Sorry! More potty training! Readiness??? What to do next???

[las3888]

Hi all,

Here's where I'm at with potty training and our situation. DS turned 3 and I started the potty training process. It's been 2-3 weeks now. I started letting him run around bottomless for just a few hours a day, and asked him to sit while I was in the shower and/or other times. He did fairly well and had a decent number of successes (much to my surprise) in his first days, both #1 and #2. I did not take the diapers away all day though. His successes did not mean he told me he had to go though, although I think one time he actually sat down on the potty all by himself to go. Remember, this is once in 2-3 weeks. After reading a lot of threads and advice, I decided that I probably needed to take the diaper away pretty much to make this happen. Well, I have done that for maybe the last 5-6 days. I do give him a diaper when we go out every morning for a few hours, for nap and of course bedtime. During all this time, success has been more limited. We are having a lot more accidents. Lately it has been 2-3 a day. At first, I thought the accidents were helpful because it was teaching him the feeling of having to go. At first, he would stop the accident from happening at times, and then finish up on the potty. NOW, he almost seems used to the accident and just lets it all come out. He does seem sorry (I am trying not to make him feel bad). I have had him help me clean it, thinking he would get tired of that, but he seems to enjoy that part.

I am not sure what to do next. Yesterday, he had a huge accident after sitting on the potty about every 10-15 minutes for 90 minutes. He just wouldn't go on the potty.

I honestly don't know if he still doesn't understand the feeling of needing to go, or if he doesn't want to stop what he is doing (he does when we ask him to sit on the potty, he just won't go mostly).

I don't know if we should pull back for a while. Others talk about how their kids are trained a day or two after taking the diaper away. Not sure why that's not happening here???

PS - I forgot to mention, the good news is that the diapers I give him when we go out and during nap are dry almost all the time...!

I welcome your advice!!!

 

[Rylee]

Here's what worked for my son, (right around his 3rd birthday)...

I spoke with his peditrician... the Dr. said, if my son could recognize the sensation of needing to go potty, to make him, my son, responsible for his trainning.

I took a stack of trainning pants and set them in the bathroom. I told my son, "The Dr. and I feel you are old enough to go on the potty. It's okay if you have an accident, but you'll need to clean and change yourself." I had him wear only a shirt and the trainning pants. I showed him where to place the dirty pants, and went about my day.

It worked! Two accidents and three days later, we were done.

This method takes away power struggles, any attention the child gets from having accidents, and keeps the parents from getting frustrated.

*This son is our 4th child, the older 3 are girls and trainned early and easily. I hadn't tried to potty train him prior to this because we were at an out of state hospital with our newborn (5th child) for over 5 weeks. I had put off trainning knowing of all the changes to come in the next few months... new sibling, parents gone, etc. I also waited until we had been home with the new baby for about 6 weeks.

 

[HelenePA]

Well if I were you I'd get rid of the diapers ALL the time. When my ds goes to bed I put a diaper on him only AFTER he's asleep. Never while he's awake. He's probably confused as to why its okay to pee in his diaper while out but not at home. Just ditch the diapers while out and I bet it gets ALOT better! I was SO nervous taking my ds (who was younger than 2) out with out diapers for the first time.. I had extra clothes for the whole family, but ya know he never had an accident. If you want start slow. Take him for a walk around the block (okay I dont know if its warm enough to do this where you are). I didn't wait for Ds to tell me he had to pee I asked him every 5 min.

 

[las3888]

Well if I were you I'd get rid of the diapers ALL the time. When my ds goes to bed I put a diaper on him only AFTER he's asleep. Never while he's awake. He's probably confused as to why its okay to pee in his diaper while out but not at home. Just ditch the diapers while out and I bet it gets ALOT better! I was SO nervous taking my ds (who was younger than 2) out with out diapers for the first time.. I had extra clothes for the whole family, but ya know he never had an accident. If you want start slow. Take him for a walk around the block (okay I dont know if its warm enough to do this where you are). I didn't wait for Ds to tell me he had to pee I asked him every 5 min.

Well, DH and I constantly ask him if he needs to go potty and I would say we have received about 1000 no's to that question, so that obviously isn't working. We ask him to sit on the potty on very regular intervals of time and he usually does so, and often for very long periods of time. It just doesn't produce much.

I have thought about taking the diapers away 100% of the daytime but I could almost guarantee you that he would have an accident. Remember, he doesn't tell me at all when he has to potty, nor will he 'go on command' if we go out and about. At this point, I have not been able to get him on a big potty yet either, he is only on his small training potty. He is a bit afraid fo a big potty right now and I don't think it's wise to push it. Going to the grocery store, mall or something like that would lead to an accident, almost 100% guaranteed. I am not averse to accidents, and realize this comes with the territory, but I feel like it's a little different if your child tells you he has to go, or gives you some clues and while you might try to make the potty on time, it just might not happen.

