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talk to me if you had trouble potty training your kid, please.

I will admit, with Jake I was completely spoiled...we literally just said to him one day, "hey it's time to go on the potty, let's go buy some underwear!"  He was thrilled to pick out underwear, he put them on, we never looked back.  He literally didn't have any accidents whatsoever, even for nap and overnight. 

So, definitely spoiled.

Now I have Liam.  He turned 3 last month and is moving up to preschool so he has to stop wearing the diapers.  I don't know what to do, he genuinely just has no interest in doing it on a regular basis. Sometimes he will...randomly throughout the day, and we can almost always get him to go before his bath.  But other than that, he said he doesn't want to be potty trained, doesn't want to wear underwear, etc.  We've got him to wear them a few times but he either has an accident and gets upset or takes them off and wants to put a diaper back on.

Help!  Do I just go cold turkey and toss the diapers??  Start setting a timer and making him try?
The Blog - Parenting: Uncensored


imageimage

Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11

Re: talk to me if you had trouble potty training your kid, please.

  • We dealt with some of this with Garrett.  We ended up going cold turkey with the diapers, and it took him about a week to stop having accidents.  (Although, he always did well at school.)  He was about 3 years, 3 months (same as Mason) when it finally "clicked".

    That being said, he still will not go #2 on the potty, and insists on wearing a diaper for that. 

  • So he is not allowed to be in diapers at all during preschool?

    We never had a push from daycare/pre-k thankfully. 3 seems young to have to be fully trained.

    Personally I wouldn't push it if he has no interest. But I'm not sure how the preschool situation works with that.

    Dd decided she wanted to be in underwear at 2.5. Hardly any accidents and she was trained. Yay! Except she reverted and decided she no longer wanted to do it. We kept pushing it because we knew she was capable. That was horribly frustrating and messy (ha!). Pushing did not work for dd. She needed to be the one to decide when it was time. We completely backed off and months later she just decided one morning to be in underwear. We still had accidents at times but it wasn't as frustrating.

    What worked with dd's small regressions were reward charts. But again that only worked for her when she was ready on her own.
    Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers
  • We had the same problem with Keira (child #2). No matter what we did or tried she didn't want to do it.  She could care less that she was going to move up to the preschool room with all the cool toys, didn't want any kind of reward - she wanted to do it in her time.  Even at daycare they couldn't get her to go consistently.  So we stopped asking and pushing it and one day (I will never forget this) we were all out to dinner and my sister had picked her up and she came up to me & said "mom I peed on the potty at school" and was all excited.   We were like "yay Keira" and from then on she went on the potty.   I kid you not - she just decided ok I want to do it and she did.  No accidents, no pull ups or training at night.  She was good to go.  She was a couple months past 3 (meanwhile Caileigh was trained by 2-2.5?).  Yep, spoiled here too.

    So with Eamon I never even started trying with him but he started going at school a few months ago and so now he goes at home too.  He likes wearing underwear, not all the time but enough that he's getting there.  And I'm not pushing b/c I do truly believe that while you can teach them to go the potty, its something innate that they will do when they want to do it.   Like I ask Eamon, do you have to go but I don't know when he feels like he has to go - he does so he makes the call whether to pee in the diaper, underwear or get to the bathroom.  He's in charge.  So my advice is give him some time & space and see what he does. Its really hard b/c you have deadlines, the school has rule etc.. but if you force it you may end up frustrated and Liam too.

    Is there a transitional room he can go to before having to be fully trained?  I'm sure he's not the 1st kid that has taken his time & since he just turned 3 he's likely the norm.

