[hbrown22]

Jake is 26 months, so relatively young but we have been potty training for a month. He has had 4 accidents since then. He pretty much holds it until I take him, usually every 1-2 hours. He doesn't tell me when he has to go though, I just take him though I try to get him to tell me. If I ask if he has to go he says yes every time even if I just took him. Not sure what to do. Do I keep going with it? I would hate to turn back and put him in diapers at this point but I wonder when he will really start to tell me. I waited today to see if he would tell me, he didn't, and had an accident. If he has an accident he won't tell me. I know he knows how to hold it because he goes every time I put him on the toilet. He also wakes up from naps and even at night dry about half the time. Any thoughts? Thanks! Boys are tough. Emmi was potty trained before she was 2 and she basically taught herself. So much easier!

[mcnay1]

Sounds like he is doing great! My oldest son wasnt interested in the least until after his 3rd birthday. My youngest son trained a bit earlier, but it was because he was watching his brother.

I dont think I would consider Jake "trained." But, he is doing very well. If you can muster the energy to keep going as you are, then I think he will be fully trained before you know it. Boys are tough, but it sounds like Jake is catching on. Hang in there, he'll eventually start to tell you... It took a while for my guys to tell us that they needed to go.

[SKL]

I'd definitely keep going. Personally I don't care if the child fits someone's definition of "trained," as long as he eliminates at the right time and place. To me, the point is to be out of diapers (and dry). I don't have any problem reminding or even just putting the child on the pot if he's too young to tell me he has to go.

My daughters were doing most of their business on the pot long before they could tell me they needed to go. around age 1.3 I started giving incentives (toddler crackers) for staying dry and going in the pot. Before 1.5 they went diaper-free and learned to walk themselves to a little potty while playing outside, but I still had the responsibility of putting them on the pot if they went too long between visits. At 1.5 they were almost 100% dry day and night. Sometime after that, they started making signs that I should take them to the potty, and also started taking themselves to the potty without help. There is really no time when I felt like "click" they were "trained," but they did reach all the "training" milestones fairly easily because I continued taking them through the motions on a continuous basis.

The ability to go potty on demand is a skill that takes some kids a long time to learn. From my own experience, I suspect it is easier for them to acquire this skill between age 1-2 than between age 2-3. If your son has this ability, personally I wouldn't want to "re-train" him to go in his diaper, just because he isn't communicating when he's about to go.

[guatparents2be]

i know lots of moms who just take their kid to the toilet regularly to empty out as the first phase of 'training'. especially in families that prefer to let them learn in their own time rather than to 'train' them. he may be too young to be able to tell when he has to go...

i say go with the flow (so to speak), keep bringing him every x amount of time. you could try to help him understand and verbalize for him when there is a lot "wow, i notice you peed so much, you had to go to the bathroom! did you feel that right here?" or not so much "i notice only a tiny bit of pee came out, we could have waited until you had more to go!"

etc.

sounds great to me. no reason to put him back in diapers imho!

[robandjulie]

Jorge's at the same point. He's 2.5 (and change) and he's very interested in staying clean-and-dry and generally does so, but he doesn't seem to have the initiative to just GO when he has to GO. He waits for us to tell him/remind him/ walk there with him which leads to accidents. In the morning he wakes up dry but lays in bed until one of us comes to get him and escort him to the bathroom for no reason (he is physically capable of getting out of his bed and walking in and doing the whole thing himself, he just refuses to do it). Same thing during the day. If we say, "hey, let's go to the bathroom before we [go outside , eat dinner, get in the car, get out our trains, etc], then he'll go but he wants us there with him even though I actively AVOID being interactive with him to try to break this demand. If I'm busy loading the car and ask him to go potty before we go somewhere he'll stand there screaming for me to come "help" him and wet himself instead...

Ok, so we have our own mess of control issues here...but I would say you're not fully trained b/c that would require some responsibility from HIM as well, but he's certainly getting close and as long as you don't have to do diapers I'd say close enough.

[0328Lisa]

It sounds like your little one is doing fine. We are on day 26 of a 3-day potty training program. DS is 27-months old and has no problem telling me he has to pee -- he got this down as of day 16 -- poo, however, is another story. He won't do it. LOL, by accident he's pooped in the potty a few times, but he won't do it on purpose. I'm not quite sure what to do. He wears normal cotton undies during the day, but at nap & bedtime he wears pull-ups because that's when he tends to poop. We try to catch him before he absolutely has to go, but if he's not peeing, he'll just play to prolong nap or bedtime.

