Potty training 19 month old...where do i start??

[kellimay]

My daughter is 19 months old & i want to start potty training as she is letting me know when she has been for either a wee or a poo. I have tried before but she doesnt seem to like sitting on either of her two potties and will sit for a minute or two but then get up and go on the floor....what do i do?!?!?!

there are things you can do to make night dryness more possible so it is different, but not beyond influence (by, eg, no drinks late in the day)- and i'll be honest and say i could have got my oldest dry at night sooner, but couldn't be arsed/ it wasn't convenient.

and i think what Jamais was saying was more that enuresis is different to four year olds who aren't dry at night and whose parents haven't made any effort in that direction.

and, in fact, that multi-nationals influence parents to think night dryness isn't ordinary until later, by advertising (rather than through enuresis clinics - which would hardly be a good way to reach the masses anywy)

yes you can do things to improve the odds - but if the subconcious part isnt there - it isn't there.

Of course they're not going to advertise through the clinics. Some people never get referred

ERIC state that 5 is the age that the majority of children are dry at night. But still common older than that

for those children who aren't dry by 5 there is a "gap" of 2yrs before they can potentially access help.

Surely the parents of children who are closer to 5 when the nature bit kicks in - or older - would like to know there are night nappies/pj pants available.

By all means try her on the potty at 19m - but more than 3/4 accidents in a morning and give up for a couple of months

IME when they are ready they are ready. DS1 was 25m, DS2 27m. Both were introduced to the potty a few months before, and got it on the third attempt. Any more than 3 accidents in 1 morning and it went away for another few weeks.

DS2 is 2.5 now and has amazing bladder control - can say he needs a wee and hold for 10-15 minutes when we get back from school or go to public toilet. No taking potties out, no peeing in bushes, no problems. When they are truely ready they get it straight away.

I guess I just get frustrated by the parents who are the lucky ones who had early ones (for day and night) being all high and mighty ab out it when I've got one that was late to train during the day (and HARD to train during the day as well - and is still wet at night), and an "average" one dry day and night by 3 1/2yrs , and - well - DS3 pretty late to train but really easy, - time will tell on the nights.............

"No taking potties out, no peeing in bushes, no problems"

no peeting in bushes yet - just wait

Nope MaMo, DS1 is over 4 and doesnt pee in bushes either. They both have excellent bladder control and can hold it until we get to a toilet - whether thats a 20 minute walk away or not. I dont see the need for peeing in bushes, but I guess I have been lucky

Though what they do as teenagers is beyond my control

like - I said - just wait - my DS's are 10 and nearly 7

This has been really interesting. I agree with being open minded. Why talk someone out of something when it has worked for some people? It's like there is some sort of 'shame' in potty training late so people jump to justify it/ defend it etc. etc.

I did it one way with ds1 [waited for ages till he was 'ready' and it wasn't really happening so started anyway at 3.3] and I really don't think it worked very well. This time my twins seem to know when the are going to go and frequently tell me beforehand, but they don't want to sit in the potty (uncomfortable compared to a nice disposable nappy). So I am going to try 'early' - well they will be 2 at the end of this month. And try and crack the uncomfortable bit of it. Any takers on that?

(PS. Thanks Red. I put them on the toilet tonight before bath. Nothing came out, but they didn't resist as they did for potty so maybe go straight to toilet? Didn't know there was a whole debate about the difference!!!!

great news Merry! our potty was very little used, we most often put ds on the toilet, maybe the kids already associate the potty with something you want them to do (and something they don´t) whereas the toilet is an everyday item everyone uses. Who knows, if it works, go with it

I think it is odd too that anyone who says they had kids out of nappies early (or wants to) seems to be smacked down straight away - i´m not high and mighty about my kid being tt and rarely read posts about this topic to be so - if anything I was always a bit reluctant to have to admit that my ds was in pants before about 2.5 because people assume you are some kind of militant nutter obsessed with bodily functions, I´ve even had ´oh you´re one of those´ erm, thanks YOU asked ME, actually.

its blatantly obvious the norm nowadays is to train about 2.5 earliest so parents falling into that group shouting about being persecuted really doesn´t make any kind of sense. Persecuted by whom? the 5 people that occasionally voice their pro-ec opinion on mn? i know in RL I have absolutely no support so keep my experience to myself as I know exactly what reaction gets.

true - i had someone say 'you potty traind that??'

looking at my sweet little non-verbal DD. then went on to imply she must have accidents all the time (she didn't)

I'd just met her in the playground.

i need to sort this keyboard out...'trained'

lol at multi nationals being the ones who persuaded me to keep DS1 in pyjama pants until the age of nearly 5. If anything I THANK multinationals for providing me with an option other than a wet bed in the middle of the night

