Hates the potty. What do I do next?

[vkone]

I'm in abit of a quandry, my son is showing "signs of potty training", I think, but runs screaming if I show him a potty/toilet seat.

He points to his nappy when having a wee or poo and is just starting to tell me as well and this morning he took both wrap and nappy off whilst in bed (he's in cloth) and will usually demand to be changed when wet.

What should my next step be? If he has nappy free time, he wees on the rugs and runs a mile if I suggest he use a potty. I've got him a potty book which he reads each day by choice and I think he understands the implications of it all (poss. all too well!).

Anyway, any advice suggestions gratefully received . Oh and he's 2 next week and there are no siblings on the way to mess things up

My feeling is that h is only just 2 and that is very young these days to be potty trained. I trained my four children, three of which were nearer 3 than 2 and the youngest was 2.6 - he took far longer to train than the older ones had done and I am sure it was because he was that bit younger.

If your ds is running from the potty, you don't really want to make him sit on it as he will then get stressed out and won't want to use it. Look upon him pointing to his nappy as a good sign that potty training will go well when you do it, but don't actually start yet. If you leave it until the warmer weather, you will find yourself doing much less washing for starters.

vkone I agree with lonleymum that not quite 2 is young to be out of nappies.
My third child was very keen on the potty and loo at just about his 2nd birthday, but I?m sure that was partly to do with his older siblings.
If a child is ready, fine, but it sounds to me as if yours is not.
I would do all the good things you are doing and be very pleased when he asks to be changed when wet etc, but leave the potty and loo out of the equation for a bit. He?ll probably come round to that idea as well in a few months.

I must admit I'd rather wait til it's warmer, our house isn't exactly tropical. What I was wondering was, should I change his nappy when he points to it so that he gets the wet/dry connection rather than let him sit in a wet nappy which he is now realising isn't much fun?

leave it a while but leave the potty lying around so he can make friends with it, dd is making friends with hers, she sits on it to watch tv. Im going to start potty training in a few weeks. Good luck.

Is he in disposables or terries? My understanding is that disposables don't ever feel wet (which is a negative point when it comes to potty training as none of mine ever seemed aware that they were wetting the nappy). If he is aware of the wetness of the nappy, I suppose you should change it straightaway although, again, it might be good for him to feel a bit uncomfortable for a while as then he might come to see the benefit of using the potty quicker than if his nappy is changed immediately. Tricky one, that.

Just a thought: my ds was about 2y 3months when we potty trained and what made the difference was letting him choose his own potty. It was a 99p one from Morrisons but it was bright blue and had a monkey on it and he got quite attached to his 'monkey potty' (to the point where I had to buy a duplicate for him to use at nursery). He had another potty that was given to us but he never once used it - just didn't like it.

He had it just as an object in the living room for a few weeks before he used it for real - just gave him time to get used to it.

Oh, & the other thing that got him used to it was that he was really proud of weeing standing up (with one of us holding the potty up to his willy)cos that made him feel grown up like his Dad.

Good luck

We've had the potty and pottychair for a while (I actually bought the chair one so that he could use it as a chair first, cos it's the right height) and he will sit on the potty chair if he is fully dressed.

We use cloth nappies and I'm using both fleece and paper liners (I think he notices the paper more as he tried to pull it off this morning, found bits of damp paper all over his cot!)

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