Cold turkey - topical toilet training!

[Scubes]

Hi all

Our little girl is 2.5 and we started training on Monday.

Cold turkey on the nappies and she is in training pants, washing machine at the ready!

Day 1 - 9 accidents, nothing in potty
Day 2 - 7 accidents, 2 wees in potty
Day 3 - 6 accidents, 1 wee 1 poo in potty (both contrived.
Day 4 - so far she has done 2 wees in potty and had 2 accidents straight after.

So when you look at the figures she is making some progress. My question really is if you go cold turkey is there any going back?

DH feels that if she hasn't 'got it' by Sunday we should leave it another month as next week she is back at childminders 2 days a week and pre school nursery 2 mornings a week.

Obviously all kids are different but I am reticent to go back to nappies too soon. She is a bright little button with excellent understanding and language and I'm not sure how long we carry on before we think she might not be ready.

Not looking for a golden answer just peoples experiences really. A lot of the books give a glowing account of success...hmmm!

Thanks

What did you decide to do in the end??

Hi Elliejane

I see you have been posting a lot on this topic!

We stuck to our guns and last Friday it suddenly fell into place with her. She still has 1 or 2 accidents/day, usually when sheis involved in play.

We take her to toilet at regular times and she always goes. INfact she wont use potty now only the 'big loo'. At childminders she did really well and at nursery today she did have a couple of accidents but it was first day back and she was upset when I left her.

We were advised not to use pull ups as they are too similar to nappies and fool children into just carrying on as before. So we are using training pants and for us they have been great.

She gets a chocolate button when she does something in the loo and a sticker if she tries.

So we are on day 11 and things have really improved. She can hold on most of the time in between trips to the loo and has learnt to recognise signs of needing to go (which I think we presumed she already knew but she didn't - that's what training is all about).

She wears nappy at nap time and bed time.

I don't ask her if she wants to go, I say let's go to the loo and see if you can earn a choc button - good motivation! Although even this need is wearing off and she doesn't always ask for the treat afterwards - thank goodness otherwise we'd end up with a toilet trained but obese daughter!!!

In my opinion if you have made the decision to train then you need to stick with it unless they are really putting up a fight in which case they clearly weren't ready.

Maybe bin the pull ups and try the pants, they are an incentive in themselves.

After a few days I felt we were putting too much pressure on her by asking all the time and perhaps that is what is happening at nursery. We also always say 'are your pants wet or dry?' this increases her awareness of what is comfortable and what isn't.

Hope that helps, any other questions just ask.

I have just bought a rather ludicrous In the NIght Garden deluxe potty / toilet thing with lid (!) as my dd (2.7) would NOT sit on the one we had (hand-me-down, so at least I haven't paid for TWO potties) as it was uncomfortable. Which it did look, to be fair. Fingers crossed. Now she sits on her new toilet, but won't contemplate putting pants on. Not sure I want to force it, but she is getting rather old!

scubes, well done you and your DD sound like you are doing really well.

I want to toilet train DS who is 3.5. Am gonna go cold turkey tomorrow, thought it was a good time as we're snowed in so don't have to worry about trips out etc.

I am not worried about weeing accidents, easy enough to clean up. But what about poos? DS sometimes does some really 'dodgy' poos, in an unpredictable fashion ie morning 'normal' poo, afternoon 'dodgy'. I hopeless, i'll admit it right now, i cannot even bear to think about cleaning up one of his 'dodgy' poo accidents. I think i would just throw the dirty clothes in the bin but what about sofas, carpets etc?

Please tell me how to cope with this particular aspect of potty training, as i have no idea.

I feel really stupid as DD was toilet trained in 3 days, with, iirc, only around 2 accidents during training and NONE after.

Hmm, we've not had too many poo incidents (lovely conversation we're having!) We tend to get a bit of warning when they are coming, infact everyone in the street knows cos she starts straining, or says her tummy hurts.

We've covered sofas in towels for the time being and are fortunate enough not to have carpets downstairs. Some people put bin liners under the towels.

The training pants have kept everything contained so far.

I really think that sticker charts and lots of praise do help (but I'm a teacher so I would say that!) I drew lots of different ones - caterpillars, rockets, butterflies, moon and stars and then DD could chose the chart and put a sticker on.

No reals words of wisdom there but you never know he might surprise you Good luck!

scubes, my problem is that i think DS is ready to toilet train, it's me and my cleaning up poo phobia that's the problem.

I remember one poo incident with DD when we were toilet training, but luckily it happened whilst we were outside on the patio and was a 'normal' poo so i managed to sort it out without keeling over. But this time we are indoors with carpets and DS's 'dodgy' poos!

Am going to grit my teeth and at least try it tomorrow.

We went cold turkey with our ds when he was about 2.5. We made a big fuss about buying the last pack of daytime nappies and saying we will not buy any more after that. When they were empty he got nice tractor pants and he was very proud that he is a big boy now!
2-3 accidents a day for about 2 weeks, since then dry during daytime, nappy for the night. Slight relapse at the moment at just over 3years, due to baby sister...hope it will go back to normal very soon...

Just wanted to update on progress. We started on Friday, went cold turkey. So far have had 2 accidents, one on Friday which happened straightaway before any 'training' had even started and one on Saturday. He did a poo on the potty rather than the toilet which was fine.

He just seemed to 'get it' almost straightaway and it has been so much easier than i thought.

I'm so very glad i waited and waited and waited. DS is 3y8m and i think if i had tried to do it any earlier it would have been much much harder.

Am in same boat. Snowed in, so figured might as well potty train, and fed up of have DS (just turned 3) in nappies. He is good at staying dry but he just holds everything in, so nothing in the potty, no poos, no wees, but no accidents either. He is quite keen on the big boy pants (especially a pair on his head) but beligerant about sitting on the potty - feel I'm always nagging him, in a rather ineffective way. Only thing that persuades him his a jelly baby and the TV, which I feel can't be good. Am going to press on, as I feel I've pussy footed round this long enough, but every now and then I lose my nerve.
When do they get the hang of 'releasing' at will? And am I unwise to press on when his least favourite thing is pleasing me?