How long did it take you to PT? Should I keep trying?

[LoobyLou33]

DS is 32 months old and we are trying to potty train him. I think I had this idea from other people that they suddenly magically become "ready" and therefore it all happens very easily.

It's not as easy as I thought! On day 5...

The main issue seems to be that while he is now capable of doing some wees on the potty (and we have had one poo too), it is only by luck when we put him on there - he never tells us he needs to go and he doesn't go over to the potty by himself.

Our approach is to put him in pants under his clothes, put him on the potty fairly regularly, and also when we see him crossing his legs etc. It's downstairs in the kitchen as we have carpets upstairs. We started on thursday and the only decent day we've had was Saturday (6 wees on, 2 in pants, 1 all on the poo front!) His language is very advanced, but he just doesn't seem to recognise that a wee or poo is coming - or doesn't desire to warn us about it!

He previously didn't really want to use the potty, and would nearly always do a wee straight after getting off it - so we have made progress in that sense, but I'm not sure whether we should stick at it for another week, or put it off til warmer weather and perhaps a time when he is more "ready".

What exactly does it mean to be "ready" anyway?

Thanks!

[pettyprudence]

I tries potty training ds at 2.5y. he would pee on command on the potty but never tell me he needed it. poos were a bit of a disaster. I gave up after 10 days.

at 2.7y he woke up one morning and announced he now wore pants not nappies. he could tell me when he needed a wee. We still had a few accidents along the way (life is very distracting for a toddler ). poos took bloody months though. oh and he's never had an accident at the child minders or out with gp's - he saved all the wet and poooy pants just for me

[moas]

Hi,
How are you getting on?
My boy is 2,5 and we're considering going for the pants idea. Up until now he has worn nappies but we've been sitting on the potty every morning since that is usually when he does a poo. Before Christmas we had about a month of luck, managing to "catch" it about half of the time and he would happily sit on the potty for 10-15 min reading, singing etc. He used to "try" and would quite often pee automatically when we sat him on the potty.
Then things changed as he got more "naughty" generally, not listening or taking instructions. He's bored with the potty and the toilet, will not sit for more than a minute and often refuses to try to do anything, only to do both pee and poo in the nappy shortly afterwards. We've tried our best to not make a big deal out of it, just calmly explain that it is much better to do it on the potty etc. It's now been 6 weeks of no change in his behaviour and I think we need to do something about it. So, yes, thinking about pants and let him get wet. I just worry about not having the time to do it properly, and he'll still have to wear nappies at nursery I think. He's a bit late with speaking so not great at explaining his needs.
6months pregnant so keen to get things moving on before baby comes... have you read any good articles/books?

[FamiliesShareGerms]

Both DS and DD skipped the potty (which they didn't like and didn't quite get what it was for) and went straight to the loo (with a sets and a step). Worth trying?

[LoobyLou33]

HI moas, so sorry for not replying sooner. I have a 10 month old too so life sweeps me along!
I would recommend at least using disposable pull up pants if not proper "big boy" underpants. the advantage of pull-ups is that you don't have stacks of laundry to do and certainly I'd use them when going out. We switched to them after a week of no real progress, as I was getting stressed out with all the wet clothes and watching him like a hawk. the whole thing became too fraught and not good.
Since using pull-ups I wouldn't say we've had massive progress except that he now occasionally does tell us when he needs to go (mostly for poos not wees). But I am still finding it hard and today he only did 2 wees and 1 poo on the potty, with about 6 in his pants. To me that suggests he's not really come on at all in 3 weeks!

Probably the most successful day I've had is after basically leaving it for 2 days - using disposable pull ups but hardly mentioning the potty or toilet (he has a toilet seat and likes using that though rarely actually does anything on it). then after that he started asking to go - although it has not worn off again. You could try that approach to see if your DS shows some interest? It's a really difficult balance between persisting and sticking with it, but not making it into an issue. I wish you luck! Keep posting if you like and we can spur each other on!