How do you know when they are ready?

[Summermeadowflowers]

DS is 2 years and 10 months. Most of his friends are toilet trained and I have to admit I’m feeling pressured.

But he just doesn’t seem remotely interested. He won’t tell you if he needs to see or poo and while he’ll sit on the potty for ages he never does anything on it. Tried putting him in pants and that didn’t work!

I am a bit worried because it feels like without his cooperation well never get anywhere and he isn’t famed for being cooperative!

Again though and not wishing to be difficult how does that work with nursery and so on?

We will have to leave the house eventually and if he won’t say he needs a wee/poo then all I’m doing is getting myself a lot of washing!

Haha! It’s FINE to be grumpy about potty training!

I think you sound defeated about it already. He isn't going to just start telling you he needs to go -because right now he doesn't need to. He has a nappy on and will use it so he has no need to go to the toilet. You need to teach him by taking him to the toilet regularly and telling him that's where he wees now. Read him books about potties/toilet, encourage him to choose some pants, let him watch you on the toilet, praise him for sitting on the potty, put him on when he usually needs to go, put him on first thing in the morning, every nappy change and before bed and he will eventually go and connect the two. Then tell him he is going to wear pants like mummy now and get him to help you pack the nappies away and don't go back.

The potty stage was very shortlived here and we got a special seat for the toilet and a couple more weeks in she preferred just use a step up onto the normal loo.

Check out the Eric website about how to do it. Putting a cloth or something in their nappy so they can feel wet can be a good transition if you really don't think he has any idea.

Lots of washing goes with the territory, im
afraid.

You stay in for 3-5 days while you get some success and cooperation e.g. a long weekend (assuming he’s not at nursery FT?)

Then you go out - with loads of spare clothes and a portable potty and a clear plan of where all the loos are and how quick you can get to them! - and you take him every 30 mins even if he’s not saying when he needs to go. Do this as long as it takes. Boring, but that’s how it goes.

If he’s at nursery FT ask their advice and get them to train him (only slightly joking!)

I think I feel defeated because friends children did/do tell them they needed to go - ds just seems clueless. Then I worry I’ve done something wrong or affected it in some way. I don’t mind washing when it’s an accident but there’s a difference between knowing you need a wee and just not making it in time and just not knowing and weeing in pants, if that makes sense.

Also you can totally put a 3 month old baby on the potty. It's called elimination communication and you can train much earlier than we now do in the Western world.

Here is the Eric link. And it specifically says not to wait for the magical readiness signs. https://eric.org.uk/potty-training/

You’d be mad if you weren’t grumpy about it. My eldest is 6 and totally the worst bit if parenting so far!

Nursery are pros, they’ve seen it all before and they usually take all the kids all together so don’t underestimate the peer influence and how much it helps!

It’s also normal if they take a while to self initiate. You just take them regularly when you’re out- wee right before leaving, as soon as we arrive wherever we’re going and about every 1-1.5 hours after that. Initially it might need to be as frequently as every 30 minutes. Always take spare clothes but they’re rarely needed. We used a foldable toilet insert but you can also get travel potties.

The not knowing and weeing in pants is stage one - most if not all kids don’t know before they start potty training, but they pick it up quickly thereafter.

Whether they’re easy to train though I’d say more about whether they care about weeing in their pants - and some kids aren’t intrinsically compliant (stubborn!) and don’t really care if they’re wet.

You’ve got one of those, it seems. So you have to force the issue in a ‘this is how the world is now, kid, everything stops till you get it’, which is no fun but likely to be short lived. Boring consistency. Urgh. Honestly you have my sympathies!

DGS is three and a half now, still doesn't seem to know when he's about to do something or even when he's done something. He totally refuses to engage with potty training at all and his DM is at her wits end with it.

I'll suggest she has a look at the ERIC site. Thanks for posting the link.

My friends un toilet trained child aged about 2 had a conversation with her one day about another friends child which went something like “ When Smartypants wants to do a wee he tells his mum and then sits on a potty”. Same child had form , apparently said to the HV when the HV was showing pictures of animals “actually, it’s a chimpanzee not a monkey.”

