick out some big boy underwear at the store. We went to Disney about 4 months after the potty training and he only had one accident when he fell asleep and did not go to the bathroom before a nap. Also we had to leave a few of the attractions during our trip because he had to go potty. (one of the potty trips resulted in us seeing Peter Pan his favorite at the time!) For the first week or or two try to take him to the bathroom once every 1/2 hr to 45 mins. just until he gets the hang of it. Remember you may be doing a lot of wash the first few weeks...but it will be worth it in the end.

 

[shaylahc]

I agree with getting rid of the pull ups. All they are is very expensive diapers When you are ready to potty train, bring out the underwear and don't look back. It can take several weeks of messes and frustration, but they will catch on. I think switching back and forth between diapers and undies is confusing for kids and they will quickly realize that diapers are better since you are basically wearing the toilet vs. making the effort to go to the bathroom to poop and pee. I also think the older they are, the harder it gets because their toileting habits (or lack thereof) are more engrained and we all know preschoolers hate change!

Good luck!!!!

 

[kahluacream]

There are lots of great suggestions here! Like others have mentioned, we only used pull-ups for naptime/bedtime. My son loved Bob the Builder underwear, and would cry whenever Bob got wet. This was big motivation for him to make it to the potty!!!

I also bought a book called something like "Potty Trained in Just One Day" from Amazon. Although it took us more like two weeks, my strong-willed DS was daytime-trained by the time he was 26 months old. (He FINALLY got rid of the nighttime pull-up just after his 4th b-day!)

The book's method is pretty old-fashioned. You'll definitely have to adapt it to your parenting style. The main thing that I found useful about the approach was that it suggested using rewards for having "dry pants" rather than for going on the potty.

To set my son up for success, I started by keeping his small potty in the same room where we were so it was always conveniently located. I dressed him in absorbent underwear that were slightly loose so that they were easy for him to take off.

Then, I would do little "checks" throughout the day, very frequently at first and then gradually less frequently as he got the hang of it. I'd ask him if his pants were wet or dry. If wet, no big deal... just a little pep talk. If they were dry, I'd give him a big hug and a sticker or small prize. Sometimes we would even celebrate by calling his grandparents, aunts, etc. to tell them what a big boy he was for keeping his pants all dry. He loved this!!

Anyway, he caught on in a couple of weeks! Hope this helps... Good luck!

 

[pirateofthecarolinas]

My DS turned 3 on May 16th. We are in the same .

Lori

 

[bartleby1]

Thanks so much to all of you for your words of encouragement and suggestions. It really means alot to me right now. I just can't believe that my DD trained so incredibly easy and my DS is just being so difficult. I always heard that boys were usually harder to train but this is just getting ridiculous.

I did try the thick cotton training pants but only for about a week and then they were so gross from him pooping in them and then sitting around in it that I threw them out. We've talked about getting him big boy underwear and I even tried tempting him by going to the store and looking at all the different characters he could pick from. I keep reminding him that when he gets better at staying dry we can go and buy them but it hasn't seemed to change anything.

I guess my next step is to do what many of you suggested and just go get the real underwear and use the "sink or swim" type approach. Oh how I dread the messy poop underwear though, lol! I could never have done cloth diapers . Maybe I will just buy tons of them and throw them out if need be .

On a positive note, I have noticed a few times during the past week that he was doing a dance and crossing his legs, etc, when he had to go so he is trying to hold it in, he just doesn't seem to get that he needs to go then. He seems to think he can hold it forever. But, maybe that is a sign of a little bit of progress.

 

[shelleybean]

I've worked as a speech pathologist in an independent school for 7 years and have spent A LOT of time talking about the potty training issue. For a lot of kids it is the last thing they have any real control over and if too big of an issue is made out of it, many kids will resist. However we have fouund that pull ups are absoultely horrible and are just big kid diapers. I agree with everyone else to get him out of those. We also have a lot of families at our school who are from other countries. They will take a weekend or week during our vacations, let the kids walk around without pants for a few days and BOOM they are potty trained. It works well to do this outside, let the child have his potty out there and just learn the connection between the urge to go, what comes out, and the potty. Now I'm working on the potty training with my own 2 1/2 year old DD. Good luck to you!

