potty training?

Christie - posted on 07/27/2010

My personal tactic was to put my daughter on the toilet for her daily bowel movement from about 16-17months old. At this point it was happening every night during dinner time and she was verbalising "poo" when she started to feel the urge. At this age it was no concern to her to sit on the special toilet seat, especially if I read to her at the same time. I wasn't committed to toilet training at this point. I looked at it more along the lines of "toilet learning"

The next thing I undertook was to let her go nappy free all afternoon after nap from about 18months old (I was heavily pregnant with her brother at this point), we have tiles and floorboards so accidents were no big deal. I put a potty in the lounge room and sat her down in front of the wiggles for as long as she would sit and went mad on praise if anything emerged!

She then got to see what happens when wee comes out and associate the feeling, and if she did happen to wee on the floor she'd come running and tell me "oh OH a wee".

I still wasn't prepared to actually undertake toilet training before my son was born because I thought having a newborn and a 20month old toilet training might be just a *little" insane ;)

The catalyst for toilet training around here was the absolute WAR I had with DD when it was time to change her! It would turn into an out and out brawl. So I told her just after she turned 2 that Mum wouldn't need to change her bum if she wore undies and went to the toilet.

Then it was just a matter of biting the bullet and saying no more nappies (except for nap and night time). I take her to the toilet every hour at the moment and she wees every time. Much longer than this and she'll have a small accident, so we'll build on the time as we go on. She is dry 99% of the time no problems.

Initially she was resisting doing poos on the toilet, it turned into a power struggle as stuff with 2yo's often does. I backed off the pressure and tried not to get frustrated and introduced the reward of a small chocolate for poos on the toilet and we have a pretty good strike rate with that too.

So far it's been just under a month and she's doing really well. I think the main thing is to ditch the nappies and live with the accidents for a little while. We put a pull up over undies to go out to save changing entire outfits and that works well for us too :)

Elizabeth - posted on 07/19/2010

The worst thing we can do is force them to go potty...it just creates anxiety on their behalf. I had issues with my son (whom I pressured to be potty trained) but not with my daughter. I set the potty in hallway, and she developped an interest for it at 14 months...the more we push, the harder it is. Offer her stickers and have a potty chart! Everytime she goes, she gets a sticker! It worked for my little stubborn son. Best of luck!

Jamie - posted on 07/17/2010

Keep her in underwear and deal with the accidents for a few days (not at night, that is a separate beast). Also, set a timer for every two hours and put her on the potty. Give her a treat for trying and don't make a big deal out of accidents. good luck and remember it will happen eventually, no one goes to kindergarden wearing a diaper!

Amanda - posted on 07/16/2010

I had the same problem with my son when he was 19 months old, i told him that going potty in a diaper and in his pants was making mommy sad and when he wouldn't go on the potty i'd pretend to cry telling him i wouldn't cry anymore if he went on the potty, he still has some slips but now he's going to the bathroom like a big boy cause he doesn't want mommy sad.