2y old boy, in slow potty training since 8 months, how to officially train?

[boyohboymama]

My boy just turned 2 years old. We have a bit of a unique situation with potty training I think because we've been doing it for almost a year and a half!
We first introduced him to the potty at around 8 months old and we all thought it was amazing that he would poop and pee pretty much every time we put him on the potty...We still kept him in a diaper for the remainder of the time. Currently convincing him that he has to go sit on the potty is getting harder as he is havingtypical "terrible 2s" temper tantrums and refusing to comply. He has never officially told us that he needs to use the potty but if you can convince him to sit he will usually go.

We have tried to officially get rid of diapers the last few months but he is not understanding that when he feels full he must go to the potty - he will just pee in his pants or even on the floor if you leave him naked, at which point he tells us that he has peed and we clean it up.

I am looking for advice as to how to move to the next step - to have him understand when he needs to pee before he pees. How do you teach this? Does it come on its own? Should we forget about the potty all together for a while and then reintroduce it at a later time again?

I feel like because "potty training" has been dragging for so long he will have a harder time actually being potty trained than a regular boy who is following a more traditional quick potty training process. Help?

I agree prolonging it to a large degree is a bit of a pointless exercise but I so think that one of the big reasons that in this country we have quite a struggle with potty training children is that we do just expect them to wake up one day and 'get it' without any kind of support or patience. For some kids this will work if they have the right temperament. For many they will struggle. They'll struggle to see the point if they get too old and independently minded and they'll struggle with the actual practice as all their little bodies have known is being wrapped in a nappy and their muscles etc for a start need retraining. There's no other skill that we just expect a kid to understand it with no practice. We don't just plonk them on their feet one day and expect them to walk and give up wjen they can't. It's a gradual process and we accept the mishaps along the way. IMO this is a much more natural approach to have towards potty training and it worked very well for my daughter but each to their own

Andre Olson had an Instagram account called go diaper free she has written books all about elimination communication and potty training. She had great advice a brilliant podcast and some videos on YouTube.

Our grandparents and their predecessors certainly potty trained earlier than we do. Some years ago I met somebody who had started work as a nursery maid in a big house in the 1930s and , among other things, asked her about potty training and she said that in her first nursery they "held out" babies on a pot at every change from about 3 months and the children would normally be clean very quickly and dry in the day by about 18 months. She was taught to wake children to use the pot in he night and would expect not to be putting them in nappies after 30 months. The Nanny she trained under would smack a child over those ages for being wet either in the day or at night though she said that even when she was in training she did not approve of that and never did it herself. She said she was unusual among her other nanny acquaintances in that she started potty training rather later herself. However she said that "her children" were still all dry and clean both day and night long before they were three. Obviously nobody would support smacking as she described and I am sure that such treatment will have damaged some children but the fact is that earlier training was the norm until a couple of generations ago. I wonder if washing machines rather than disposables made a difference/.

@CatWithKittens

Our grandparents and their predecessors certainly potty trained earlier than we do. Some years ago I met somebody who had started work as a nursery maid in a big house in the 1930s and , among other things, asked her about potty training and she said that in her first nursery they "held out" babies on a pot at every change from about 3 months and the children would normally be clean very quickly and dry in the day by about 18 months. She was taught to wake children to use the pot in he night and would expect not to be putting them in nappies after 30 months. The Nanny she trained under would smack a child over those ages for being wet either in the day or at night though she said that even when she was in training she did not approve of that and never did it herself. She said she was unusual among her other nanny acquaintances in that she started potty training rather later herself. However she said that "her children" were still all dry and clean both day and night long before they were three. Obviously nobody would support smacking as she described and I am sure that such treatment will have damaged some children but the fact is that earlier training was the norm until a couple of generations ago. I wonder if washing machines rather than disposables made a difference/.

Not sure what to say other than we came a long way in psychology of children in the last century, knowing that old way of bringing up children is not necessarily the best one.

I was not suggesting that the old ways were best - simply pointing to some evidence that those who said earlier training was normal in previous generations were right. I would be the first to agree that we know far more about child psychology than those generations. However I do wonder if sometimes, when it comes to potty training, the fact that earlier generations were trained earlier belies the suggestion, at least for daytime training, that children are not physically ready to be clean and dry until they are much older than in the past. I exclude nighttime and can only feel desperately sorry for all those poor children who struggled with bedwetting in an unsympathetic and, almost certainly, counter-productive environment.

My ds would poo on the potty after dinner from around 1yo and because we knew he'd always poo then and was happy to do it on the potty why wouldn't we? It saved a nappy and was much cleaner than pooing in a nappy where it squishes all over their bums.

BUT this was totally different from 'potty training'. At age 2 we bought a packet of pants and the pirate pete book and left them lying around. At 2.5 he decided one day he wanted to wear pants, we explained that required him do all his pees on the potty or toilet and he agreed. From then it was pretty easy although we had the usual period where he couldn't hold it much after first stating he needs and we also had some accidents when he was in a really exciting stimulating environment and not wanting to miss out (e.g. playpark).

We also started potty at 6 months and used nappies until just before 2. I agree with carrot puff.