Starting potty training - shall we have a support thread?

[sweetkitty]

Thought it would be a good idea if we had a support thread for us lovely people starting potty training to share tips etc

I'm on Day 3 of potty training DD2 (2.4yo) so far it's been completely horrendous nothing in the potty so far.

She pees on the floor (sorry am Scottish so a wee is small, pee is wee IYSWIM) and I'll say "DD2 where should that pee pee be" "in the potty Mummy not on the floor" she sits on her potty fine but pee going in potty is not happening for us yet.

I'm still in the land of giving up but this morning DD2 took herself off to the downstairs toilet pulled down her pull up and did a wee, I'm still not attempting potty training though whats another few months, she is starting nursery 3 mornings a week plus the new baby will be here in 6 weeks so I think that will be too much for her (and me). Can't see me starting in June far too pregnant to be wiping wee off the floor 6 times a day, July is a no no newborn baby so may wait until August, whats another few months?

Am actually hoping she takes her pull up off and potty trains herself

Morning ladies.
Think this may be a non-starter for us ... I have never heard DD say 'No' so many times in 5 minutes before!
She wants to get her stickers and be a 'big girl' but she doesn't want to wee on the potty or the special seats we got for the toilets; she just says 'no'.
I took her nappy off at 6.30 and no accidents or potty wees yet ... I know it's super early to be thinking of quitting but I'm just not sure she's ready yet.
I'm going to persist through today and see ...

How is everyone else doing?

1 accident now!
She shouted me 30 seconds after I asked her if she needed a wee ... we caught the last drips in the potty but the majority went onthe floor ...

My dd will only sit on her potty wearing nappies/pull-ups/knickers.

Sort of defeats the object really..

Hi can I join you all please? We are on our second proper attempt at this, ds is going to be three in a few weeks. He is very good at theory that wee goes in potty but actually doing it is proving a stumbling block.
Day 1 - until now we have had three accidents (no attempt at going to potty at any point)and he is wandering around in wet pants at moment. Have decided he needs to realise that he is wet/uncomfortable before I change them. Am I being really cruel?

Well, DD now consistently dry day & night (two night accidents in the 3 weeks we have been nappy free). DID do a poo in her knickers yesterday, but had clearly tried to pull her jeans down.

And had put the trainer seat on the loo.

Now up to 5 pairs of wet pants - is this really worth it?
Determined to keep going though and have already found towel that fits onto buggy seat ready for school run.

Well, it's very early days here but we've had a wee on the carpet, then a poo in the potty, then another wee on the floor and finally a wee in the potty!
First thing this morning she didn't want to know about the potty; arching her back and screaming if I tried to put her on it. But by 11.00 she was asking to sit on it, even tho she didn't do anything for quite a while. I sat on the floor behind her - so the potty was between my legs - and read about 6 stories to her which ended with her doing a wee. It was the same way with the poo, though I had a idea that she needed a poo so I asked her to sit on the potty.
When she went down for her nap DH tried to get her to put a nappy on and she kicked up a right stink before she'd let him - which is interesting in itself ...
We shall see.

Tigerschick- sounds like there is improvement! Keep going

West3- my DS very rarely told me if he needed to go or would make any moves towards the potty/toilet so I resorted to plonking him on the potty every 1/2hr to start with...sometimes just a few drips would come out but with much encouragement and 5 or so ins later he'd do a proper pee on the potty- other times of course he really didn't need to go so I'd let him off again then try in another half hr. It took over a week of potty training before he actually started to ask to use the potty. But by day 4 we hardly had any accidents and I was only popping him on the potty every hour then! We couldn't really go anywhere though until after a week... Personally my DS doesn't care about being wet so leaving wet pants on didn't help- what I think helped more was keeping him bare-bottomed so he could see himself peeing which helped him figure out what was actually going on...

Good luck! x

No accidents so far this afternoon, mind you no wee either in the potty. Still we soldier on, I'm off to hang out the wet pants (washed through of course!)

Spoke too soon - just found him trying to take off wet pants and mop up a puddle with a tissue.

West3 - Bless him for trying to clear it up... Hope that things start to improve soon - persevere!
madmumNika - thanks, it does seem like she is starting to 'get' it but I'm a bit worried about speaking too soon!

Well, DD has had 2 wees on the potty this morning. She keeps saying that she needs a poo but is refusing to do it on the potty. We are going out in a few minutes and, as I haven't got anything to put on the carseat, I've put her in pull-ups but I've told her they are special pants that mean, if she has an accident, it will be OK, but she must try and tell me if she needs a wee or a poo ... we shall see!
The chart seems to be working. I drew a flower with 5 petals and when she'd put a sticker in each one she got to choose a toy out of the special bag. We bought them at the beginning of last week so she can't really remember what is in there - so I know that they are things that she wants but it's a surprise to her what's in there.
We'll see how we go today ...
Good luck everyone

This thread is just what I needed. DS (2.8)is a star with peeing, will take himself to potty or even stand at the big loo if there is a stool in front of it. However, having been similarly good with pooing in the potty at the start of potty training, he now won't use the potty or the loo for poos.

It is not that he insists on a nappy - he just won't tell us at all that he needs to do a poo and always says no if we ask. I have tried looking for clues that he is about to go, but don't see anything at all. When this started, he got really upset that he had pooed in his pants, now he doesn't seem to care at all, just calmly comes and tells us he has done it.

Do I just carry on with pants and hope he will eventually just decide to go back to using the potty for poo, or has anybody got any other ideas?