The one and only time ds weed on the potty was when he saw one of his friends do it @InTheRainOnATrain ! I don’t know why it doesn’t work at nursery. There’s a parents evening this month and I think I’ll try to arrange a shared strategy together. I’d like to crack it before he’s 3, ideally.

No helpful advice here, OP - mine is 3.5, has never shown the slightest sign of being 'ready' (that whole 'they'll take themselves off somewhere to poo' thing? He'll literally stand in the middle of the room clearly pulling poo faces, while denying he's doing a poo) and has always been immensely stubborn. I can't sit him on the potty every hour because he won't do it - and I can't see how forcing him would be in any way helpful - and apparently he also can't be bribed because I've literally offered him a new HotWheels car if he does a wee or a poo on the potty and he isn't buying in to that despite fully understanding the concept. I daresay a great future awaits him him police internal affairs but at this rate he'll still be wearing nappies when he gets there...

It’s a relief I’m not alone @Persipan , everyone else seemed to train so easily!

I left all 3 of my boys until around their 3rd birthday. Then told them, that's it, you are too old for baby nappies. All of them wet once or twice, didn't like the feeling and never did it again. I always made them wee before going out anywhere and arriving places etc. Though ds1 would not poo on a potty. It took months, he had control though because he'd start shouting "put my nappy on!" He'd wait until he came home from nursery too, then ask for his nappy 🤦‍♀️ He got over it, he's 22 now!

I think that’s the problem isn’t it in a nutshell - you can’t make someone wee!

R.e. nursery - we kept DS off on a Friday when we started and he doesn't go on Monday anyway. In that 4 day stretch he literally did one we and one poo on the potty and everything else was an accident. We called nursery and ask what they wanted us to do on the Tuesday and they say not to put him back on nappies as that would be confusing. When I collected him on nursery he hadn't had a single accident... I think going with others who had got the hang of the process made it click a bit for him. Then for 3 weeks we've asked him A LOT if he needs a wee or a poo and now I would say we are down to rare accidents. He will sometimes tell us he needs to go and sometimes (if he's playing or out and about) we have to ask him and take him off to go.

I'm more in the "get on with it and they will get the hang of it" camp.

I thing it shouldn’t be an issue with nursery either.
Start Friday after nursery, tell nursery from Monday he will be in pants. Stay in all weekend and take him every hour.
On Monday take him to toilet on waking, just as you leave for nursery, and then nursery will take every hour themselves the first week, and they take everyone fairly often anyway as all are training to some extent or forgetful.

But he doesn’t go … I think this is what I’m trying to explain. I can take him to the toilet hundreds of times but if he doesn’t wee or poo and then just does it in his pants, that’s not potty training, or is it?

I suppose in my mind potty training involves effort - they might have accidents but they’d be at least trying to use the potty?

of course that’s potty training, they aren’t just going to come out of nappies and magically be able to pee in the potty, it’s like telling children to hold a pencil and they can magically write their name. it takes effort and practice.

I work in early years and have some children who have 7 or 8 accidents the first couple of days and within 4 days they have it cracked. It does take effort but it’s well worth the effort .

It’s OK - first at least 3 days it’s ‘catching’ a moment. You take them, prompt them, take them, absolutely nothing - and two minutes later they’re bloody weeing on the floor! But you get them cleaned up and do the talking about next time on the potty… rinse, repeat, feel discouraged, do it all again the next day etc. Eventually it clicks.

Potty training does indeed involve effort but it’s yours, not theirs. Alas.

I know @2chocolateoranges but this seems more akin to putting a pencil and paper next to him and saying I’m teaching him to write but he won’t pick up the pencil!

I’ll probably try over Christmas when the weather is terrible anyway and we’re home. He’ll have just turned three then so hopefully he will get it - thanks, @NoSquirrels

Really do take a look at that Eric link as it has some really good suggestions on how to prepare for potty training.

Using your writing their name analogy. Obviously you wouldn't just give a child a pen and paper and tell them they're going to write their name. They aren't going to immediately pick up the pencil. You would have given them pens and paper before, let them hold them and scribble with them, read their name out, show them their name written down, tell them their name starts with whatever letter. It's the same with potty training that there are lots of skills you can develop before you are actually going to get a wee in the potty.

You really are overthinking it all.

Not helpful.

Thanks @Wrongsideofpennines , I thought I’d done those things, but I guess not very well