If you'd like to be out & and about more and don't want to invest in pull-ups, there's a product called PODS that's like a women's disposable napkin. It will catch small accidents and will turn cool when wet to help kids recognize when to go. I'm thinking about getting some. I can't find them in stores, but they can be ordered from pottytrainingsolutions.com & there's quite a bit of info on them, too.

Good luck & keep-up the good work!

[hbrown22]

Thanks for the advice. I will keep at it but it is exhausting! He wears underwear when we are home but when we're out I put him in pull-ups. I don't know, he is definately not telling me when he has to go but I guess I should be grateful he goes when I do take him. Hopefully he will catch on soon and start telling me. When I take him I make him say "Pee" before I put him on the toilet and try to tell him like, "When you need to pee come get me and say, "Pee" then we'll go to the toilet", type of thing. It hasn't worked yet obviously! A skittle or m&m is his reward for going and that seems to be a good incentive just not good enough for him to want to go on his own.

Julie, Jake sounds a lot like Jorge. He will hold it all night and just lay in bed until we come and take him to the potty. He doesn't even call for me, he just lays there contently. Crazy kid.

[JillnChris]

Every kid is different. Eva is 2 and a half and I would just now consider her potty trained...almost. She does still have accidents but mostly because she is distracted or we are out somewhere and she forgets to tell me. I tried training her at 2 and she was a lot like Jake, would go when I took her but would not tell me. Even though he goes when you take him it is very possible that he still doesn't have the physical ability to hold it in.
If your okay with taking him everytime I say stick with it. Eventually it will click. We ended up taking a break for awhile and then started back up again full force. I used a sticker chart, and had a "big" party for her after one week of using the potty at least 4 times a day.

[sak9645]

I do NOT consider a child toilet trained by day until he/she can reliably:

1. Recognize the urge to use the bathroom before it becomes an absolute necessity.
2. Stop play or other activities and head for the bathroom in a timely manner.
3. Remove articles of clothing, as needed for use of the toilet.
4. Get on the toilet (or potty) independently. (Most kids who are really toilet trained won't want to use the potty.)
5. Use toilet paper to wipe after using the toilet or potty.
6. Replace clothing.
7. Flush toilet.
8. Wash hands.
9. Return to play.

If a child is toilet trained, there should be virtually no accidents, except under conditions of illness or major departure from routine (big time zone change, for example).

As a result, I do NOT believe in early toilet training. I believe that most young children simply don't have the maturity to decide to stop playing and head for the toilet, or to manage the tasks involved with removing and replacing clothing. There is simply no point in stressing a child by putting him/her into situations where he/she will not be able to do the necessary tasks involved in toileting.

I have also noticed that too many parents and teachers consider a child trained when it is, in fact, the parent or teacher who has been trained. Putting the child onto the toilet or potty every 15 or 20 minutes trains the adult, not the child.

It makes a lot more sense -- and makes for a lot less laundry -- to keep a child in diapers or pullups and focus on other independence and self-reliance skills, as well as general maturity skills. Learning to dress and undress is important for toileting, though if a child has other signs of readiness, it's OK to put him/her into elastic waist pants that are easier to manage than pants with buttons and zippers.

If a child can't transition from one activity to another without a major meltdown or stalling game, he/she is not going to translate the urge to use the toilet into the concrete action of putting a toy down and heading to the bathroom. If the child isn't used to washing his/her own hands, and doing a competent job of it, he/she is not going to follow bathroom use with handwashing.

A child will toilet train himself/herself, virtually accident free, if you don't push the subject too early and create "potty wars", if you teach a lot of independence and self-reliance skills, and if you expose a child to a lot of children his/her own age and a bit older, in a setting where he/she can see their toileting choices and decide to emulate the big kids.

Many parents try to toilet train a child because of something that is happening in their lives, such as an upcoming birth or adoption, or a big trip. This is actually the worst time to toilet train. Toilet training is a huge maturity thing for a child. Many children fear that if they give up diapers, they give up being their parents' baby. And they often do NOT want that to happen.

And young children hate big routine changes, such as long trips, and will not be eager to cooperate with activities that support those changes, like toilet training. But, in any case, toilet training should NOT be on the parents' schedule; it is the CHILD who must make the decision to be trained.

I know that many day care centers and preschools demand that a child be daytime trained by a certain age. Remember that this is for THEIR convenience. Dealing with untrained kids requires more staff and a place set up for changing diapers. As a parent, you should not let yourself get bullied into early training, because a day care center says that you need to do so. Look for a place that accepts children at all stages of training. They do exist, and some of them are really excellent, because they are truly child-centered, focus on independence training, and present the child with opportunities to learn from peers who already use the toilet.

