Some people I know have kids who potty trained, by their own desire, right around two years old. No begging, no cajoling, no reward charts. For the other 99% of us, however, potty training just isn’t that easy. In fact, some of us (uh…me) are starting to worry that preschool may have to be postponed because of a lack of interest in potty training.
Cordy got a potty seat shortly after she was two years old. Since then, it has served as a TV watching chair, a step-stool, a place to hide her toys, and a crayon canvas. The idea of sitting her bare bottom on that seat with the draft underneath is laughable to her. She knows when she’s “yucky”, but seems reluctant to give up her diapers.
I was asked to review the DVD, Go Potty Go, for the Parent Bloggers Network. Sure thing, bring in the reinforcements, I thought. Cute panda bear twins and their animal friends teaching about the potty sounded like fun to me.
Interesting – that’s neat that the video is helping Cordy to learn a bit more about the potty experience.
I got push push push from my mom about potty training Sweet Pea but I pushed back because I knew that if I forced her to train earlier than she was ready for, things wouldn’t go well. She finally decided it was time just when we moved last summer (right after she turned THREE), so it took until we got settled after the second move for her to really train.
Since then she has gotten a bit of attitude about it and does not want to stop playing. Early one she went for a whole month with only one accident, and other times she has gone for a week without accidents, so now it is maddening when some days she just can’t make herself stop playing, and sometimes has three accidents per day. However, we do follow up – we take away whatever was so excited it “caused her to have an accident” – we don’t tell her it was the toy’s fault, we tell her that it must be too exciting because SHE couldn’t put it down, so we have to take it away.
Anyway, some days she makes a commitment in the morning that she will not have any accidents and then she doesn’t. And she is very good about trying to go every time we ask when we’re away from home, so she has not had accidents while we’re out.
My point is – yes, Cordy’s interest will come, and she will not go to college in diapers. But for some kids it’s gradual (especially, it seems, for kids with a bit of ‘tude like our girls). Our family doctor says that his 6-year-old still has the occasional accident.
I was very frustrated as well with potty training. When I was researching potty training a common theme seemed to be praise and positive reinforcement. I came across a website called http://www.pottytrainingrewards.com. We hung it in the kitchen and named the little boy on the front of the package, Bobby. My son could not wait to go to the potty so he could push the button, hear the praising message, and get his chocolate reward from, Bobby. It really got my son excited about using the potty himself and it was fun for him. Because he became so involved, potty training was easy. So give it a try. Good Luck!
Oh yeah, we did offer rewards at first to get Sweet Pea to go for certain lengths of time (one day, three days, five days, one week, two weeks) without accidents.
However, while EVERYONE suggested using food – usually candy – as an incentive, I was bullheaded about NOT doing that. I use food as a reward for myself, and as a result have some very bad habits regarding sweets, and I really do not want to pass that kind of behavior along to my children, thankyouverymuch.
So we used toys, or something she would ask for specifically, as incentives, all the while telling her that once she had the hang of it she would not be rewarded for using the potty, we would just expect it of her.
Now that she has been out of diapers since last September, when she has a lot of accidents it is a horrifying thing to her if I suggest that we put her back into them. She does NOT want to go back to diapers. It’s great that we’ve reached the point where that’s a deterrent. ha ha!
Having potty trained 3 kids now, two things are blatently clear.
1 is that they will do it when they dang well want to. No amount of pushing is going to force them, I’ve had mine train anywhere from 2 1/2 years until just a bit PAST 3. It doesn’t seem like a big span of time really, but it feels like it when your frantic and trying to figure out if you’ve done it wrong. Every kid develops differently, and sometimes, they just aren’t interested.
2 being that my boys were 100% easier to train then my girl, she potty trained later, and it took longer. No fun stuff like cheerios to sink to make it slightly fun for them. I get told by alot of people that girls are easier to train, that wasn’t my daughter, and few of the other girls her age I knew. All of their Moms that have both boys and girls said the boys were easier.
We also ended up discarding the potty chair as it seemed to confuse them a bit, we just put a small step stool in front of the toilet in the bathroom and it worked out much better. In fact, my last son was a bit unsure of the talking potty we had gotten for him. Perhaps he thought it was going to eat him like in the tales of old, but he preferred the big potty and once we started having him use that, he trained in no time.
THe short of it, they’ll do it when they are good and ready, and don’t always count on that 40 dollar “cool” talking toy one that you bought to be where they figure it out, sometimes, it just remains a toybox/stool/tv watching seat.
Good luck with it!
We did it early, mainly because I wanted the toddler to be out of diapers by the time the new baby comes. The only signs we had that maybe she was ready was that she kept pointing to the toilet saying “pee pee” and not having wet her diaper overnight for several months. She was 21 months at the time.
We started by talking to her about it and on the day we’d decided on, we just started. Since she’s a stubborn monkey, she just refused to go at first. But after her first pee went into the toilet successfully, there was no stopping her.
She sometimes still prefers to hold it in, but really only around my husband (they have issues… what can I say). She’s perfectly fine with me and at daycare and really hasn’t had an accident since we started back in February.
No bells and whistles on our potty either, no rewards to try to get her to go – all we did was praise her lots. No punishment either in the first few days when she refused to go, we just kept putting her on regularly.
The other day I asked her if she wants to be in diapers again, and she loudly protested “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
It was a bit hairy at first, but really, oh so worth it.