Need some potty training advice!

Valerie - posted on 10/21/2009

Get a puppy! my daughter who is 3 did the same thing. We got a puppy and told her that we have to potty train the dog and she is going to be potty training with it. every time we took the dog out she sat on the potty. two weeks of that and she was trained.

Tricia - posted on 10/20/2009

I made a chart for my daughter to put stickers on each time she went to the potty! By the end of the DAY...she got to pick out a special treat from the treat box I made (it had her favorite stuff in it, ie, candy, bubbles, dolls, etc) just go to the $ store, fill it up and let her pick each time she fills up her chart with stickers!

Rachael - posted on 10/20/2009

we gave our daughter an m&m every time she went to the potty (at first even when she just sat there without going)

Valerie - posted on 10/07/2009

Get a puppy! My daughter is 3 and 3 months and we had the same senario as you but then we got a puppy and we told her that we are going to potty train the dog and you have to get potty trained with her. It worked! everytime my husband took the dog out we put her on the potty and let her watch Elmo's potty time for 1/2 hour while sitting. In two weeks she is potty trained except for a night pull up. hope that helps

KATHY - posted on 10/06/2009

My daughter is 8 now and i remember getting a big piece of poster bored and made it into a calender. Every day we went to the potty she got to put a sticker on it for that day then she started wanting to go look at it. Also for those time she needed to sit. I put small toys on the back of the toilet let her sit facing it to play

Bethany - posted on 10/06/2009

Everyone who took the time to leave advice thank you so much for your input and support! It means so much to me!!! I am so happy to say that my daughter is now fully potty trained! Yay!!!! I took her to the store and let her pick out her potty. She chose a pink one, then we went to the dollar store and bought some Dora stickers to decorate her potty with. We also let her pick out her underwear and reward candy. I left the potty in the playroom so she would not have to go far to get to it. I also did not use any pull-ups, if we went somewhere, I would take her potty with us, just in case we were driving any distance and she needed to go I could pull over and she could do her thing. She is now going potty all by herself, I no longer remind her! She even wakes up dry. It is so great! Praise God that he can use people like you to encourage me. He is truly good! Again thank you so much!!!

Maricel - posted on 09/23/2009

i feel you! i am potty training my twinsgirls right now...they are turning 3 in january...luckily it's working well and hoping it will stay that way but trying my best to not put any diapers when we got to the park but it's hard esp. no.2...so if they took no.2 already i would try it with only panties ant it would work...having a problem being patient..we started 3 months ago with one twin and it was wrking out until we had to go for a 3 month vacation and i out them in diapers again! so now i'm starting with both of them...they get stickers from me..good luck!

Victoria - posted on 09/22/2009

With all three of my girls, I just put them in underwear & said now more pull ups/diapers. They had many accidents the first day, many less the second & by the third they were like an old pro. My youngest was potty trained during this past march . She was 3 years 3 months at the time, we've had very few accidents since. Her birthday is december, but as with oldest I chose not to do it in the colder months. My middle daughter is a march baby & I potty trained her the week of her 3rd birthday. She is the one who picked it up the fastest, 1 accident on the fist day, 1 on the second, none since except when she was really sick.

Melissa - posted on 09/21/2009

I am about to start potty training my third. My advice would be wait until they are ready. Trying to force will not work, they have to be ready. Make it fun and give lots of praise when she does go. My first started to go on the potty and then stopped for several months. That can be normal. I would use real underwear instead of pull ups. Kids can't tell when they are wet with the pull ups. They will know with the real underwear and they won't like it. So that will make them want to go in the potty. You will have lots of accidents. Don't get angry or frustrated, which can be hard. Just keep encouraging them. Hope this helps!

Marie - posted on 09/18/2009

I can totally agree with what Ashley said. Let your daughter go to say Wal - Mart or the dollar store with you and pick out her fvorite candy that will be strictly for potty training. That way, she can get " rewarded " for going in the potty. Unfortunmately with me, my now ex - husband had the " joy " because I was away on training with the United States Army when this happened with our daughters. But I would totally agree with Ashley on this one.

Pam - posted on 09/18/2009

I borrowed one of the dolls from a friend and it worked like a charm! I would also recommend skipping the pull-ups and just using panties (using the plastic pants helps control the mess of accidents). I let my daughter pick out new panties and then just kept reminding her to "keep her Ariel panties dry..." Good luck!

Nicole - posted on 09/17/2009

I have an incredibly head-strong and stubborn child and we went through the same thing. this is the kid that the more you push, the more she resists. We had to be EXTREMELY careful how we encouraged her without pushing. ONe of the things we tried that worked well was let her pick out a new potty - just started completly over. Then we put the potty in the living room and let her sit on it fully clothed while she watvched her favortie program on tv! It at least got her to sit on it again and for her to see it as a positive thing. Then I discovered a video about potty training so she watched that and eventually wanted to start trying again. I think the key for us was NOT to push at all...encourage but don't turn it into a chore or a negative thing. They pick up on that then. I also heard of a method where you buy a doll that pees and teach your child to potty train the DOLL. When they see how much fun the doll is having (i.e throw the dolly a party when SHE pees), then they want to join in the fun. I've never tried that but I think it sounds brilliant! GOod luck!

Ashley - posted on 09/17/2009

She will do it in time when she is ready. I know we all get so anixous about our kids using the potty so we don't have to buy those expensive diapers. But you could motivate her, with her favorite candy, book, toy, show on tv. My daughter I took her to walmart and let her get her favorite potty training candy. She chose whoppers. So, if she went pee she got one whopper for doing number one. If she went poop she would get to whoppers for doing number two. She loved it and she never got in trouble if she had an acident but she did have to go sit on the potty for a while. Some kids just don't want go b/c it interupts them playing and think if I go in my pants then I don't have to go to the potty. But you need to make sure they go to the potty anyway. Well, good luck.

Genie - posted on 09/17/2009

Potty training is soo hard! It sounds like the first time around she was just not ready. I seemed exciting and new for her at first but not something she wanted permantley. My daughter did this too. The bottom line is that she just has to be ready. The second time around, I got rid of pull ups and only put underwear on her. We went to the bathroom every couple of hours and if she peed/pooed for a whole day in the toilet, I would either give her a nice dessert or buy her a toy, or give her a sticker. We would sing and dance our potty song we made up together. Eventually she got it and stuck with it. I thought for sure, she would always want a reward for going to the potty, but eventually she didn't need that anymore either. It will work out...it just takes patience.