Hello all,
My son has decided recently that his diapers are uncomfortable and asks for underwear. Hooray! The only problem is for the most part if I ask him if he wants to sit on the potty he says no. He has started saying yes more often recently, but has never actually gone. I put him in underwear and then he tells me when he's wet. I have a feeling he knows, because no matter how much I pay attention, it's the second that I'm not that he wets himself. I don't want to condition him to just having me clean himself up every time he makes a mess because underwear are more comfortable for him. Any help on where to go from here would be much appreciated!
Happy to report that not even an hour after I posted this, my son woke up from his nap. I told him it's time to go try the potty and took him in there. He was ornery from just waking up and was a little upset but after a minute of upbeat talk and me being silly, he was finally fine. He told me after a minute (and me watching him shiver holding in his pee) that he wanted to get down. I told him okay, but I'm not letting you put your pants on. I told him that when he started to pee I was going to pick him up and run to the potty. I wouldn't be mad but we can't make messes. He said okay. Got down, went into the kitchen and started squeezing his legs together I said, "buddy let's go back on the toilet, I know you need to go." He said okay, went in sat down and for the first time and immediately started peeing! Hooray! What a day. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions. Thanks everyone and especially S.B.!
A small change that helped my kids is to change the vocabulary. Instead of "do you need to go potty? we changed it to "It's time to try and go potty." (Thank you to the smart mama on here who told me that a while back!) Asking gives them a choice, telling them it's time does not. And in the beginning you'll want to have scheduled potty times so he can start to understand what a full bladder feels like.
I've never heard of ASKING an almost three yr old if he WANTS to use the potty. Just say It's time to sit on the potty. If you want to give him a choice to get him to cooperate ask him does he want to use the upstairs bathroom or the downstairs bathroom? Do you ask him if he wants to leave the playground and then wonder why it's such a challenge to get him to leave?
So don't ask him if he wants to sit on the toilet. MAKE him sit on the toilet. Of course he's going to say "no" if you "ask" him. He's busy having too much fun to pay attention to toileting signals so you need to teach him to get in the habit of paying attention and taking time out of his day regularly to go.
"It's time to go sit on the toilet. Your book/Blue's Clues/truck/coloring will still be here when you're done." Every half hour to start would be good. When he has an accident, you can start teaching him to clean himself. A wet pair of underwear doesn't feel good, but make him change himself every time. If he poops, make him rinse off in the shower and change into fresh clothes. It will be a matter of making it a habit and him learning the signals, and realizing that using the toilet appropriately takes less time than all of the clean up AND It feels better.
Praise him when he succeeds, but not over the top. Don't punish him for not succeeding, just make it business. Stock up on underwear and expect a lot of accidents in the beginning. Toilet training starts out messy, so you just have to commit to it.
Time to start potty training...
set a timer .. take him to the potty every 45 minutes.. when kids are fist potty trained .. mom is trained.. the kid gradually gets the idea.. and then will learn to take himself to the potty.
Take him every thirty minutes to the potty and put him in underwear. He's ready to start potty training!
All of my kids started out the potty training process going naked on the bottom half. It really helped reduce the accidents. It took a couple of weeks of nakedness to really get the hang of it then I slowly introduced underwear. They had a bit of a relapse, so to speak, when we first started with the underwear, but it was short lived, a couple days maybe. Early in the process they wore pull-ups or a diaper when we had to leave the house. But the more time you can commit to being home naked the faster it will go. So try to minimize the number of times your son has to leave the house during that time. Best of luck!
I think it sounds like he is not ready to be diaper free. This is what Pull-ups were invented for-- kids who are ready for more freedom, but not totally ready to use the toilet all the time. Pampers Easy Ups are softer than Huggies Pull ups. Maybe he would be willing to try those. You could also do cloth diapers. It's still a lot of laundry, but less than if he was only in underwear. Taking him to the toilet every half hour will help a lot too. Don't fret if you can't do it exactly every half hour or if he still has accidents. Just be grateful for the times that he does make it to the toilet, and remember that this is a learning process for him. Good luck!
Tell him that diapers are required until he starts telling you before he is wet. Then start taking him every 1/2 hour or so.
Perhaps tell him that if he won't use the potty, he has to wear diapers. If he wants to be in underpants, this might provide motivation. Start the day in underpants, remind him to stop what he's doing and go try, and if he has an accident, put him in a diaper until after lunch. Then try again. (It's worth a try, anyway.)
My DD needed to take a week or so where I did a LOT of laundry. I'd say, "Okay, if you don't like diapers, you need to pee in the potty like a big boy and we can put the diapers away." It didn't condition DD to get used to me cleaning her up. She didn't like being wet and it took her away from her playing much longer than if she just used the potty. I would calmly remind him about the potty and if he's not ready for it, hold it as a goal when he says he doesn't like his diapers.
Use pull ups. Otherwise tell him until he goes to pee in the potty 100% for 1 week he cannot have underwear. Tell him sorry, you don't like the floor smelling like pee or the furniture getting pee on it.
I asked my three old if she wanted to use the potty , and kept her in panties only. It's what finally did it. There will be days of accidents just don't resort back to a diaper except at night.
I agree with S.B. I also found that watching the pee come out helped my daughter really grasp what was going on. With a boy it is even more "fun" it won't be long before he gets the cool idea of how fun it is to make the pee appear! This is an awkward phase he'll get through it and so will you!