I just go back to the old question of whether or not he can feel what is happening at all down there or not. At this point, if he goes on the potty I feel it's basically all down to having sat him on the potty and waited long enough (being in the right place at the right time).

I am going to shop for training pants...hopefully that will help on the accident front. Our hardwood floors and carpet are really getting a workout. If you've used them, do you find that they at all helpful?

After thinking about it, let me put it this way...my whole dilemma is that for almost 3 weeks of taking away the diaper at home, not much has changed, other than the floors and couch being the diaper instead of Pampers. I just don't know what to do next. For those of you who think taking the diaper away when we go out, I guess it would seem reasonable if we had even 50% success at home in our own environment after 2-3 weeks of doing this. Even 20% success would be nice!!! Sorry - I appreciate all comments. I am just a little frustrated at the situation!

 

[Alex&Evan'sMom]

With my two boys I tried a variety of things.(pullups, rewards, asking them to sit on the potty etc.) None of them seemed to work. Finally I just completely banned pullups and switched to underpants. I bought them special "big boy" underpants that they helped pick out and told them they had to wear them all the time. After a few tears, some accidents and a couple of days...voila! I wish you all the luck in whatever method you choose.

 

[_queenie_]

My DS finished a little before 2.5, but what I had him do for a while before he started was tell me when he had to go in his diaper. I honestly wanted to know if he could before I started anything. He had a little trouble at first feeling that "got to go" sensation, but he got better. After a few days of me saying "When you start to feel stuff coming out let me know.", we were able to move up to "Tell me when you think stuff is going to come out and you're going to wet your diaper." (obvioulsy this isn't exactly what I said). To get him to feel that he had to "#1" I would purosefully give him a really big glass of water and would just wait a few minutes by him, asking how he felt saying "You just had some water, that usually makes you have to #1. Do you think you have to?". Everytime he told me I gave him either a sticker or a piece of candy (my kids liked bribery ). It worked well, at least with #1, and he took to the idea of potty training easier.

Obviously, you're past this stage. Since your DS is 3 and needs to learn this, I would completely get rid of the diapers. Just hang in there and remember that he can do this. I think you need to take different approaches with three-year-olds versus two-year-olds. I like the idea from the PP that suggested about having them change themselves, every kid is different and this may take some experimenting.

Good luck, I hope you get through this with as few headaches as possible!

 

[bumbershoot]

Our situation might be different because DS's sign of readiness was not needing a diaper at night anymore.

Our way of helping him learn might be different because the house we were living in, and the area, wasn't really conducive to our going out, so we weren't busy, and I didn't have to worry about him being out and about.

We might also be different because I had really wanted to do Elimination Communication with him (aka diaper-free) from when he was new, but things didn't go as was expected, I couldn't move, could barely change a diaper let alone put him on a plastic bowl to pee. However, I did learn from it, and one of the things I was able to learn was his signs, or if you play poker his "tells" (that's how DH thought of it, LOL), for when he needed to pee.

For us, asking him if he had to go was inadequate. We had to keep an eye on him, and if we even got the sense he had to go, we got him to a potty or toilet.

We made things easier on us, and again this is different than what others might enjoy, by having two of the Bjorn brand potties, and they just sat out. One was upstairs in the bedroom (we have a family bed), and the other was in the living room, sitting right out there in the open. Plus we had 3 other bathrooms in the house. A place to pee was always nearby.

My friends really wondered about the idea of having potties all over, if he would just get used to peeing in the living room and never bother doing anything else. Well I'm glad to say that my method worked, that it helped him really put the pee urge/use potty thing together, and slowly we were able to move the potties into the bathrooms, so he got a chance to choose which one he wanted to use (choice has always been important to him with peeing).

Then we moved to a new and smaller place, and although we never put the living room potty back out, we put one potty out in the bedroom, and the other in the main bathroom. Now the bedroom potty is in the bedroom bathroom, and actually now he never uses those.

With your situation, since your guy is about a year older than mine was, I would buy one of the bigger Bjorn potties (something I wish I had done, actually) rather than the little one. They would fit him better. I never got into the potties with the bells and whistles on it, I liked the simple ones. But for us it was all about availability of potty and toilet for him.

