Tips for boys

[lilyLl]

Hi everyone,
Has anyone got any potty training tips for boys?
1st day of potty training. He's just turned 2 and thought we should give it a go.
He's happy to sit on it for a good 5 mins. But when it comes to him actually needing a wee, he avoids it and gets upset being close to it 🙈

Has he shown any signs of being ready?

Leave him until he's ready.

Keep the potty around but don't make a thing of it.

Biggest tip is wait until their ready. If you do it's quite quick and painless.

Second tip is a high fronted potty as it takes a while for them to understand to point their penis down.

I used the 'oh crap method' just before he turned 2. My son would not keep a diaper on, that's when I thought I might as well train him. He stayed naked for the longest time because we were mostly home. The book suggest watching the child the first day while they are naked and whenever they start to pee, rush them to the potty or toilet, don't just leave the potty and hope they will use it, most times they don't. First day I didn't watch him a lot, I missed most and it was exhausting to follow him every where, I almost gave up. Second day I tried again and I was able to catch him and rush him to the toilet. The third day I was surprised, he took himself to the toilet. Then I thought I guess this might work. He would climb the toilet with both his feet in a squatting position, that helped him to do number 1 and 2. He caught on, he is 2.5yr now and trained.

Personally I don’t buy into the stuff about them being ready and I am also realise people I know weren’t totally honest about how easy the potty training journey was older (more accidents than admitted pooping in night nappy etc etc), we started training before 2 and have avoided these issues, showed no signs of readiness miraculously even in a matter of weeks also becoming dry at night, the younger they age the more adaptable they are and the less set in there ways they are, break the nappy habit early if you can. I started to teach my child to use a spoon from 9 months, I waited until 19months to teach the potty and even that is considered extremely early, the culture around potty training in this country is a little strange & I almost felt embarrassed to train young but really it hasn’t been bad, just requires 100% consistency and patience.

Should probably add if you are looking for quick results then staying at home is better for a few days naked, use reusable training pants out the house and just take some spares. We also are training a boy, the journey isn’t done yet because he’s not independent but he can control it and his day nappies have been completely gone for the last 2 weeks and I can take him anywhere without worrying about accidents. Note I didn’t quite follow this route just occasional naked bouts but as he was younger I felt I had more time to build it into a routine over a couple of weeks where I still used nappies. Two weeks ago I ditched the day nappies a week ago he I got rid of his nap nappy and it has been all good. That’s from a boy with “no readiness signs”. Oh and apparently they are harder to train I am told! You could also implement a positive reinforcement tool, like a toy they mostly only get to use on the potty or a treat once they’ve used it, that would probably make it even faster and then you can begin to fade it out once he’s forgotten about nappies. We didn’t need to do this but I think his age meant it was easy for him to be distracted & to forget about the nappies anyway. Distraction at least initially is a very good idea, at age 2 you might need something slightly better than books to get them to relax so you can start to praise the successes. Hope this helps.

@lilyLl

Hi everyone, Has anyone got any potty training tips for boys? 1st day of potty training. He's just turned 2 and thought we should give it a go. He's happy to sit on it for a good 5 mins. But when it comes to him actually needing a wee, he avoids it and gets upset being close to it 🙈

Thanks everyone! Think we'll carry on trying with no nappy on for a few days. This morning he went next to it. Wouldn't sit on it but at least he was close 😂

Our son also went next to potty next to it before he went in it so sounds totally normal as is just part of the process. As long as there’s an improving trend I wouldn’t give up!

My tip is to accept accidents are part of the learning process and never chastise for having accidents