To ask when your children were potty trained?

[Chickensoupandbread]

Starting to stress a bit and I know you shouldn’t but can’t even make the smallest steps as my toddler won’t even sit on the potty, just refuses to. 2 ys 8 months, and most other children we know are either trained or well on the way!

I think there’s something a bit amiss then as it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference here if nothing on or not, which is what others seem to be saying you should do!

Eldest (girl) 2 years 5 months through the day. Three years 1 month through night.

Middle (boy) severe autism and learning difficulties but did well and 3 years 4 months gay and night.

Youngest (girl) 2 years 2 months but she was born independent and thinks she's a teenager already age 9 😩

2 years 6 months for all of them. The girls were dry at night almost immediately. The boy only stopped wetting the bed at night age 7.

My daughter was capable of using the potty/toilet properly at 2.5, but often refused to use the toilet as she preferred nappies! She didn't want to use the toilet until she was ready! She was "properly" toilet trained at 3.

It makes it so it’s easy for them (and you) to know what’s happening and learn their body’s cues. Also lowers the “cost” of going as just have to sit, no need to get knickers down in time.

@Chickensoupandbread have you tried sitting him on the toilet and skipping the potty? My DD4 absolutely refused the potty and just went rigid and screamed the place down when I tried to sit her on it. She sat on the toilet though quite happily with one of those little toilet seats. Might he agree to that?

2.5, 3 and 3.5 for my own children.

I also ran a toddler room so have been involved in potty training quite a few children, anything between around 18 months and 4 years is pretty standard in my experience so I wouldn’t stress about if he isn’t ready at 2.

You need to learn his cues. This isn’t all on him.

He needs to learn the difference between “I need to wee” and “I am weeing” before you can expect him to use the potty and he’ll only do that with your help.

I started when he was c.12 months .
There's an incentive when facilities for washing towelling nappies are very poor, & disposables are very expensive & environmentally unsound.

For DD, it helped because she saw that there was something coming out of her and she was motivated by my excitement and praise when we managed to catch it it the potty!

Also because when she said she had to go, she had to go now! No time to take clothes off.

And kept me less stressed, no wet or shitty clothes to wash

It’s the Oh Crap method. Basically the theory goes that disposables are too good and sometimes they don’t even know they’re peeing so they need to make that visual connection and also that you need to catch it midstream to direct it into the potty so they learn that’s where it’s supposed to go, which is impossible in pants because you’d only see an accident after the fact.

It’s not the only method though. Some kids do better feeling wet pants.

@recklessgran i have considered that! I wonder if he just doesn’t like the potty? But then so I just sit him on it for a while with a TV show on the iPad and praise him when he wees?

@PeachesOnTheBeaches but how do you do that? I’m not suggesting for a moment it is all on him, I’m panicked I’ve really arsed up, but I honestly don’t know what to do!

DS2 point blank refused to sit on the potty. He just wouldn’t do it. It got to age 3.3 and I was starting to get a bit worried, until one day DS1 was using the loo and DS2 joined the queue and pulled down his own pull-ups and used the loo completely independently. DS1 was tiny for his age so we had a big step by the loo which was provided by paeds OT - I’m sure that made it easier for DS2 to use the loo without help. Within 24 hours he was completely dry. He’s 15 now and still just as bloody minded. 🙄

The idea with oh crap and having them run around naked is that initially you keep a very intense eye on them (although not in a way that is obvious to them, just through one to one playing, but a really careful eye nonetheless) so that you notice the signs they give when they are about to go/need to go and you can then catch it and get that wee or poo on the potty. After a few rounds of that and lots of praise they get the idea and then start to do that themselves. You can give them more drinks than normal so you have more chances at it. So the fact that they would just walk around and wee or poo on the floor to start with is normal. As others have said, it’s useful to set aside a chunk of days when you don’t need to leave the house and you can really focus on it. I also found the language in the book really useful and the advice about how not to get stressed about it all (which I totally failed at with my middle one). It’s instinctive when your child has an accident to say “it’s okay, don’t worry“ and she is quite helpful at saying don’t make them feel bad or demean them of course, but just calmly say “oh dear, wee doesn’t go on the floor it goes in the potty”, so they’re not hearing you basically say it’s fine and not to worry. A small thing but I found it useful.

I think the big problem we have then is that he knows what the potty is for and he knows wee is supposed to go in it but he really doesn’t want to.

Three. Refused to do it before that and luckily we cracked it in a long weekend

If he won't sit on the potty then go straight for the toilet. DS used his potty fornthe first 2 weeks but foe the last week he's been using the toilet. He has a step and a seat that goes over the normal toilet seat. He seems to prefer it, yours might too.

Let him go to the toilet with you when you go.

Ask him every 20 minutes if he needs a pee/poo.

Lack off clothes makes it less of an effort for them to go if they need/want to.

Make a huge deal of it when he does use the potty/toilet - we did 'peepee treats'.

We got a book called 'No more nappies' and read it to DS before bed. It's about kids growing out of nappies, wearing pants and using the toilet.

I dream of going to the toilet alone, he definitely knows what it’s for

Reading these is making me think he’s probably not ready and that stressing over it is making it worse! I don’t want to be stressing over it, but I think we all worry people will think we’re lazy or that we can’t be bothered toilet training!

If you’ve given it a good try - say, a week of no nappies, cleaning up the inevitable - and no progress, just accept it’s not happening right now and try again in a few months. Don’t stress about it, though. If he’s not yet 3 you’re definitely not ‘too late’ and - anecdata alert - boys often seem to get it a bit later than girls, so if you know a lot of toddlers maybe it’s that skewing your expectations?

3.5 for dd and 2.5 for ds. Both led by them, no need to “train” anything. In fact I was a little annoyed ds wanted to stop nappies so early as we had some travel plan which is much easier when you don’t have to worry about last minute loo breaks!

DD1 20 months. We say she was trained by her (older) friend. Friend told her she was a baby if she still wore nappies (friend having trained within the last month and being 15 months older). She refused nappies the next day, and I thought it would be a disaster, but she hardly had an accident from that point on. Night time took a lot longer.
Dd2 22 months, night and day. She had great bladder control. With dd1 and dd2 I swapped a chocolate button for any wee in the botty. Dd2 did it three drops at a time to maximise that. She was less consistent than dd1 because she didn't like to stop what she was doing to go, so sometimes left it too late.
Ds was 25 months. He's #3 and at that age I had a 90 minute round journey to drop off the girls at their schools (separate infant/juniors) and again to pick up, so I knew I needed to do it during the summer holidays. He wasn't showing any signs at the start of the summer holidays, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway, and to my surprise he did it within a week and night time was consistent by the end of the summer holidays.

I do seem to know more girls than boys, @NoSquirrels . I suppose the important thing is not to stress. I think I’ve been feeling the pressure because of it being summer and people saying this is the perfect time but if it’s not the perfect time then it just isn’t!

1. About 3 and 3 months with regular accident until about 6 months ago (4.5), not dry at night aged 5.
2. 2 and 3 months including dry at night.

They're ready when they're ready 🤷🏼‍♀️

I mean, the thing is that winter might be ‘the perfect time’ if you’re naturally likely to stay home with bad weather. And anyway, it’s only the perfect time if it’s the perfect time for them i.e. when they’re ready and it’s not a hellish battle. Closer to 4 and I’d push it more but you’ve definitely got time to wait and then try again later.