We used cloth diapers, so the frustration of continued expense for un-used diapers was a non-issue for us. So I did keep him in the most low-key, streamlined, dipe during the day for awhile, when we went out. At nights I used Bumkins training pants, which I just loved. Cute nylon shell, gentle elastic at waist and leg, and thick layers of soft cotton inside. Loved them.

The next underwear step we took was, hmm, Gerber brand, I believe, padded underwear. Just a little bit of padding, but it was enough to help him focus a bit more.

I've been SO lucky in that other than sometimes covering his ears in reaction to the noise of a toilet, he's never been afraid of them. A friend of mine had a son who avoided pooping in the toilet until he was over 4 b/c it freaked him out so much, so I was nervous about it! So again, my situation might be different because we had no issues with him using public bathrooms while out. Oh wait, I lie. The issue that DS had, and continues to have, with public bathrooms is when they are dirty. He HATES dirty bathrooms, and that can be a problem! Luckily his aversion was lighter in those days when "holding it" was harder for him. While staying at my dad's I think my son would have happily tried to hold it for our whole visit, b/c their bathroom was so disgusting. We had to carry him into the bathroom and make sure he didn't have to touch anything unnecessary, it bothered him so much (bothered me, too). But other than that issue, we've been lucky in that he doesn't have the same fear as some other kids can have.

All that said, we felt lucky because DS started the process so young! So we felt the luxury of lots of time, and really just followed his lead (possibly slower than his lead actually). My cousin, on the other hand, watched a Dr Phil show where they talked about a one-weekend method, got what she needed, and "trained" her son in 2 full days. Seems to have worked for her!

Good luck!

 

[HelenePA]

I have thought about taking the diapers away 100% of the daytime but I could almost guarantee you that he would have an accident. Remember, he doesn't tell me at all when he has to potty, nor will he 'go on command' if we go out and about. At this point, I have not been able to get him on a big potty yet either, he is only on his small training potty. He is a bit afraid fo a big potty right now and I don't think it's wise to push it. Going to the grocery store, mall or something like that would lead to an accident, almost 100% guaranteed. I am not averse to accidents, and realize this comes with the territory, but I feel like it's a little different if your child tells you he has to go, or gives you some clues and while you might try to make the potty on time, it just might not happen.

if your son has an accident who cares?? its gonna happen. Buy a steam vac (like I did with my first child) Also it probably doesn't help that you make him sit on the potty for long intervals at a time (your words) this is pressure, kids dont respond to pressure. The less pressure the better, dont yell at him, dont get angry he's new to this. It would be like having him sit on a bike til he learns how to ride it. Maybe try a reward system. Like everytime he pee's in the potty he get's a hershey kiss or a small toy (get a bag of the pinata filler at walmart for $7) seriously the more you go back and forth between diapers (or pullups face it they are just diapers with out tabs) and no diapers the more confused he's gonna be. Your gonna have to take that leap if you think he's ready and go diaperless. My dd's didn't train til 3 because they didn't tell me, they didn't know the feelings, I didn't push once they were ready they did it with in a week. And yes it was VERY VERY hard to take them out those first few times with no diapers, I'm guessing its like this for every parent!

 

[las3888]

if your son has an accident who cares?? its gonna happen. Buy a steam vac (like I did with my first child) Also it probably doesn't help that you make him sit on the potty for long intervals at a time (your words) this is pressure, kids dont respond to pressure. The less pressure the better, dont yell at him, dont get angry he's new to this. It would be like having him sit on a bike til he learns how to ride it. Maybe try a reward system. Like everytime he pee's in the potty he get's a hershey kiss or a small toy (get a bag of the pinata filler at walmart for $7) seriously the more you go back and forth between diapers (or pullups face it they are just diapers with out tabs) and no diapers the more confused he's gonna be. Your gonna have to take that leap if you think he's ready and go diaperless. My dd's didn't train til 3 because they didn't tell me, they didn't know the feelings, I didn't push once they were ready they did it with in a week. And yes it was VERY VERY hard to take them out those first few times with no diapers, I'm guessing its like this for every parent!

Well, like I said I am not adverse to accidents, particularly in my own home. I get discouraged when I read countless people telling me how they 'got it' in like a day or two. I have been at this for about 3 weeks now and the connections just dont' seem to be there. Maybe they would be if I took the diaper away for the short duration while we run errands and such, but that doesn't seem to be the issue. That diaper is usually dry. The minute we're back home, we're in underwear and we're eventually using the floor as a diaper. I just would like to hear from those who have plugged away for week after week of this...seemingly nobody else has????

