potty training help!!!

[qawsedr]

Im looking for advice on potty training.

I started potty training my son when he was 6 month old. Everything was going great, he was peeing and pooping happily into the potty. Every time I would put him on a potty there was some result. I would say that we had a 90% success rate. Then, when he turned one I went back to work, and he went to daycare. Needless to say, no potty training in daycare. Now he is almost 15 month and he refuses to sit on the potty.

I don?t know what to do?we were so close.. :(

[Moos]

A bit of an old thread, but since I feel as though we have finally had something of a breakthrough with potty training after a painful month or two, here's my two-penn'orth. Would be great to have tips from other people too.

N.B. We started training Moosling when he was just 2, which imo was a bit young. I should also add that a lot of the work was done by the very competent person who looks after him during the week, and not by me!

1) as many people have said, a good approach is to plan a week of no outings and go bare bottomed as much as possible. Buy a big stock of patience and expect the worst.

2) training him to poo on the loo/in the potty at first didn't go at all well. He would wait until you weren't looking and then poo on the carpet and get terribly upset. Eventually we realised that he just likes to be alone when he's doing a poo - it amazed me that someone so little would be self-conscious about it, but there you are. So now when I put him on the loo he will sometimes say imperiously 'Mummy go way', and then 'Mummy come back' when he's ready. Job done, if you'll excuse the pun.

3) potty training him for pees seems to be as much about training ourselves to know when he will need to do a pee and putting him on the loo. If we rely on his saying 'yes' when we ask him, we get denials and puddles, and relying on him asking to go is clearly some way away. So on days when we're busy we have accidents, but when we get into the rhythm of remembering to ask and make him go, we don't. Friends of ours have potty trained their kids and gone within a week to relying on the child asking to go to the loo, which sounds marvellous, but that hasn't happened yet to us.

4) for me it required a mental mind-shift of not getting frustrated by accidents, especially ones that occur 30 seconds after you've just said 'Do you need a pee' and the answer came back 'No!!!'. When you can stop having to grind your teeth to suppress visible annoyance and just plan ahead a bit better, then everyone is happier. Control freaks beware! :)

Hope that is useful for anyone thinking of potty training or going through it. I would definitely not start until the child shows some interest in sitting on the potty, but obviously that choice is different for everyone.

[Steph]

Moos can I ask - did you get a special loo cover for the toilet seat or use the potty - or both? I am also going to start this week as my little one is a good 2 and half..

[Moos]

Both, but we rely more on the loo cover and step approach. We only really use the potty for the garden. Best of luck!

[Fuschia]

Our son never ever used a potty, we had a pull down seat on the loo. He did it at 2 3/4, did his first pees and poos on the loo, we immediately junked the nappy, and he didn't have too many accidents, even. I think waiting till he was 3 was what made it so easy, once he was ready. We did try at 2 1/2 but he kept pooing on the floor

[Steph]

Right potty training going ok...Lots of wee's in the loo (on his new seat) but poos just aren't happening. We have kept the nappies off him for the last 4 days but he is making himself consitpated and complaining that his bum is sorend so I end up putting the nappy back on because thats the last thing I want. He goes once his nappy goes back on when we go out.

I have tried:

Sitting with him

Leaving him alone

Promising him a new toy

Bought him new underpants

Said I have thrown all the nappies away now as he is a big boy

Leaving the toilet door open at all times!!!!

Any ideas? Do you think I should invest in a toilet seat/step combo? He doesnt have the step....

Thanks

Steph

[samstopit]

Steph, it will happen eventually, although you will have some accidents first. When he has accidents don't get upset with him and when the day comes that he manages to get to the loo (even if you quickly put him on the loo just in time) make a big fuss of how clever he is, give him a chocolate button, tell him he can spend all his money in his piggy bank on a special toy, take him to choose the toy and keep reminding him this is because he did a poo in the loo!

Worked for us. We had to empty the piggy bank twice and since then have never looked back.

[halicon]

We had same problem with our 2 1/2 year old refusing to poo, then I read that changing your vocabulary can help, so instead of saying "do you need a wee/poo?" you say "Tell mummmy when you need a wee/poo" and within 2 days she had sorted it out for herself, after a month of on off accidents and now success!! The next catalogue also helped!! lots of nice pictures to look at!

[Gubodge]

Steph, I'd say leave it a while and try again later. You can always put him in pull ups and encourage him still to go to the loo for wee's but not worry about the poohs till later. It goes against everything the potty training manuals say, but it worked out fine for us.

Making an issue out of poohing can cause real problems in the long run. The constipation caused by holding it in can mean that they start to associate poohing with pain, and that can lead to a vicious circle of toilet trouble and severe contipation that can continue until they are school age. I saw friends go through this, so when we had similar trouble to you I just tried not to let it get to me, and put her back in the pull ups. Sometimes it seemed like she was going to be in them forever but she's now just turned three and has been poohing happily in the loo for a couple of months now. He's still young, he'll get there.

[Steph]

Yes I think you are right Gubodge. I felt so sorry for him when he was saying his bum was poorly. I think ill let him poo in his nappy until he is ready but continue to praise him for the wee wee's

Ill have to try with the pull ups again rather than the underpants perhaps.