I can count the nappies that are wet in the morning now with dd since she has been tt on one hand, BUT I am aware of regression and 8 weeks ago we had a baby so I have kept her in the pull ups at night (even though she doesn't need them) purely as a safety precaution and because ds is up every 2 hours and at the moment I couldn't do the new bedding and the baby [super tired emoticon]. Also she is getting into bed with us in the night and I just don't have the energy to do our bedding too. But the multinationals ain't getting much from me as I am "recycling". Ha

I am not sure a lot of parents even look for the early signs of being 'ready' and give it a go. In the 'old days' of terries and twin tubs/no washing machines (i.e. my babyhood!) it was 'sooner the better' and unusual for 2 year olds still to be in nappies. Now disposables are so easy and I've known loads of people just trying to put off pottying for as long as possible - many of them end up with a lot of resistance, fear etc and just about make it by nursery where they have to be dry (I mean the type of nursery attached to a school, not day nursery). I used cloth and just did what came naturally,using the potty several times a day so they just took it for granted, following my mum's advice. DD was in pants by 2 with no probs at all, but the real beauty was virtually no dirty nappies at all from about 8 months! DS took a few months longer and still wet at night til nearly 5 (boys!) but same applied with being 'clean'. I highly recommend early pottying, but there is no point in forcing it of course. Make it as fun as poss. Good luck!

Roundthehouses - I agree.
The general consensus is that putting a 9-month-old on the potty is unnecessary, unusual, and perhaps even cruel.

Unless you speak to your granny!

I thought they might as well sit somewhere while I changed their nappies, and any poo I "caught" was one less to wash off the nappies.

Son 1 was out of nappies by the time son 2 arrived (at 19 months) - which was useful. Son 2 took a little longer. 2 and a half? He still occasionally wets the bed though, at 4.

They both wee in bushes. Not because there isn't another option, but because it's fun, apparently.

Generally angry posters seem to project 'smugness' onto people when it isn't there. I feel like I had an epiphany when dd was 18moths and said she wanted to wear pants, when ds1 had said the same at 2 I foolishly laughed in a 'no way' sort of attitude. I wouldn't advocate whistle training or orphanages in china, who would? But I used it to indicate that our attitudes, in the rich west, to whether or not our children can go without nappies is peculiar. I don't think we should force unready children to go without, but children who give even the tiniest signal could/should be given a go.

The 'oh but you say it's easy, well my child.....' sort of post helps noone.

We ec. There are a lot of ill informed pre conceptions floating around on this thread. It smacks of defensiveness.

MFM defensiveness about what? About letting your child indicate when they are ready, rather than making them ready to suit your timetable?

As with everything, we should allow children to be children and not try to force them to be otherwise.

hi funny. As i said, ill informed pre-conceptions.

it´s incredible, isn´t it? like a total mental block around the idea. weird.

Yes. We started when we noticed DS1 systematically pooed or wee-ed (sp?) when we took his nappy off.

Our 'real nappy' counsellor mentioned infant potty training, and we took it from there (but not full-time as I mentioned before).

Why sit and watch a child poo in its nappy when you can put it on a potty and flush it away?

I'm really confused by people implying ec is tantamount to child abuse.

The point about ec is that it makes going to the toilet a natural and easy thing to do, rather than something that has to be learnt or "ready for".

Ds is used to having no nappy on, to not soiling in his clothes, and to pooing and weeing in a toilet, so hopefully we can avoid the psychological hang ups that i've seen older kids in rl develope (refusal not to wear a nappy as their "bum will get cold" and refusing to poo out of a nappy etc.)

Some one on another forum said that when they are old and have imperfect bladder control they would prefer to be helped to the toilet rather than left in a nappy. Food for thought maybe.

We ec too. Just wanted to add that, if anyone reading this does want to encourage dry nights, I've found it really helpful to talk to my son as he drops off to sleep, telling him to wake us (I say wake Dad - ha!) if he needs a pee in the night. At first I used to say, You can go in your nappy if you want, or you can wake us up, then later, You can wake us up - he did - and then he started holding it all night. Agree totally on no shaming (and for us also no rewarding), just a neutral activity. For us and lots of other ec-ers, nights are more 'successful' than days because the child is more attuned to their body while there's less going on.

Just in case you want to know the timings, and with no implied smugness, criticism or pressure but just to encourage anyone who thinks they might like to try this quite young, we started ec-ing in the day at 9 months, began this night-time stuff at around 10 months, he was dry most nights by 12 months and has been out of nappies at night since 18 months. He's not 'advanced' - he walked at 18 months and is still pretty much preverbal at 21 months.

funny - the OP on this thread had a child that is telling her when it is going to wee - and people told her to ignore that simply because the child is 19mo! How is that 'letting them indicate when they are ready'???

and indeed - Ec/PT abusive? It's a potty, not a nest of vipers.

Um, the OP says the child is letting her know when she has done a wee or a poo. That's not the same thing. I would have thought the refusing to sit on the potty and the weeing on the floor instead was a bit of a give away.