Also, DS will sit on the potty on his own accord for lengthy periods of time. He is never forced to sit on the potty nor is he forced to stay on the potty. I don't think his issues stem from power struggles at all. I know this because there are other things that are definitely power struggles!

We've also done rewards. They are not a big deal for him...he always gets 1 jelly bean for #1 and 2 jelly beans for #2. We also have a sticker chart for Chuck E Cheese. Not doing a whole lot for him.

I am probably not giving him enough credit for trying. This is a kid who gave up his thumbsucking during the day in a few short weeks because the dentist and mom and dad have urged him and told him what a big boy he was. He is very eager to please.

Thanks bumpershoot, for your ideas. We have planted a nice potty...very large with a soft-sided seat in the middle of the living room floor! Like you, I will just let it be for the time being. I would be happy if he can make the few feet from the train table to the potty. One of our issues is that DS doesn't pull up or down his pants very well. He is not coordinated enough to put underwear completely on by himself. Otherwise, he might be more interested. Like all kids, they have areas they are really fast in, and other areas where they lag behind...for him it is definitely dressing and undressing himself. He has very little interest and is not very good at it.

Anyways, I do appreciate all your advice!

 

[bumbershoot]

"Thanks bumpershoot, for your ideas. We have planted a nice potty...very large with a soft-sided seat in the middle of the living room floor! Like you, I will just let it be for the time being. I would be happy if he can make the few feet from the train table to the potty. One of our issues is that DS doesn't pull up or down his pants very well. He is not coordinated enough to put underwear completely on by himself. Otherwise, he might be more interested. Like all kids, they have areas they are really fast in, and other areas where they lag behind...for him it is definitely dressing and undressing himself. He has very little interest and is not very good at it."

Oh good I'm glad I could help. We did take a nice long time with everything, so we're definitely not one of the families whose kid got it immediately (like my cousin's kiddo).

Once it warms up more, you'll be able to have more nekky or just-underwear time with him, and that allows it to be easier, too. Taking off dipes was something DS was an expert in, but he could get quite caught up in his pants, so once it was warm enough for him to be in just the dipe, just unders, or wearing nothing below the waist, it was easier.

Something I never thought of, but suddenly just did, is that it might be nice to add a "chux pad" under the potty. That's something maternity wards, midwives, and people house-breaking puppies use to catch fluids (cheapest from the puppy aisle at walmart), and it would help to protect the floors from "I'm almost there but can't arrange my bottom on the potty" moments.

Oh that is another thing! I've read of people starting boys off with standing, and for us that would have been nutty. He sat to pee for a good long time. Actually he's back to sitting, b/c we've been off and on sick for a month now, and there were some, um, accidents of a messy sort with him, and he's totally freaked out by that idea, so he sits for everything, just in case. Poor kid. But anyway, he sat for a long time, and then slowly got interested in standing, and having sat to pee didn't seem to hurt anything in the development of standing to pee.

When DS was figuring all this out, our living room area was half carpet and half stone. Neither one was good for misses, b/c the stone got incredibly slippery, and of course the carpet was hard to clean. Wood floors must be slippery too!

Just like every difficult, but normal, phase of childhood, as they say, this too shall pass.

 

[Mouse House Mama]

I think that you are putting to much emphasis on it and the child is trying to take back some control. That is not a bad thing but kids are just that way. Personally I would just let up on it. It doesn't sound like he is ready. Getting on the potty every 10-15 minutes is just going to make him not want to be anywhere near the thing. There is no perfect way or plan. What works for one may not work for another etc. We made a big deal over it if they went on the potty. We talked up how they are getting so big now and we are so excited about it etc. and how big kids use the potty. We didn't stay home, we didn't go naked, and we didn't have potties all over the place. This is what worked for us. It doesn't matter what method you use though, it will all fall into place eventually. Hang in there!

 

[HerdOHuds]

Someone might have already suggested this, but when I know it has been too long between potty trips, I don't ask if they need to go. I ask which potty they want to use. I offer the big potty or the little potty. I have heard of others offering the hall bathroom or "Mommy's bathroom". Just and idea. . .since we all know that 3 year olds like choices!

I do feel your pain. Some kids take longer to get it. And, in my case, some mommies take longer to want to deal with it.

 

[bumbershoot]

I wanted to mention that for us, the easy-access potties were for ease and convenience. Not to force it. But it took me a long time to recover from pregnancy and his arrival (my back is still weaker than it should be), and carrying him quickly upstairs mulptiple times a day was far beyond my capabilities even after 2 years. Much easier to just have it right there, no problem.

Also, even though DS already was in the process of getting it, he really loved the Dr Sears potty book. Sort of reaffirmed it all for him.