Potty training 2y 10m

[ecossegirl91]

Attempting to toilet train my 2y 10m old boy this weekend. Not sure on the best approach.

do I sit him on the potty at timed increments?
do I prompt him a lot?
do I prompt infrequently eg if he hasn’t asked in say 1.5/2hrs?
do I let him have an accident and then try get him to the loo in time and get him to connect the dots that way?

I can see benefits to both - the prompting and timing means less likely to pee or poo on the floor but will he learn that way?
what did others do?

Is he ready? Has he been telling you when he’s about to/has done a wee? Has he sat on a potty before? Have you explained to him that he’s a big boy so he’s going to be wearing pants now?

When potty training I made sure there was lots of water available so they knew what a full bladder felt like and put them on a potty every 30 mins. If they get a pee in the potty be really enthusiastic, we used to sing ‘pee pee in the potty’ and have a dance 🙈

I took DC to go pick out their special pants with characters on they liked.

Have a potty handy wherever you are and if they start peeing quickly move them to the potty to finish, my dc were quick to put it together. Don’t make a big deal of accidents we used to say ‘next time we’ll try get it all in the potty’

I also used to give them a chocolate button when they done a poo because it was harder for my dc to get the hang of that. We tried sticker chart but that didn’t work for us.

With DS the first week was rough but he was 20 months. We tried DD at 2.9 and she wasn’t ready and getting very upset so we stopped and she potty trained herself 3 months later.

If your DS gets distressed though just stop and try in a few months it isn’t worth it for either of you.

I've jsut done my 2y6m boy this week, he cracked it in a few days.
We did some prep first - sitting on the potty before every bathtime for a few weeks, choosing new pants, talking lots about it.

Then on the first day straight into wearing pants, I didn't time it/sit him on the potty at regular intervals as he was getting annoyed with that so just asked roughly every 30 mins or so if he needed it, he was able to say yes or no. A potty downstairs and the travel potty upstairs so easy access at all times. Loads of praise and stickers for wees in the potty and not reacting negatively to accidents!

Lots of time in the garden so accidents there didn't matter and a friend gave me some puppy pads to put on the sofa/in the pram/car seat although we gave up on those after the first day

So we started yesterday - been sort of prompting him every 30-45 mins or so. Managed to get almost all pees in the loo but 2 out of 2 poos did not make it in!
today following similar and he’s had most pees in the toilet and one poo out of 1 so far!
he sometimes takes himself for a pee but mostly still prompting.

he is due at nursery on Tuesday - what happens there? Do I just send him in pants and bottoms with a shedload of spares??

Yes, and please tell nursery that if he does poo in his pants to please bin them and not send them back home to you wrapped up with a massive poo in waiting to roll across the kitchen floor.

No really, if you don’t tell them they are likely to do this. Just buy a load of cheap pants and prepare to never see some of them again. People seem to think it’s odd to throw away soiled pants but I’m not sure how it’s different from nappies at the end of the day.

We’ve had to postpone this after 3 days of trying and just no real progress made. Majority of wees and all poos in pants.
Starting to worry he won’t ever be ready and feeling this horrible pressure the closer he gets to 3.

Don’t. It’s a weird flex some parents have, potty training early. He will do it. Absolutely zero point forcing it when they’re not ready, you’ve done the right thing to stop. Revisit in a month.

My very bright little boy was wee trained on potty in two days at a month off his third birthday. Poo training took a full on YEAR after that (no accidents, would just be hysterical unless he could do it in a nappy at home)

He’ll get there.

It's probably worth leaving it for a bit but I would still keep the potty around and pop him on it routinely at nappy changes when he's willing and it's convenient

I would also think about how he learned other skills ahead of trying again. My daughter likes to understand things before she does them. She rolled twice the not at all for weeks and weeks then rolled continuously. She refused to take her first steps despite cruising furniture for months then one day she walked a few steps and ran the next day and hasn't stopped since. Knowing this I knew the immersive 3 days method wasn't going to work for her when it came to potty training. We started with just an hour of nappy free time and build up the time she could go without a nappy. It slowly introduced her to concept and once she got better at using the potty we'd give her the choice on days at home nappy or knickers. Once she wanted knickers routinely we commited to potty training.

You work with the child you have not the child in the books.

He will definitely get there, I found just waiting until they’re ready makes so much difference.
My youngest DD was 3 and 2 months but she was trained completely in about 4 days and went back to nursery in pants and never had an accident.
I would rather wait a few months than have so much stress trying to bribe them to sit on the potty and cleaning up accidents , they end up in the same place in the end so where’s the harm in waiting.

I'd ask for the nurseries procedure before asking them to throw them away.
My daughters nursery always returned them rinsed completely poo free as they did with clothing pre potty training (toddler diarrhoea meant it was rarely contained within the nappy).
They once threw a pair of my daughters away and the manager was cross as they have facilities for rinsing clothing and knickers installed deliberately to avoid needing to put soiled clothing in the bin.

I’d say persevere, and maybe try the Oh Crap method. It worked on my 22 month old in 2-3 days. But I remember the second day thinking what have I done, with wee all over the floor. People advised us to push on and I’m so glad we did. The signs of readiness are largely a myth. Modern nappies don’t make them feel wet. They will get there.

Wasn’t so much the wee , it was all the poop. Despite taking him to the toilet every 45 mins and also asking do you need a pee / poo.

he can’t seem to recognise the feeling?

I think the poos take longer with some children. But if he’s in pants, it’s kind of contained. With my son we watched Baby Shark and Cocomelon pooing videos on YouTube (they are pretty disgusting but he thought they were funny and they seemed to help) and moved him to the potty as soon as we saw a poo face at the beginning.
Just training my daughter now and she hasn’t needed those cues for poo, but we have had some wet pants