How do you leave the house when potty training?

[calmdowndear]

DS is 22 months and decided to start using the potty we leave lying around the house. 1 week in I think he is doing well as he takes himself to the potty for every wee or poo and we've only had 2 small accidents.

But! This is all when he is pantless and we're at home. He was ok at an understanding friends house as she let him roam pantless and he still used the potty. But if we go in the garden or take short trips out he doesn't ask for the potty or says no when prompted. I've used the bright bots training pants which have just about held the wee in but we've still had to change his trousers.

I'm a bit lost and suspect I'm expecting too much as he's pretty young.

Any tips from those who have been there and done that? If I use pull ups will that not confuse him?

DD (2.4) is toilet trained now, but if we're going to be out for quite a while without easy access to a toilet, I put her in a pull up. However pretty much since she started training at Christmas, she refuses to wee in it and cries that she needs her potty.

Sounds like you're off to a good start, I also started training at 22 mo, did the same as you for the first week and a bit, and put her in nappies when we went out, then I stopped using the nappies and took the potty with me.

I get her to wee before we go and then roughly every hour we are out. I try and time drinks so that she's not going to be desperate while we're out. I've found it helps to show her where the potty is/toilets are and say "tell mummy when you want the potty".

Other than that you just have to be prepared for accidents! Good luck

About 10 days into the whole adventure, DD is becoming amenable to being reminded. At first she hated being reminded, and so more or less from the start we let her decide for herself when she wanted to go and sit on the potty.

Which was great for learning the sensations, but I had no idea how to do the 'oh look, here are some toilets, now, how about sitting on the potty?' thing when out. But now I think I could try it.

Oh it's all fun isn't it!!
I got the potty down from the attic when DS was 15 months, with no intention at all of putting him on it, I just found it when I was up there. Turn round to find him on it.... Didn't want to stop him though, as he chose to do that.
By 2 he was in pants 3 days a week (when with me), but nursery wouldn't let him, and kept him in nappies! (he was in washables, so I admit I was possibly a bit keen to get him out of them, so I could stop having to wash them!)By 28 mths he went to pants during day, with accidents every so often.

I couldn't see how to get him out of nappies at night though, till a friend said 'have you asked him?'...huh?
So I asked him 'do you want to wear pants at night?'. 'Yes please.'. And that was that. Handful of accidents in first few months. He's 3.6 now.
Good luck.

We're 3 weeks in now and ds is still accident free when we are at home and he is pantless. I've introduced pants and he will sometimes tell me he needs to wee/poo but often he's very quiet about it and the 2 accidents we had are when I think I've missed him saying the magic word

Out and about is still a challenge. Using a pull up hasn't confused him as he has not messed in one but if I take him to the toilet he has a major toddler paddy on me and shouts "no, poo home". Bless him. The good news is he has an amazing bladder and will hold it in for up to 2 hours but clearly at the moment is not comfortable with using the facilties when we are out.

I've tried taking his potty, rather than sitting him on the toilet, so it's familiar and he will use this fine at friends houses. So somehow I've got to get over the mental block he has about using the potty when we are in an unfamilar place.

I think I'm finding this potty training harder than I thought. Sort of assumed we'd have loads of accidents, he'd crack the whole thing bar the occassional accidents and then we'd resume our old lives. Instead I'm having to stay within earshot at all times so I can dash over and remove his clothes if he says he wants the potty.

I still feel it was the right time for us to train as ds very much took the lead, just think it's probably easier when your child is a little older and can pull their own pants down and can communicate what they want a little clearer. I suspect I'm just getting a little worn out with this whole potty training lark!

calmdowndear, although DD can pull her own pants down she still asks us to come with her when she goes to the potty, so we also have to stay within earshot! It's not easy, is it.

DD had a mild virusy thing over the weekend so we had a good excuse not to go out, but I think I'll have to bite the bullet again now!

There are also some posts on going out in the 'Potty training this week?' thread.

A final update before I let this thread rest.

We're finally there on the using the toilet/potty when out and about thing.

The break through with our DS was letting him choose when to go to the toilet, rather than me dictating when was a good time to try the potty. For us what worked was if we went to a playgroup etc and I showed him the toilet when we first got there but didn't try to make him sit on the potty, later on in the play session he would just run off towards the toilet. I'd follow with the potty and bingo all was well. Classic case of toddler determination to be independant I suppose!

This works in 90% of the places we go to, only remaining problem is trips to the shops when he stays in the pushchair and so doesn't get to choose to take himself to the toilet. Instead he decides to wait until we get home even if that is 3 hours later!

Thanks for all your support, I don't feel we are out of the woods but it does feel like things have finally got a lot better.

Hi. Haven't read all the other posts so apols if just repeating stuff. I didn't really give DD the option of going to the loo or not - it was an integral part of leaving the house and arriving somewhere. I used to sit her on several (old!) tea towels in her car seat, supermarket trolley etc and went out armed with spare clothes. Having said all that, if we were going to do something that would totally absorb her, such as playing with a friend, I would sometimes stick a nappy on her (pretending it wasn't really a nappy...) and not expect miracles. Her third birthday party sticks in my mind as a particularly bad day for that sort of thing!