Potty Traning

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Replies

  • We did the sticker things for all the kids as a reward. All 4 of my children are potty trained.

    I would avoid using M & M's or food as a reward....that just sets up your child to view food as a reward and not fuel for your body like it should be.

    I can deff see how that would look, Thank you :)
  • As a mom of 5, both boys and girls, I have to say the most important thing is be consistant. Once you start, follow through all the way. Some kids may take to it right away and train within a few days, other kids need a bit more time. Number 2 usually will take a bit longer, but it you can catch them right at the right time, once they go #2 in the potty, they want to do it again.
    Be patient. I didnt use candy or stickers, just praised them like crazy! Called gramma or dad at work and let them tell them the good news. Good luck!
  • zenchild
    zenchild Posts: 680 Member
    My parents had a couple methods. I was potty trained with "pretty panties." I liked them and didn't want to get them dirty so I'd go in the toilet. My younger brother was trained by peer pressure. He's the youngest of five kids so he wanted to be like the rest of us. Any time he used the toilet, all the kids in the house, plus any friends, were required to stand outside the bathroom and cheer when he came out. Over 25 years later my brother-in-law still remembers standing in the foyer while a little boy toddled out of the bathroom and the whole family burst into applause.
  • lukeout007
    lukeout007 Posts: 1,237 Member
    As a mom of 5, both boys and girls, I have to say the most important thing is be consistant. Once you start, follow through all the way. Some kids may take to it right away and train within a few days, other kids need a bit more time. Number 2 usually will take a bit longer, but it you can catch them right at the right time, once they go #2 in the potty, they want to do it again.
    Be patient. I didnt use candy or stickers, just praised them like crazy! Called gramma or dad at work and let them tell them the good news. Good luck!

    Praise is absolutely necessary. After the stickers didn't work (or backfired rather...) I started just making a big deal out of it every time he went potty. While he doesn't make a big deal out of going pee anymore just about every time he poops he yells out "I pooped!"

    It's cute in a weird way lol.

    Also pooping was much more difficult for us to get him to do than peeing. There was a good solid month where he refused. Not even refused to poop in the potty...just refused to poop in general. He waited until he absolutely couldn't hold it any longer and then pretty much whined the whole time he was on the potty.

    Now he's used to it and he poops regularly and always in the potty.
  • lukeout007
    lukeout007 Posts: 1,237 Member
    It's also very important to make sure that if they do have an accident you don't get mad or frustrated with them. BUT you have to be able to differentiate between an accident and refusal.

    Several times during the process my son would pee or poop his pants on purpose. We'd be asking him over and over if he needed to go potty and he'd say no and then 30 seconds later he'd stop and look at us and pee himself. This was something he usually got in trouble for.

    However...there have also been times where he's been running around a lot or playing and not really paying attention (and we hadn't asked him if he needed to go) and he's gone and we made sure he understood it was ok to have an accident. Heck there's even been times when he has told us and he's peed himself on the way to the potty.

    A week or so ago he peed the bed...bad...and woke up very upset and was being very hard on himself. I made sure to comfort him and tell him that it was going to happen sometimes and that its ok. We weren't mad and it was normal.

    He's wet the bed a couple times since and hasn't gotten upset again.
  • mtaylor33557
    mtaylor33557 Posts: 542 Member
    We waited until we knew he was absolutely ready. He could pull his pants on and off, could climb on and off the potty by himself, would stay dry in his diaper most night, knew when he needed to poop, that kind of thing.

    We then went to the store and let him pick out his new "big boy" underwear. We got 20 pair.. you're going to need that many in the first day or two.

    Then we decided that once we started, we would not turn back. No more diapers, (we never did pull ups). It just seemed confusing, to tell him it's okay to go in the diaper some times, but not others.. he needed to know we had faith in him and knew he could do it!

    We used 1 or 2 M&Ms as incentives, and never scolded him for accidents. For the first few days we would ask "do you need to go potty?" every few minutes, but after a couple days, it was no longer necessary.

    We started on a Friday morning, and on Monday he went to daycare in his big boy underwear with no accidents!

    I feel like consistency was the MOST important thing, we didn't go back and forth, we didn't cave into a diaper because we were ready to leave the house and he wasn't quite there yet.. and it worked great, it was a postive experience for all of us! He was around 32 months old when he learned to use the potty.