PS Radio4play, best for cleaning up accidents is 1001 carpet / upholstery spray - brilliant stuff and works on all sorts of accidents and marks.

hi anyone not long joined mumsnet first time emailing hope i will get better as time goes on i have a querie about pottytraining i have tried a few tactics but never worked i would be very happy if anyone could give me anything new to try my son is coming up for three soon please help

Hey there

OMG this useful! I was beginning ro feel like freak family today, but feeling a it better reading this. I have been doing DD for a month now and we have had a shocker of a day today. Cleaned up 5 wees and one on me by 10.30am today and then by end of day she has done 4 more pull up things that I thought I would never use. Poo - don't even go there. The cat has cancer and keeps yakking up too. I feel like a bloody human vax.

She has days where she is totally reliable and then a few where it is like day 1 all over again.

She is a really happy, co-operative little girl about everything else. I have decided that the good karma for her sweet personality has been used up and we are getting the yang/ bad karma in weaning (it was a nightmare) and potty training.

Sound familiar?

Day 2 - well it was a nightmare, no success at all.

Day 3 - Have now started the potty every 1/2 hr (using the kitchen timer for that one - when beeps go it's potty time)also if dd(7) goes to the toilet properly she gets a sweetie so hopefully ds will catch on that he is missing out. Sticking with the pants all the time despite the washing and have just put towels on the car seat and in the buggy. Any additional suggestions gratefully received.

Hi I would love to join! I'm a nanny and have a little charge who is 23 months. He was 3 months premature, so is more like a 20-month-old. He doesn't speak, so some might say he's not ready for potty training, but he gets very quiet when doing a poo, understands EVERYTHING, great receptive vocabulary, can follow 2-step and 3-step instructions (get your book, bring it to me, and sit down, or put your milk on the table, pick up the book, etc.) He knows all his colours, shapes (square, rectangle, triangle, circle), and numbers. Can also do some baby signs.

Main motivation for starting this early is because after he's 2, for about 5 months he'll have a really disruptive time (new baby, holidays, starting nursery) plus his nursery requires him to be potty trained.

Guess for today I'm just going to start sitting him on the toilet (his mum won't buy a potty as she doesn't want to clean it out and thinks it will confuse him as he's 'supposed' to do it in the big loo). He is fairly dry throughout the day and his poos are very regular so think we might be okay to start now. Anyone else successfully trained this early?

Cottagechicken- IME your little charge may be a bit too youg really- BUT always worth a shot!
My DS sounded VERY similar to your lil boy, DS was also 2.5 months prem, and at 20 months didn't speak but had excellent understanding and ability to follow commands, and it was also quite easy to pick up when he was doing a no.2. BUT we tried potty training a total of 4 times, giving it at least 4 days at a time (full-on, pants only (except at night), lots of accidents, lots of encouragement, not going anywhere at all so few distractions, but zero improvement) and then finally in the past 3 weeks we have got him trained and this time it was really easy- he's now 3.1yrs old (see my previous posts below)!!
But every child is different so you may be lucky!

We have used both a potty and toilet- mainly because we only have 1 loo and it's upstairs, and at first DS didn't give enough warning (or any) to make it upstairs in time so we needed a potty nearby. BUT we did get him to use the loo also so he didn't get too used to the potty as I've heard of kids then now wanting to use a normal loo. We also found using toilet seat inserts a nightmare so abandoned that and just use a step and DS has learnt to balance by putting his weight on his arms on the loo seat (so he doesn't fall in!)

Good luck will be interested to see how you get on.

Help! my DS is nearly 27 months old and we started potty training him 2 1/2 weeks ago. He is now dry and tells me whenever he needs a wee, but every day he poos in my pants. I haven't got cross with him, just disappointed, and every time he says that he will do his poo in the potty next time. I don't know whether he doesn't know when he's pooing, in which case I may as well put him back in nappies, or whether he's just rebelling. He likes his pants because he thinks he's a big boy, so it would be depressing to have to give up. Any ideas?

Day 4 - the potty every 30 mins or so seems to be doing something. One accident so far this morning, but two successes with the potty (not asking for potty but producing something when told to try). Champagne not quite on ice yet but little steps are all positive.

Another little step forward about ten minutes ago - he took himself to the potty for a wee, then reported back he needed his smartie for being a big boy.

madmumnika, I also think he's a bit young, Mum is asking me to try though so want to give it as good a go as possible! Haven't put him in pants yet, as he hasn't even really been introduced properly yet, poor mite wouldn't have any idea.

Yesterday put him on big loo three times, he sat there quite happily (at least he wasn't scared stiff or angry about it!) but nothing happened. His poo happened in Peter Jones so no chance of making it to the loo on time! Today he's been poorly so haven't attempted again except right after nap, he looked at me like I was crazy. Would LOVE to wait until he's nearer to 3, but he has to be ready for nursery in January.

West3- great news, that's fab progress - the wonders of smarties eh?! Hope it carries on like this, sounds like he's got the idea.

Crackers- really don't know about this, I'd say keep persevering with the pants and hope that he'll catch on about the poos- or try to watch him for signs of doing one then whip him on the potty and explain that's what you mean for him to do....and lots of praise even if you catch only a bit of poo in a potty!! It sounds like he's got the idea so well with pees it'd be a shame to have to go back to nappies... Good luck.

CottageChicken- great news that he at least doesn't mind the loo...But still seems VERY young... If he has to be ready for nursery in January then personally I'd hold off until November time unless he shows a real interest in potty training... If he's ready he'll get the idea within a few days, and even if he's still not ready by Nov then you've got enough time to do the hard core slog of millions of accidents before he gets the idea. But I hope he proves me wrong and gets the hang of it asap! Have you considered using re-usable/cloth nappies? These let them feel the wetness etc. a lot more and many mums think this helps train little boys earlier... Hope he's feeling better soon.

Day 5 - dry morning although one poo on carpet but he got terribly upset so didn't react just cleared up. Have kept reminding him about the potty, but not pushed. Hopefully, we have turned the corner