Day 1 potty training - to persevere?

[Charl881]

I decided to give potty training my DS a try this weekend, I have five days off in a row and he seemed to be showing all the signs of readiness despite only just turning 2.

It’s been a fairly unsuccessful day. He did his first wee of the day in the potty no problem. Second wee I he did on the floor when I nipped in to the other room. Third wee nailed the potty. Since then every one has been an accident, including two poos. He did just do the last wee of the day on the potty but literally just because I saw him about to go and shoved him on.

I’m really conscious that 2 is pretty young to potty train, especially for a boy.

Is today a sign he’s not ready and to wait a couple more months?

Or does this sound like a normal first day and I should persevere?

The last thing I want is for it to take longer than it needs to or for it to cause any long term issues. I just didn’t know how to see if he was truly ready without trying it.

If he shows any signs of wanting to do it sooner then no reason you couldn't try over a weekend 🤷🏼‍♀️ I'd leave it upto him. Christmas is only 6 months away, he'd still be well within the realms of average age to be trained.

Both my DS were well past 3 before we tried. They both got it straight away. Maybe give him a bit longer. Just turned 2 is very young.

I think I may just switch to a gentler approach and let him have access to the potty in the day with a bit of naked time first thing / before bed, but other than that leave it for a few months until he actually tells me no more nappies.

As much as I think he’s got a lot of the signs of readiness, I think I’m just pushing it this weekend because of the long bank holiday and I don’t think I’m mentally ready for the stress of it even if he is!

@COL1N keep me updated with how you get on!

Couple of thoughts from me - not sure about missing the boat - I waited till 3 and a half with my son and he trained pretty quickly and had good bladder control. We waited as he was hitting development milestone later so made sense to us.

Children need 4 days atleast before you know if it is working. I wanted to stop after 4 days as the stress felt huge - all you do each day is stare at a half naked child all day on guard.

We read a great book called oh crap. The biggest piece of advice we took was if you are doing this - you commit and part of that is clearing your weekend of plans to focus on training

Mine were definitely ready and after the first hour or two never had any accidents (and haven’t in the years since). It’s really worth waiting until they are properly ready. You can still have the potty in the bathroom and see if they want to use it before bathtime, we did that for months before taking the nappies away.

Thanks both. I’m definitely thinking nappies back until we can properly clear the diary. Hopefully one day without today won’t have confused him too much bless him.

Definitely persevere. 2 of my 3 were dry before 2 and all my nieces and nephews were too so I don’t think it’s too young. It’s just new for him.

Persevering if you can would be great I think, he sounds like he did pretty well for day 1 really. We trained our ds at around his 2nd birthday- he was telling us when he needed a poo so we thought we'd try it. Yes we had accidents for a bit, but it's a whole new skill. We also followed Oh Crap, but were a little bit looser with it.

If he is happy using the potty (when he makes it!) and not upset at the change of no nappy (because it is a massive change for them) then I'd say that's a big part of the 'battle' won?

If you've got a clear weekend there's no harm in giving it a go. I'd call that a pretty good first day actually!

Take a day at a time

There is no 'right' age go with your child 😊

There will times where he gets it 'wrong' but increasingly more right!

It takes time, Rome was not built in a day 😘

There's not really a boat to miss. In general, the longer you wait the easier it is. And once toilet training is done, life is harder - always looking for toilets, trees etc. wherever you go.

Thanks everyone. He was awake from 11.30pm last night until 5am. Eventually went back to sleep after he’d done a poo (in his nap it obviously as not attempting night training yet). I can’t help but feel this is because of the attempt at training yesterday, he usually sleeps through and doesn’t usually poo overnight!

You’re not joking; we started training my now 4.3 year old a year ago (neurotypical in every other way) it’s still a struggle 😫

(I don’t wish to derail the thread but any advice would be most welcome 😀)

Personally I'd leave pushing it for now but offer nappy free time, use of potty or toilet if wanted and read books around it (what is poo is a good book). Ds was similar, no doubt we could have pushed on and he'd have been fine in a few days, but we put it on pause and then it wasn't an issue at all he was completely dry from the first day when he was a bit more ready (was only 3 months between attempt 1 and cracking it).

@Dinotour thats exactly what we are going to do!

@TheRosesAreInBloom I have no advice but hopefully others can help. I’m sure you’re doing a great job.