Talk me through the potty training!

[RachelEllen]

Ok, dd is 26 months. She's a pretty mellow kid, and happy to sit on the potty, both at home and at school, so I decided to give training a try over the long weekend. I think she did great. We went right into underwear on Friday. Lots of accidents on Friday. No accidents in the morning on Saturday. No accidents all day on Sunday. I have to take her to the potty and encourge, she won't ask, but I figure that's normal for this age.

So, I brought her to preschool this morning in underwear and asked the teacher to give it a try. Total fail. Two accidents before nap. Teacher was totally fine with it and willing to do whatever we want.

I'm thinking of giving it through this week and then just giving up if she can't manage at school. I'm torn between pushing when she's not ready, and, with such a mellow kid, not giving her a small push to do something I think she is capable of.

 

[Tasha+Scott]

From my experience, you will know when she is ready. My dd could go in the potty at 21 months old but she wasn't really ready. We would try and realize she wasn't totally ready and then back off and try again a couple months later. It was not until SHE decided she was ready that she truly pottytrained. She told me about 3 months prior to her 3rd b-day that she wanted some panties that a friend of hers had and I told her she could only have those if she didn't pee or poop in them. Well, she was ready at that point and that worked. She practically pottytrained (with only the occasional accident) overnight after that.

My ds is 2.5 yo now and it's pretty much going exactly the same as it did with his big sister. He has gone potty a few times in the toilet in the past few weeks. We didn't even attempt it any earlier but I don't think he is totally ready. We let him go if he shows interest but we aren't pushing him. I feel confident it will go pretty much the same as it did with my dd. He will very likely let us know when HE is ready.

Good luck!!!

 

[diznygirl]

Potty Training is one of those mysteries of life. I agree that they will use it when they are ready. My daughter never used the small potty we bought her - went straight for the big potty and underwear one night and that was it. And to think of all the "training" I tried! LOL!

Why not try pull-ups to prevent accidents, but still encourage her to use the potty? Good luck!

 

[LuLuO]

I tried potty training DD and she did okay for a little bit but then regressed. It wasn't easy. I backed off but offered incentives when she used the potty on her own but didn't push the issue. A few months later she was completely day trained and it was the easiest thing in the world. She is 3 now and hasn't had an accident in a long time. She isn't night trained though. We'll work on that down the road.

 

[WL Fan]

All 3 of mine did it on their own, at just around 3 years. My advice is to wait, it's not worth the struggle when they're younger. I didn't have to worry about pull-ups, wet sheets or yucky car seats, it was a done deal.

 

[mhsjax]

All 3 of mine did it on their own, at just around 3 years. My advice is to wait, it's not worth the struggle when they're younger. I didn't have to worry about pull-ups, wet sheets or yucky car seats, it was a done deal.

I agree. My kids didn't go until around age 3. there was no training, no messy undies and no wet sheets. I asked if they wanted to go in the big potty ,they said yes, I put them on first thing in the am that first day and boom it was done. I was not going to get into the do you have to go patty question every 15 minutes or just sitting them on the pit so they would learn. Some do, but I wasn't about to deal with that. Sure they were in diapers until age 3 but hey no messy undies was worth it to me.

 

[golfgal]

If she isn't the one directing this you are not training her, you are training yourself. Don't push it. You can either spend the next 6 months cleaning up accidents or wait 6 months and be done in a day or two. VERY few kids are potty trained at this age. Some parents are really good at putting their kids on the toilet every couple hours at this age but the kid isn't really trained, the parents are. I waited until my kids were the ones telling me they had to go or didn't want to wear diapers any longer and it took a day to train them. The boys were just 3, DD was a couple months shy of 3.

 

[goofyernmost]

I only had time to read the Topic but I'm pretty sure that if you are old enough to type on a computer you should already be potty trained.

 

[Magpie]

I trained both mine at 2.5, but I was home with them so it may have been more for my convenience, than because they were truly ready. I had the advantage of being able to provide absolute consistency.

I tackled it like puppy training. The diapers got tossed, plastic went down on all the furniture, and I put them on the pot every half hour at first, gradually lengthening it to every two hours.

Whenever they did something in the pot, they got a gummy bear.

It took about a week to get it down solid. We never had any big accidents anywhere - mainly because I kept an eagle eye on the kid, and got really good at the grab and dash. Also, I limited fluids before bed and woke them up once in the middle of the night for a visit to the potty.

And even with that, both kids had to be reminded "go to the bathroom!" every two or three hours until they were about 3 1/2. If I didn't, they really wouldn't notice their own signals until it was almost too late and then they'd have to dash for the bathroom and sometimes they wouldn't entirely make it.

I think if a child is going back and forth between daycare and home, it probably makes sense to wait until they're about 3.