Seriously - day 2 and no success at all yet. Is he ready or not?

[noobydoo]

DS 2 yrs 11 months. DH thinks it is about time he was toilet trained. I think he has no interest and it will not work. So we started yesterday - so far nothing in a potty save for one wee that DH bribed him to do. I think DS has other things on his mind and is not interested enough to do it. DH thinks we should be able to do it. I think DH' objection is more based on age than anything else and he is asking me how many 3 year olds I know who are not toilet trained.

So as my evidence I have decided to ask you lot - how old were your children when you started toilet training them and how old were they when they got it.

Personally, I think DS is ready but isn't interested enough to do it. I don't think he will be interested in enough until he realises there is a benefit for him - which makes me then think how do I make him realise what the benefit is for him?

Lastly, in light of what has happened already - if he has not had a single success yet is there any point in continuing or should I try for a bit longer?

So three questions there. I would really appreciate your thoughts.

I think you should come and join the support thread just below this one! We are on day 3 with DS who is 2.9. I know lots of three year olds who aren't yet. Its worth trying another day or two but if he's not ready, I wouldn;t push it yet

I've just started potty training my DS who is 3.0. So far so good, but he was showing quite a bit of interest and understanding in the whole thing, which is the only reason I started. I really think we must stop expecting children to reach certain milestones by a particular age - it is much better to see when they are ready and I believe you are more likely to have success this way. However as you have started (if it is not pickling your head too much) keep going for a couple of days, you may find he gets the hang of it all of a sudden. After a couple more days if he's still not getting it I'd get the nappies back out and try again in a month or two, once you feel he is more ready.

You could carry on for a few days as the accidents are part of the learning process. Just ignore them and clear it up. The benefit that hopefully he will eventually see is that going to the potty gets him lots of praise and it's more comfortable to stay dry!!

We had similar lack of success with DS and decided to have a routine of getting him to sit on the potty every couple of hours and we even had to reward him for just sitting to start off with as he wasn't keen. (Smarties and saying 'what colour would you like'? to give him some kind of control). Lots of praise when he did do a wee or poo.

After 8 or so days of this and lots of accidents, he's just starting to get it. He's 3 in August, so similar. He's been very stroppy at times e.g. throwing the potty! If he'd been anxious or upset by it though I think I would have hung on longer and gone back to nappies.