Thanks for you advise all

[nancysmum]

Hi steph (sorry i've not been in touch - a manic week this week)

Don't use pull ups, please! i think it confuses them. is it a nappy? is it a pant? if he is showing signs of anxiety about pooing, leave the potty training for a while. if you want to go down the potty training route, make sure he has plenty of fluids and foods that will result in soft poo (eg: fruit purees, smoothies, dried fruit). Also, don't be embarrassed to show him your poo in the loo. If he does poo in his nappy or pant, take it and him and empty it in the toilet so he can learn that that's where poos go. hope this helps. hx

[Moos]

Argh, never go on holiday with a partly-potty-trained child! Talk about two steps forward, one step back..

[Sophie0205]

I have recently tackled this with my son who is nearly 2 1/2 and hate to say it was kind of a breeze. we are on the night-times now and have an equal amount of dry and wet nights. he also had an aversion to doing his poo poos on the potty at the start and used to wait until his nappy was on after his bath. then i started showing him what he had done (as gross as it is he needed to know) and let him know when I was going, too. he was totally fascinated and couldn't wait to make those splashing noises in the big boy toilet. we also skipped the pull-ups and went straight into pants as the pull-ups are designed to keep them dry, which kind of defeats the object. it sounds awful but after a few minutes in a pair of damp pants they get a little tetchy. im sure its not classed as child abuse (?), its just showing them that its not a very nice feeling. we are now totally established during the day and don't dread long car journeys or visits to the shops or friends. the more they do it, the closer they are to being aware when they need to go and telling you about it in the middle of tescos in the loudest voice they can, then they gain more control over their bladder and manage to hold too. i really feel its important to wait until your child is ready, the more it is put on them the more reluctant they will be, go at their pace. im not sure about other mums but i was a little worried about the mixing pants and nappies, and sometimes feel i want to put a nappy back on of a night-time to avoid going through so many sheets. but he has proved that he can do it, we have had loads of dry nights but just as many wet. would it confuse him to return to nappies until IM more confident? bearing in mind it was his decision to wear "big-boy pants" in bed.

[samstopit]

Sophie, we had a similar situation where my son (about to turn three) was toilet-trained in the day and decided he wanted to wear big boy pants in bed. He had woken a few times with a dry nappy in the mornings so we decided to go with it. There followed a couple of weeks of mostly wet nights and he was waking at 5am very upset because he was wet and cold. He then caught a cold so we decided to try to get him back in nappies at night for the sake of all of us getting some decent sleep. He refused to put the old style nappies on so I bought some nappies in Sainsbury's that are thin pull-ups and similar to pants. We call them his 'night time pants' and he is happy enough to put them on. It's 50 / 50 whether the nappy is dry in the morning or not. He still has a wee before bed and as soon as he wakes up, so I don't think it confuses him. He doesn't have accidents in the day at all.

Hope this is helpful - good luck whatever you decide.

S

[Sophie0205]

Thank you for an insight, it's so difficult to know how to tackle situations like this especially as it's just me on my own, me and my son have to work together but it doesn't always work out! I will see how he goes as it is pretty 50/50 with us too. I sometimes wonder if it maybe a little anxiety, what with me trying to keep him in a great routine (which he has always thrived on) which does go a little up in the air what with going to his dads every now and again etc etc it could be any number of things. He is starting pre-school tomorrow so time will tell, he is bound to be a little unsettled for a while. We will just have to see how it goes. Many thanks for the advice.

[samstopit]

you are welcome and you have my utmost respect for managing it all on your own!

[Sophie0205]

:)

[The Nappy Lady]

Apologies if this has already been suggested but;

It is very common for children to develop a 'poo' phobia when potty training. We had it with Daughter No.1 and for a while just let her have a nappy on for poos, whilst doing lots of positive talking about how food goes in, gets digested, then the waste comes out...I know it sounds crazy, but I really think it helped her to get with the programme.

If you use disposables, a good thing to try is to cut a hole in the bottom of the nappy, then sit them on the loo to poo...that way they have the 'security' of being in a nappy, but see the result in the toilet - so you can praise them etc. After a couple of times they are often happen to dispense with the nappy and 'fly solo' so to speak.

Another thing for disposable users, is to try putting a folded flannel in the nappy when your little one is about ready to potty train, so they start to associate the feeling of weeing with the resulting wetness. This can help them to make the necessary connections in order to potty train.

Good luck with it.

Molly

[Tanza]

I would second Fushia's experience. I couldn't face the whole pain of potty training and just kept putting it off. Until my son was almost 3 and I felt really ashamed he was still in nappies due to my laziness. But it turned out to be super easy, he trained in a day (and then we stayed in for the next two days just to be sure as it seemed too good to be true). It was painless. We didn't bother with a potty, he went straight from nappies to the loo.

Fuschia Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Our son never ever used a potty, we had a pull

> down seat on the loo. He did it at 2 3/4, did his

> first pees and poos on the loo, we immediately

> junked the nappy, and he didn't have too many

> accidents, even. I think waiting till he was 3 was

> what made it so easy, once he was ready. We did

> try at 2 1/2 but he kept pooing on the floor