What's the average age for little boys to be potty trained??

Tonya - posted on 02/22/2010

Thanks for the comments everyone, I'll take all the advice I can take! Someone at work also told me about sitting him on the potty with his favorite book and read with him and he might forget about being on the potty, relax, and let it flow! I was busy this weekend but I think I might try this next weekend.

Crystal - posted on 02/15/2010

I wouldn't push him. My son wasn't potty trained until right before his 3rd birthday. Honestly, the only reason we really pushed it that soon was because I was about to give birth to my daughter and wasn't too happy about having to buy 2 sizes of diapers (expensive!). So, we tried the pull-ups, again, like you said, treats them like diapers. So we went full on real underwear (with characters) and did the reward system .. with a little bit of consequences if he had an accident. Pretty much I explained to him that his "friends" on his underwear didn't like to get wet or dirty, so he needed to keep them dry by going potty in the toilet. Plus, I made sure to keep consistent with "he's a big boy now, and big boys go potty in the toilet" just like Mommy and Daddy. He was also big on wanting to go to school, so I told him he couldn't go to school until he used the toilet all the time.

Just gotta give little incentives, whatever you think will work for your son. At the end of the day, you know your kids best, so if you think he's ready, push him a little and just BE CONSISTENT. If you need to pull back, that's ok. Try again in a few weeks. You just have to make sure that they fully understand your explanations .. about when they get the sensation, what to do, how to do it.. etc.

To fully make sure our son went pee in the toilet, we sat him down on the "training" one (in the living room) for 15 min at a time, every 20-30 minutes ... and kept him drinking fluids all day.

Good luck.

Jessica - posted on 02/15/2010

He will go when he's ready just keep the positive encouragement about it. My son will be 4 in March and has only been fully potty trained for about a month and a half. If you think he's physically ready and he's just being lazy about it, try a rewards system. With my son I had to literally tell him if you go potty in your big boy undies instead of the potty you don't get to watch cartoons for 15 minutes after I got him into dry clothes and he was going after me taking cartoons away 3 times. He didn't like the fact he couldn't watch cartoons but it's the only thing that worked for my son. My son still isn't potty trained at night but we got him fully potty trained during the day and he will literally take off his pull up in the morning and put big boy undies on himself after going potty first thing

Lori - posted on 02/15/2010

My daughter was just under 2 when she started and was fully trained by her 2nd birthday however the 3 boys took MUCH longer. No clue if it had anything to do with them being boys or not but from other comments I've heard it seems to be pretty common. I despaired of getting my oldest boy (2nd child) potty trained - nothing seemed to work. Finally he just made the mental "leap" on his own and started going pretty consistently around the time he was 3. Next one was about the same (maybe a month or two younger) and my last one (also a boy) turned 3 late in the summer (no interest in using the toilet even though his girl cousin was doing so - however she got stubborn months later and went back to wanting diapers, go figure) and all of a sudden he was asking to go - around 2 months later :-) I did get him some real undies which seemed to be a bit of an inspiration - the pull ups just got the same treatment as a diaper. After all three and trying different tricks I found that 1) pullups were good for going out in public or at night but useless at home and 2) they will make a very obvious decision that it's what THEY want. Unless they have a medical problem most will be potty trained by or shortly after their 3rd birthday (usually when most start nursery school). Have patience and best of luck!