    Hang in there!


    photo 332252f4-f278-4d48-99f9-c275d87c3339.jpg
    How time flies! Caileigh (9), Keira (6) & Eamon (3)







  • Thanks for all of the feedback so far. I need to talk to the director or his teachers, he's definitely moving up (he transitioned last week going a bit at a time), he would have gone there this week full time but my in-laws are in town and have kept him home yesterday and today, not sure about the rest of the week what he will do.  But either way, he's going to that room....they told me that a few weeks ago, so I've really been trying to work with him and encourage him more, hoping that maybe I could get it done before he was over there.  But if that doesn't happen, I'm not really sure what they do. :(  Sheila-I feel like you, I don't want to push him too much and him get upset or lose even more interest, but at the same time it's very frustrating to know he can do it!!
    The Blog - Parenting: Uncensored


    imageimage

    Jake - 1.15.08
    Liam - 5.17.11
  • Do you think that moving him up will maybe help?  I will say that Brody was really easy and I think it was because he was moved to a class where a lot of the kids were working on potty training and were trained, and he went along with it and just started going.  Maybe he won't want to be the only one in class wearing diapers and being in that environment will help.  
  • Trust me...just because they can do it...doesn't mean they will. They have so little control over things and this is something they can. It definitely turned into a power struggle with us. Dd was completely PTed and then stopped. I wanted to pull my hair out because I knew she could do it. But the more we pushed the worse it was.
    Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers
  • Todd trained right around his third birthday. He was motivated to switch to underwear because we were going on a cruise and swim diapers weren’t allowed in the pools on the ship.

    That said, he had regular (sometimes daily) accidents for a full year and a half after he trained. He still has them, but less frequently. Sometimes I wonder if we had been less pushy about ditching the diapers if he would have been more motivated on his own to train and not had so many accidents.

    I don’t have any brilliant advice. You may find that “peer pressure” is a good motivator once he is in the pre-school room. They have to have some way of dealing with 3 year olds who aren’t trained. They aren’t that unusual!
    Heather Margaret --- Feb '07 and Todd Eldon --- April '09

    image
  • If it makes you feel any better, S is the EXACT same way.  He goes to Pre-School in August, and so I am trying to work on it.  We talk about it a lot, and he does go sometimes.  But then other times no way.  I don't want to push, but I hate the looming deadline.  :-( 

  • Amber-I'm really hoping that he will be motivated when he gets over there with all of the big kids, that's really my only hope at this point!
    The Blog - Parenting: Uncensored


    imageimage

    Jake - 1.15.08
    Liam - 5.17.11
  • egpitt22 said:

    Amber-I'm really hoping that he will be motivated when he gets over there with all of the big kids, that's really my only hope at this point!

    Dd was the first kid to start PTing in her class. It started a ton of buzz among the kids and started a wave of PTing! Even with some of the kids that were older and not PTed yet.
    Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers
  • FWIW Wes just trained a couple of months ago, well after his third bday. Lanna was also easy on us, and it really clicked for her with very little pushing on my part at 2.5.

    I will say that once it clicked for Wes, I was so glad I didn't rush it. He, similar to Lanna, has had very few accidents in the time he's been trained. But, unlike Lanna who trained a full year earlier, he started doing #'s 1 and 2 at the same time (Lanna pooped in her diaper for months after she was pee trained), and he overnight trained a month after he started going during the day (again, it took Lanna a lot longer).

    Anyway, we tried reading books on the potty and offering food rewards, but they didn't entice him. He would ask to have his diaper changed when he needed it and would seek out privacy when he was going, so he had the awareness, but no desire to try. Finally I got him a larger toy that he really wanted and told him he could have it once he went three days without an accident. I started to realize the goal was too long-term, so one day when I could tell he had to go I rushed him to the toilet and told him if he could go just that one time, I'd give him the toy and he could keep it if he kept trying after that. If not, he'd have to give it back till he was ready to try again. While he was going I told him to pay attention to what it felt like and for whatever reason it clicked. I was super worried that since it took him longer, he wouldn't get it as quickly as Lanna did, but he actually got it just as easily, if not more easily.

    We didn't have the pressure of a deadline, so that helped. But I thought I'd share just in case you found something in my approach that you haven't tried!
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