Potty Training a Boy - Nicholson,GA

Nope, not ready. My son was the same way with pooping. He would sneek upstairs and put on a pull-up to poop. One weekend while visiting family he decided to try their potty on his own and never looked back. He did need pull-ups at night until about 5 yrs old.

It's easy and quick - once they are ready.
If they are not ready - you just end up pulling your hair out and the power struggle is just not worth it.
We waited till our son was 3 1/2.
I let day care take the lead on it - I just had to follow up on weekends.
They had these tiny child sized toilets that were non threatening and his whole class all went/tried at the same time - so it was something ever body did.
He came home one day and said "Hey Mom! Look what I can do!" - and he did! - and we were done!
Easy peasey!

The thing we parents have to get through our heads is that there's not really "training" involved. This is developmental - and it's not a choice really. His brain isn't getting the "full bladder" signal so he just doesn't know when he has to go. Same thing with poop which for many kids is just harder to learn. You can read the signals on his face or with his body language - but he can't. And a lot of kids are uncomfortable with the whole feeling so yes, they cut it off rather than relax through it.

What's happening though is that you've turned it into an ordeal by setting timers and changing wet underwear and racing to the bathroom and trying to get him to use public toilets. Put him back in a pull-up so he can pull it down to pee if he either feels the urge or decides to give it a try just for the heck of it. You've got to take the stress and frustration out of this for him. It's nice that you're praising him, but you're praising him for something that's just happening rather than somethings he's consciously doing. I do fear that you will make this into a power struggle. Kids just aren't all ready at the same time, and just because your daughters were ready at this age doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with your son for not being ready yet. Did you teach them to walk? To speak? No - of course not. These things happen at different times for different kids.

He's still not ready.

We tried potty training our son at 3 too. Preschool would not take him in if he wasn't potty trained, but would take him in if he had pull ups and if needed I'd come to change him in case of #2 (which I did on more than one occasion).

It was a lengthy process. He would go pee and rarely had accidents, then to encourage him to go poop we invented the Pee and Poo King. At the end of the day the Pee and Poo King would leave my son a note on how the potty training was going and encourage him to keep doing the great job he knew he could do. Once my son (almost 4 years old) was going pee and poo on the potty the Pee and Poo King would leave him a Hot Wheel car as a reward (I used to get a pack of 3 for a $1) with the note at the end of the day. The excitement was uncanny. My son would wake up the next morning ready to see if he can go all day using the toilet of the potty. This technique worked for us and pour son. As you can see he was not ready at 3 to be potty trained.

It took him to be in 2nd grade not to have accidents at night. I talked to my neighbor the other day who said that her son (4th grade) just stopped wetting the bed at night.

Every child is different, my daughter on the other hand was potty trained and had no accidents (day or night time) since she was 18 months old.

Good luck to you. Don't go by the book on this one, trust your self and your child. Of, and there is a cute book that my son enjoyed while going through process "A Potty for Me" by Karen Katz.

I think the 30 minute timer, trying when he was younger, the attempted reward system ... probably has made him a bit anxious. We sometimes do that inadvertently.

Here's some tips that worked for me:

- I had a couple of potties, and I kept them right next to where my boys were playing. So one right next to the train table if they were playing there. Way more success than if they had to run to another room. They are busy playing, not paying attention to their bladders.
- I had them just wear their underwear - no pants. And when we did get a bit experienced, I kept it to pull on pants so they easily could get them down.
- Mine usually pooped when they peed, so sometimes I just let them sit on the potty and read a book, or even watch a show if that helped them stay seated for a while. This phase only lasted a short while (a week) but they put two and two together

My kids all got it over the course of 2-3 days (we always picked a long weekend) then daycare continued it and it was done by the end of a week.

I did not do big rewards. Maybe some M&Ms to start with. Just "Yay! good for you!" to begin with, but we made it no big deal, so that if they did pee down their legs, they didn't feel like they'd let us down.

If he doesn't get it, maybe have him back into pull ups for a month or so and try again when you see he is more ready.

Good luck :)

He's really young. Wait a few months with the undies and save yourself some cleaning.

He'll also do a little better if you let him sit backwards on the seat, that gets him ready to stand up. I potty trained all the kids in my child care center this way. Boys don't like to sit on a potty chair once they've stopped being a toddler. Now that your boy is pre-school age he's smart enough to know boys don't sit to pee. That might be some of the problem.

You can also take a few Cheerios and drop them in the water then tell him to sink the life preservers or circles or what ever but the better he likes the game the more he'll participate. You can also take a sharpie and tear a single square of tissue paper into several pieces. Then draw simple boats on each piece. Drop one or two in the toilet water as he's standing there then tell him to sink the ships.

Pull ups are supposed to be pushed down and pulled up. This gives him the idea of how underwear works. It keeps you from having to clean up pee and pooh.

One option is to simply sit him on it and let nature takes it's course. He'll eventually have to pee and pooh. Then he'll be over it.

If he was ready the rewards would have worked.

Your son will let you know when he is ready. If it stops being a big deal to you then he will relax and see that others go in the potty. Maybe don't even talk about it! Boys don't potty train like girls. They get very focused on playing, don't care about wetness and other things. It will happen and nothing is wrong with your boy! No more timers, use the pull-ups again as he is still having accidents. Let him continue to pee in the potty IF HE INITIATES it. Make sure he knows when all his family members are going potty in the toilet as well. You didn't mention if your family was really private about that, but you all could at least say "I'm going to use the potty..." as you go in to the bathroom.

My son was a little over 3.5 years old. My husband was home with him and he was wearing pull-ups. At the daycare, they said that they could work with him and to bring several pairs of underwear and clothing changes. I caught my hubby putting pull-ups on my son and we stopped that fast. Within one week my son was done working on it and never had an accident. I washed a lot of dirty clothes for a week, but after that, no more.

Just before my DS#2 turned 3, I tried really hard. Put him on the potty. Let him play video games while sitting on the potty as a reward. It worked in that he figured out what to do and how to do it pretty quickly. It didn't work in that he used the potty when he felt like it, but most of the had accidents because he didn't feel like it.

I had to put him back into diapers because we were going on vaca and I couldn't let him have accidents on the trip. Lo and behold, once I stopped pushing it, about a month later, he did it on his own.

It sounds like your son might be in the same situation - he knows what to do and how to do it. But it's a power struggle, and it's his body, not yours, so you are not going to win. Take the pressure off, let him "win", and let him lead the way when he's ready. I promise that he won't go to K in diapers.

Sounds like he still isn't ready. My two boys had totally different temperaments but potty training was one thing they did have in common. They were just a couple weeks shy of 4 years old before they were ready. When they were ready, it was easy-peasy to get it done. My suggestion is that you stop trying to make it happen and just wait.

He's just not ready. I had 2 boys and nothing could speed up the process. It happens when it happens. Only "idea" is to perhaps have lots of play date with a friend who is already potty trained. That peer influence is strong.