Potty Training - Oviedo, FL

Hi C.! I took the slow road to potty training..so I don't know how well it would work given your grandson's age, but at 16 months I put the potty in the bathroom. My daughter took to it right away..here and there. I just left it as "casually there". As a reward for using it I would give her a sticker(s). Over time, she just sort of naturally took to it more and more. I used a no pressure system..and it worked very well. At 2 and 2 months she was totally trained, except for nap and bedtimes. Being that your grandson is strong minded, this approach might work for him too...make it seem like there is no pressure, and his idea. Good luck!!!

Hi C.,
I have 3 children, 9, 6, and 2 1/2. With my first two, they were potty trained by their second birthday. With my son, who is 2 1/2 he is completely potty trained, day and night with occasional accidents at night. How did I do it? I let them run around naked during the day. All day long with no underpants on and at first I'd put them on the toilet every half hour for a few days. If they did anything at all, that was a milestone and if it was consistent, I moved the time to re-visit the toilet every hour, on the hour. Gerber makes these yummy and healthy snacks that come in little packages in a box. They are gummy treats and I only gave them ONE treat (not one bag!) every time they did something in the toilet. They soon associate going potty with getting a reward and soon enough they were telling me they had to go. My 2 1/2 year old goes to the bathroom all by himself , sits himself on the toilet now and calls me when he needs me to wipe him. The key to training is being consistent. Once you start, you need to follow through every day. Putting diapers on the child one day and deciding to potty train the next is not an incentive for the child to learn. You may encounter an accident or two or more on the floor. Please do not yell at the child. Reassure him that accidents happen BUT pee-pee and poopy goes in the toilet and that going on the floor is unacceptable. Promptly place him on the toilet if an accident occurs so he knows this is the place he must go. He may resist. Children can be stubborn to learning new tasks but you must show the child that new things must be learned because that's just how it is. Be patient, but be consistent and give rewards. Lots of praise, hoots and clapping for a job well done. Children respond better to praise. Good luck with this exciting stage.

He should be potty trained already!!! However, since not, then I'll suggest what I did with my oldest: he wanted a firetruck in the store window...I made a chart and bought stars and told him: fill this up and you'll get the firetruck...Well, he did just that and was so happy to put the stars on the chart, go on the potty, and by the time it was filled he was in a routine. And he loved the firetruck!
My second and third boys have a different story...
Second son only wanted the stars to stick on his arms, and third boy I let his brothers potty train, as they are much older than he.

well, i think that it completely depends on the child. i used to work in daycare and i can tell you from experience that most children who are ready to be potty trained will be so in a week or so. yes, he's 3 and most people will say that he should be potty trained but if he hasn't been worked with then he's not ready. i tried the pullups with both of my children (4 and 2 now) and it didn't work. it's a diaper and they knew that and knew that they could potty in it. i cut down on their liquid intake because they both drank a lot and for my little girl i put in panties and asked her not to pee on my floor. she started going in the toilet. not the little potty but a big one. my son was a little harder (he's hardheaded too), i didn't put anything on him for about a week and told him that he needed to go potty. he did. also in the big potty. mine didn't like the little one. my little girl was completely out of diapers day and night after about 2 weeks. my little boy still dribbles in his undies when he's playing but he's only been potty trained for about a month or 2. and he's still in diapers at night. but again it depends on the kid. good luck

Hi, we too trained my son at 3, and honestly, we just started putting him in underpants during the day when he was awake. A week or so leading up to that day, we had "trial" periods when I would just put him in underpants for 20-30 minutes (right after he went) so we could set him up with some sucesses. Always praising him for staying clean and dry and reminding him that in however many days he would be wearing them all the time and would need to use the potty to go pee and poop. When the time came to make the big switch, I keep my week free and just buckled down knowing there would be accidents. Overall it went well, 2 days of accidents, on day 3 he started telling me he needed to go pee and was good to go in a week. We still used pull-ups for night time and naps, and he would then usually poop in him pull-ups. So after a few months of him being trained, we then dropped the pull-ups for the naps. Again 2-3 days of accidents, and then he got the picture for that too. He's still not so good at getting his pants up, but at 4 we're gonna drop the pull-ups and night and go from there... I hope that helps. But everything I had read from other moms-espeically when starting around 3 is just to go right to underpants--they really do learn fast at that age...
getting some potty training books to read and even DVDs to watch are also good reinforcements (we would watch a potty training DVD during our trial underpants times.. :) and of course, lots and lots of praise for not just using the potty, but trying...

My son was fully potty trained right around his 3rd birthday. I had tried before then, but he just wasn't ready. The only thing that helped me was a timer. I would put him in underwear and a shirt for the whole day and set my timer for 15 min. the first day. Everytime it went off, he had to sit on the potty. He wouldn't go every time, obviously, but he did very good with it. On the second day, I bumped the timer up to 20 min. The next day was 25, but I stopped when I reached 30 min just because that was the magic number for him. He did fuss quite a bit about having to drop everything to sit on the potty, but after about 5 days, he rarely had an accident.

This method also worked on my daughter (they are twins). My other child, who is only 17 mo older then my twins didn't like the timer. She preferred getting stickers whenever she went to the potty. I hope this helps. Also, whatever you decide, make sure that when he goes back to mom (or daycare, or wherever) that they know the method you are using, otherwise he'll use the potty around you but not around the others.

I use the book "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" by Nathan Azrin to train my son at 21 months. The method requires you to be very focused on the training for the first day (and very aware for the week or so after). Read the reviews of the book online before purchasing it (it is only $6.99). I focused on the positive praise, but the method also requires you to show disappointment in accidents and to require practice drills after an accident. The child also is required to clean up their accidents. My son loved the constant undivided attention and is so proud of himself every time he successfully uses the potty as a 'big boy'. Day 1 of training we had 1/3 success, Day 2 2/3 success, and Day 3 we had 1 accident. He still has about 1 accident a day - usually in the late afternoon/early evening when he is distracted and getting tired. He has not had an accident while napping and usually stays dry at night (he wakes up on his own around 4 AM to use the potty with my help and then goes back to sleep). If you are comfortable with the techniques suggested by the book, then I highly recommend it. We also have a 'Potty Time Elmo' DVD that my son loves to watch.

I think Amy C gave you some excellent advice..I have just a couple things to add. My favorite child psycologist, Kevin Lehman, suggests that the child who is constantly wetting his pants be required, not as punishment but as consequences, to place his pants in the sink, stand on a stool and rinse (or even wash) them out himself. This lays the responsibility for cleaning up after himself on him not you, and will take away playtime he assumes he will get inspite of not taking care of his need to potty. It will also reinforce the idea that pottying is more important than continuing to play, because cleaning up after an accident takes longer than just going potty. Hope this helps. If you have a chance, check out some of Kevin Lehman's books from the library- He really has great advice.