Potty Training - Lebanon, PA

First off i would like to say i am so sorry to hear about your Daughter.When my son was that age we made a game out of it.we use to buy cherrios an would let him drop a few in the toliet and he would dunk em as he called it. we also use to have a big jar behind our toliet filled with his fav stickers and suckers and when he went he got to pick the prize. he loved it and within 2 weeks was totally off potty trained.I would also think maybe he is feeling a lot losing both parents is a lot on child.my brother was just killed in aug and my poor neice is going through a lot know and doing things she never did before. good luck and i hope everything works out for you.

Hi K.! Wow you are a great! What a challenge rasing a second family. It sounds like your grandson is just excersising his control. My middle daughter pulled a very simalar stunt when I wanted her to potty train at age 3. This may sound a bit harsh, but frankly she got a quick light swat on the behind (after the 10,000th dirty pullup) and was told the next day she was going to be in panties and that was it. So then I took her to the mall the next day in jeans and panties (had spare clothes with me) and we spend the day shopping and going in and out of each and every bathroom in the mall (she never went) finally in the last store she asked to go AGAIN. And as we were making our way towards the bathroom she had an accident (wet). Let me tell you walking the entire way through Kaufmans with wet jeans cured her of everything!! She never wore another pull up or had an accident again!! And no, she never wet the bed either. Sometimes tough love is what you need. Don't let your sorrow over your loss color how you raise your boy. Today is today and you can't change the past. You know his Mom and Dad wouldn't put up with this...so why should you? Put your foot down and take a stand. He'll be better for it. Best wishes.

Hi K.

First of all, I admire your love and comittment to your Grandson, he is lucky to have such a loving family. I am currently battling the potty training demon with my 3 year old son, my Mom friends and the pediatrician all say boys are really hard. But, in your particular circumstance it might warrant a consult with the pediatrician and/or a child psychologist because as you already have mentioned he has had so much to deal with that it may be a signal that he is having a hard time expressing his feelings. My best advice for now is patience and maybe try a different type of undies ( a new character or something that makes it special again) my son was thrilled with his "Cars" underpants and it motivated him for a whole day, LOL.

Best of luck to you all, and I will remember your family in my prayers.

S.

Bless you and your family for all you are going through. I'll include you in my prayers.

We are currently potty training my 3 yo son. He is catching on to the idea but isn't always a willing participant. Here are some of the techniques we are using with him:

Candy and stickers for rewards for using the potty. He gets an extra one for telling us that he has to go so and avoiding an accident.

We use "feel and learn" pull ups but tell him they are underwear.

We appeal to his sense of wanting to be a "big boy". We tell him if he can play on the computer, help daddy use tools and work the DVD player like a big boy then he can use the potty like a big boy.

We let him pick out underwear and originally put him in those thinking that 3 or 4 accidents would jolt him into wanting to use the potty. While it has worked for a few friends of ours, it didn't work for our son. So we moved to the pull ups.

We have potty books, a potty video and play the potty Elmo game on the sesame street website.

My sister-in-law took my neice to a store and had her pick out a prize she would get for "X number of days without an accident". Another friend allowed her daughter to pick a special thing to do at the end of every day that she didn't have an accident (read an extra bedtime story, stay up 15 minutes extra, etc).

Good luck!