Help Potty Training My Son, PLEASE!!!

i have 2 daughters so its a little different for me.
My friend who has a son used the cheerios trick. What you do is put a few cheerios in the toilet and have your son aim and shoot them when he pees. I know it sounds silly, but it woeked for my friends son. He got excited about sinking ships. Soon he was just going on his own without the cheerios.

Hi D.,

I just posted, on Sunday, about how to potty train my 2 year old son. I got a lot of helpful advice, a couple of which may help for you.

Someone suggested that I get a clear jar and a bag of marbles. (I modified the advice to fit your situation a little.) Every time he goes in the potty he gets to put a marble in the jar, every time he PURPOSELY goes somewhere he knows he’s not supposed to, have HIM take one out and put it back in the bag. When he fills the jar (or fills it to where you’ve marked on the jar) he wins a prize. It could be a silly $ store toy, “Boys night out” with dad (MainPlace Mall has a movie theater that is just $1.75 to get in), lunch at McDonalds, or what ever else will be a great reward for him.

Someone else suggest a sticker chart that wins a “Poopy Party”. It sounded like it was a blast. Her son and one of his cousins were potty training at the same time, so they did it together. When both boys had filled their charts, the moms invited the family to the boys “Poopy Party”. They ordered a Baskin Robins “Log Roll” cake and had “Happy Poopy Party” written on it. She said that the boys were really excited to earn their party and that the family had fun too. Who doesn’t want to celebrate your child’s milestones?

I can’t remember if any other of the suggestions will work for you, but by all means, look up my post. Something that I’ve been trying (with little success though) is giving my little one a sticker for trying, a treat for success. (A- as in ONE!- jelly bean on M&M from his Easter basket for peeing, and a chocolate egg or other candy of that type for pooping.) One part that does seem to be working though- I’ve asked everyone else that lives in the house to “Celebrate” and ask for a treat when they make pee-pee or poo-poo. My son, seeing them get a treat, wants to sit down and try again. He is only 27 months, so I’m trying not to get too discouraged.

Anyhow, hope that at least part of this has been of some help. Let me know what works best; so I can prepare myself!!! :-) –Janell-

Just a suggestion for you on the potty training - when I worked in a preschool and we had kids that we were helping being potty trained, we would make it a game, they have things that you can buy, disposable things you can put in the toilet and tell them to try and hit the targets and when they do they get some kind of reward. It seemed to work with pretty much every kid we have tried it with. Hopefully this works!!

My computer crashed when I tried responding last time, hopefully this works! Buy some undies that are just like his dads, if you cant find some, buy dad some new ones that look similar to his. A boys biggest hero at this age is his dad, so if dad encourages him when hes home, it could do the trick. You can get these things from toys'r'us or Babies'r'us called Piddlers, they're biodegradeable so they wont clog anything up. They're colourfull little targets you put in the toilet and have been doing a good job with my nephews potty training. Have dad tell him that hes a big boy now, that diapers are for little boys, and hes not a little boy anymore, Have him toss his diapers in the trash (save the majority of them for nite's unless you'll be using pull ups, stash them so he doesnt see em) and let dad take em to the bathroom every so often when hes home. When its just you guys during the day, constantly remind him that hes a big boy and pat his bottom to show him he doesnt have diapers on, Have a camera handy so when you 2 go to the bathroom to try (every 10-15 minutes) and he goes you can take a picture to show dad what a good job he's done. Have dad get really excited and cheer him on. Its gonna take a little while and you should expect accidents, but as long as you give him positive reinforcement he'll want to do it. Dont make it something hes going to dread doing or is punished for not doing it right, when he does have an accident tell him its okay, that you wont tell daddy and he just has to sit on the potty and try to go more often to make sure he doesnt have mistakes. When you see him doing better on the potty take him to the store and have HIM pick out his new undies since hes done such a good job, which will get him that much more excited about doing better. Make sure to buy at least 10 pairs for when hes just starting out cause he WILL have an accident, just remember hes still learning and trying to figure out what "having to go" feels like. For bed times, limit drinks, no fluids at least an hour before bed time since liquid goes straight through them, get a "plastic" sheet and put it under his sheets when hes not around, dont tell him its there, if he knows its there to prevent him from messing up his bed if he has an accident in the middle of the nite, he might think its okay to go in it. There are some that are thinner and dont have that plastic rustle when they move around. This worked awesomely when I had gaurdianship of my cousins son, Hope it helps you out too! If you dnt have a monitor in his room anymore, put it in there, tell him that if he has to go in the middle of the night to tell you through the monitor and you'll hear him and come to take him, He might get scared if he has to do it by himself and go in his bed or back in the closet if you're not there.

My son went through a very short span of this around this age, he would not poop but would take off his diaper and pee- it had to come down to punishment... I told him that if he wanted to take off his diaper then he would have to go on the potty and if he went on the ground he would go to time out. It wasnt successful in getting him to go on the potty but it was successful in getting him to leave his diaper on. So he kept the diaper on and we waited about 3 months with no talk of the potty and started over with potty training. One day we told him he was going to go on the potty from now on and put him in little cotton shorts and that was the end of it! He was 2 and a half at the time and he has only had one accident in 6 months. He still wears a diaper to sleep. Maybe your son just needs a little more time, I too was worried about tying any type of punishment to potty issues but sometimes you don't have much of a choice. Or if you haven't tried it you can try one of those little floor potties... good luck!!! :)

Dear D.,

I noticed that my gr grandchildren did that sort of thing - for one thing I think that it is hard for them to be on that potty on the toilet. Do you have a step that they can stand on to get on it? They probably feel too high up in the air and feel that they might fall.

Also, both my grand children sort of wandered off behind a chair or into another room and stood and pooped or peed into their panties or diapers. I would go and get them and ask if they needed to go to the bathroom and it worked, sometimes, you know these kids are not robots.

Just clean it up and when his kids do that tell him that he did it too. He will forget and stop doing it sometime - maybe soon, maybe later. It doesn't matter, he is healthy and cute and doesn't know what the heck this world is about anyway. Good Luck, C. N.