In addition, training a young toddler is often difficult because it escalates all too easily into a potty war. Toddlers LOVE to test their power by getting into battles of wills with their parents. (In this regard, they are like teenagers.) And if the parents get sucked into those battles, they will lose EVERY TIME!

If you show a toddler that you think toilet training is terribly important, and that you are going to toilet train him/her whether he/she wants to be trained or not, you are setting yourself up for a battle that you will lose! It's far better just to let the child know that he/she can make the decisions about whether to wear underwear or diapers or pullups, and to quietly make things like potties, step stools leading to toilets, and books about the potty available for his/her use. If the child chooses to ignore them for a while, fine.

Nighttime training should be treated as a totally separate issue. Many children nighttime train a year or more after they are daytime trained, and some will have problems on into their grade school years because they are sound sleepers.

With the average child, it is sufficient, once he/she is reliably trained by day, simply to show him/her where the pullups are and where the underwear is, and let him/her choose what to use. Most kids will choose pullups until they, themselves, feel confident that they will get up at night when they feel the urge to go. Some may have a few months where they get up at night, wearing pullups, go to the bathroom, and then go back to bed, before they are ready to use underwear.

Parents can help a child who is ready, if the child wishes, by waking him or her at some point in the night -- say, midnight or before the parent goes to bed -- and taking him/her to the toilet. The child may not fully awaken, and the parent may simply hold the child under his/her arms, march him/her to the bathroom, and perch him/her on the toilet. Urination will often occur reflexively, and the emptying of the bladder will often help the child remain dry for the rest of the night.

There is no point in making an issue of it, if a child finds that he/she cannot transition to underwear at night, before he/she starts kindergarten. Some kids won't be completely dry at night until they are 10 or older. Using pullups that look like underwear will help with the younger set, when they start going to sleepovers. And older kids can learn to change their bedding without awakening Mom or Dad.

Urination alarms and medications may help some kids, but time is usually the only real solution. You might want to consult a doctor if you suspect an emotional or medical problem, but he/she will tell you, in most cases, that your child will grow out of the bedwetting before puberty.

Sharon

[wvamom]

After having raised five children through pottytraining, I can tell you it doesn't matter to me the "definition" of trained--if it is working for you, by all means, continue!

I have one son who is now 5 1/2 and I have no doubt would still not be "trained" if I hadn't compelled him--he would be perfectly happy to still urinate in pullups at his convenience. However, since he is capable of using the toilet, I do not consider wearing diapers to be acceptable behavior. It took quite awhile to get to the point we are now--where he only wets his pants a couple of times a week. He was, by far, the most difficult child to persuade to use the potty--much moreso than our now-16 year old son, who has Down syndrome and was physically developmentally delayed. Why? I don't know. Same parents, different child. All I can say is, they're all different.

Our 3 year old was much easier to train, at age 2 1/2, and seldom has wet pants. Our girls were both trained by just over age 2.

I really don't see the need to prolong pottytraining into adult-sized diapers, for an otherwise developmentally normal child.

In previous generations, children were trained quite early, with few resulting psychological hangups from it. I'm not sure why we're willing to wait longer, but I suspect it has to do with a lesser incentive for parents based upon cloth versus disaposable diapers. We used cloth diapers with our oldest daughter, and I was eager to take her every 1-2 hours if she would stay dry in between.

Carolyn

[SKL]

I would just say in response to sak that "early" potty training (i.e., before the child requests it?) doesn't necessarily have to be a battle. It was not a battle with my girls, and it doesn't sound like an impending battle for hbrown's son. But I would say that the more you push the transition into the "terrible twos/threes," the more you are asking for a "battle."

There are other things I'd disagree with, but I'll just comment that there are different, valid philosophies on potty training. Since hbrown has already begun to go down the path of helping her child eliminate on the potty / toilet, and he seems to be taking it in stride, personally I think that backtracking would not be advisable. But as a general comment, I'd just say each parent has to set hygiene priorities for him/herself.

[Devora]

One thing that helped a lot with my son was to describe what it feels like to have a full bladder. He simply wasn't connecting that feeling with the act of urinating. I actually showed him a simple drawing of the urinary tract system and explained how it works. (This was in part because he had a theory that if he waited long enough then the urine would go back up in his body and "disappear". Not so much -- hence, accidents.) For him, until he got that explanation he wasn't really connecting the physical feeling of a full bladder with urination. After the explanation he would hold his hand about where his bladder is and tell me if it felt "flat" or "big like a balloon". He clearly got it and it helped immensely.