 

[T1130]

I was in the same boat as you. Dd was 3 1/2 in Jan. had no interest in the the potty. I spent a week in the house. Day 1 pulled the diaper off put real underwear on . Everytime I put dd on the potty she would cry and say this is not fun. I tried every trick in the book. Nothing worked. My dd would hold herself all day the one time I would turn my head she would pee her pants. We promised dd anything in the world if she would just go on the potty even a trip to WDW nothing worked. At the end of the week I was in tears. I put her back in the pull ups.
Now comes June I tell Dd that is it. I pull the pull up off move the potty seat into the living room in front of the tv. Next thing I know I am in the kitchen washing dishes dd comes running in with the potty seat saying I did it. and sure enough she did. We have only had one accident since than.
My Sil is at Wdw now so she just sent dd a postcard from Mickey saying because she is a big girl now she can come visit him.
Here is a suggestion for a boy put shaving cream in the toilet tell ds it is a boat and he has to try and sink it. Good luck.

 

[SueM in MN]

My niece had tried training pants with her DD, but she just wet them and niece did not like the mess (especially since she lives an apratment and had to take the wash out to do it). She used the newer pull ups that feel wet when the child wets in them. She said after wetting the first one, her DD said it felt "yucky" (she didn't seem to mind if the cloth ones were wet, but didn't like the feel of the "feel wet" pull ups. After the one wet pull-up, she never wet one again.
If you want to use cloth underwear, my hint is to use pullups over the underwear. That way you can protect your carpets and furniture and cut down on the amount of wash you do, but the child will still feel the "results" of wetting.

 

[Ali]

My son is 4 now, on the autistic spectrum, and I finally had it with pooping in pull-ups only, never on the potty. I just decided to take the pull-ups away from him, and tell him that he had to clean up the mess he made if he pooped on the floor. Drastic, but he had been peeing in the potty for a year, had no overnight accidents at all, and only needed the pull-up on for pooping.

I got everything ready for success.. chart, stickers, prized (rewards work with him as long as they are cars)

So, he held in the poop for 4 days, and I had to resort to a fleet's baby lax, and then he went poop on the potty. I guess it was hard, and he was scared of it, because he was terrified, screaming, crying, etc. I am very familiar with this kind of crying because it is common for every new thing he doesn't want to do. We made out the poop chart, and every time he went on the potty he got to pick a prize out of the prize box. When he had done it 10 times he got to join the gymnastics class he has ben wanting to do forever, but had to be out of pull-ups for. he was pooping by himself, asking for privacy in the bathroom, and generally got the whole pooping thing down, in my opinion.

So them I assumed he was ok with pooping on the potty at home and was starting to work on pooping at other places. He decided he was terrfied of pooping again, and we went hrough the screaming, holding in and laxative again. So we are back to rewarding every poop on the potty with a car, trying to go in other places, and making sure he drinks enough water during the day so he dosn't have hard poops which scare him.

I don't know what of my story can help you, except for the part where you decide that there will be no more pull-ups in your house, and that if he makes a mess he has to clean it up. Just wanted to let you know that it's hard with boys. But you are the mom and you have the power to buy pull-ups, or not.

Alicia

 

[all4fun]

I've been reading this thread with interest because our ds still needs to be potty trained. I found this information I thought I would share about doing the bare bottom technique others have posted about:

Plan a bare bottom weekend. If your child is older than 30 months and has successfully used the potty a few times with your help and clearly understands the process, commit 6 hours or a weekend exclusively to toilet training. This can usually lead to a breakthrough. Avoid interruptions or distractions during this time. Younger siblings must spend the day elsewhere. Turn off the TV and do not answer the phone. Success requires monitoring your child during these hours of training.

The bare bottom technique means not wearing any diapers, pull-ups, underwear or any clothing below the waist. This causes most children to become acutely aware of their body's plumbing. Children innately dislike pee or poop running down their legs. You and your child should stay in the vicinity of the potty chair. This can be in the kitchen or other room without a carpet. A gate may help your child stay on task. During bare bottom times, supervise your child but refrain from all practice runs and most reminders, allowing the child to learn by trial and error with your support.

Create a frequent need to urinate by offering your child lots of her favorite fluids. Have just enough toys and books handy to keep your child playing near the potty chair. Keep the process upbeat with hugs, smiles and good cheer. You are your child's coach and ally.
from:
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/pa/pa_btoilbas_hhg.htm

Anyway, I think you've gotten some great advice so far. Just thought this might be helpful as well.

hth!