Potty training boy

[Holivia]

I'm looking for some advice on potty training my son who is 2 and half and will be 3 beginning of August.

He has been in a private nursery since he was 1 and since moving into toddlers at 2 he is used to being around older children and around 6-8 months ago I noticed I was packing a lot of nappies and he was still coming home with just as many. It was only after a month or so i asked nursery and they said he had been seeing the older kids going the potty/toilet and was following suit now and again. I did try the potty few times with him but he wasn't at all interested and at this point i thought his understanding of the toilet and knowing to tell me when to go wasn't quite there yet so we proceeded with nappies.

Anyway, to cut a long story short this weekend I bought a miniature potty which is a bit like a small toilet, I've put it in the corner of the living room and stuck a sticker chart on the wall for encouragement. We started in the morning by taking the pull up off and me telling him to let me know when he needed a wee or poo. Within 15 minutes he'd wet himself and pooed! Over the next few hours he had two more accidents and whilst we were out to which point I give in and put a pull up on!

He generally doesn't like the potty and doesn't want to go on it at all really. He doesn't like going about with a bare bum and asks for a nappy on.

Just looking for some advice as to how I can get on with it and whatever else helped you with yours. Sorry for the huge post but wanted to give as much detail as possible 🙂

Read the Oh crap book. He will never learn what it feels like to need to wee or poo if he does no experience the feeling and see/feel the consequences.

training is learning to walk or any other skill he needs time to practise and learn how to do it. Ideally you need a long weekend, Easter is perfect and you just have to stay at home until is sorted. He needs to know that the nappies have gone except for sleep time because he is still learning. Once you start you can’t just put him back in nappies as it will confuse him.

First day of potty training will include many accidents. If you get pee in the potty on day 1 it's a huge success.

If you feel he is ready ditch the pull ups and potty is only choice.

I would give mine a smartie for sitting on the potty at regular intervals at first. Once we could celebrate some successes I tried to stop prompting them and let them realise they need to go and try and get there on time.

When ready to go out and about (after a fee days indoors) I would remind them and have spare clothes for a long time after training.

I think going out on day 1 is a bit ambitious.

This sounds quite similar to my DS..we has a potty that looked exactly like a mini toilet, that makes a flush sound etc..didn't work! He obviously seen everybody else in the house using the big toilet and wanted to do the same!

All I can say that I have learnt is, you will definitely know when they are ready! With us I just let it go, and then all of a sudden one day he was ready and started using the big toilet!

Dont rush him, dont worry about what stage other toddlers are at..he will just get there in his own time 🙂

If you think he's ready and showing signs of readiness, like having dry nappies for a while then doing a big wee rather than lots of little wees, able to pull pants up and down, I would just set a date when you are going to go for it and get rid of nappies/pull ups altogether (put a few in his pj drawer and explain that he only wears them for bed now), I would even avoid pull ups for trips out, you can line the buggy and car seat with a towel and plastic bag.
I know a lot of parents swear by the 'oh crap' method of naked from the waist down, however I've trained 12 children (through work, not mine!) and never used that method, it just seems a bit undignified to me (I know the kids probably don't care!), I just dress them in pants and joggers that are slightly too big so very easy for them to pull down in a hurry.

Cannot claim any expertise as only a few weeks in to training our first. But

• lots of excitement and encouragement about going.
• when we had him bare bum to begin with first day lots of accident but it quickly improved in days after to the point where he did start to wee, say uh oh and stop which gave time to whisk off to the toilet (we went straight to toilet rather than potty) to finish that wee off - cue wild excitement and praise for any bit that got in the loo.
• take him to sit and try regularly rather than him needing to say. We had a lot of successful wees this way. Now we are going out and about I let him know when we’ll try. He still often wees when i’ve taken him to try.
• if not keen to come and try say you need to go too and ask who’s turn it is first. This works like a charm on mine and it’s got to be his turn first!
• not applicable so much for potty but mine loves pulling a piece of loo roll off and flushing the toilet after.
• as PP said I think seeing and understanding the process helps them. I’ve tried to encourage him when I see he needs to go by explaining those feelings are his body telling him he needs to go.

Lots of luck! It is quite a lifestyle change and requires a lot of eagle eyed focus for those first few days but they will get there.

In terms of being bare or not first day or so I gave him the choice. To begin with he picked bare and was perfectly happy then he started choosing his bottoms on so we just went with it