Toddler Toilet Training help! (merged)

scooper

i am thinking of starting my daughter already is is 17 months?do you think thats too young yet?

jlj_2

It sounds like you've done really well already and are almost there so congratulations.
I potty trained both my boys at 2 yrs. I just told them what we were going to do, then left them just in top clothes (no. trousers, underpants etc) and they soon got the idea. We put a week aside for doing it and by the end of the week.....no more nappies. There were a few accidents along the way but as these were expected that was no trouble. I also took them to choose themselves some underpants before we started so they knew they would be able to wear them once the nappies were gone. It was all surprisingly easy, much better than i'd imagined it would be. It did take a very close eye to be kept for signs of being just about to wee or poo and then lots of encouragement but it did work.
Good luck!!

Mrs_pbradley936

scooper wrote:

i am thinking of starting my daughter already is is 17 months?do you think thats too young yet?

Yes. When you do start make sure that clothing is easy to sort out. Elastic waist trousers much easier than bib and brace types or anything which takes time to undo. You have not got much time between when they tell you they need to go and when they do it.

Also stay at home for about two weeks if you can. It is hard enough without them telling you they have to go when you are in the middle of Marks and Spencers. Be fair to the child and don't put them in situations where they are bound to fail. When they are reliable at home then you can take them out.

finc

scooper wrote:

i am thinking of starting my daughter already is is 17 months?do you think thats too young yet?

It's not too young if your daughter is ready. My friend's daughter was dry in the day at 16 months and dry at night by 2 years. She asked to go to the toilet and didn't want to go in her nappy so it wasn't too young for her.

My 2 however have been a different story. My daughter was 2 years 3 months to be dry in the day and 5 :eek: for at night. My son is 2 1/2 and he is now finally trained. With him it could have been earlier but he was very lazy and it would have been a difficult job.

Edit....thought I'd add this link to Raising Kids. I found their website helpful in deciding when to potty train and for many other subjects too!
Just remember it's not a race

rainbowrisin

HappySad wrote:

What did you do when he weed and pooed herself? Did you just leave her to wee and poo herself without any prompting at all?

I found that if i didn't prompt then she used the potty fine, except when she was tired or having a tantrum (going to wee on the floor, she used to say, and she would). If i felt she'd been a while without a wee, or we were going out, then i'd just say really casually, "shall we all go and have a wee before we go out, then we'll get our coats on, and get in the car blah blah", so the "Go and have a wee bit" was a fait accompli, like getting on coats, rather than an individual (and therefore resistable) act.
If she did a wee other than in the potty then i'd just wipe it up and not say a dicky bird - I didn't even acknowledge she'd done a wee. If I caught her in "mid wee" then i'd say "shall we finish that in the potty" and she was normally happy to do so. We didn't have a poo incident, as she suffers from constipation a tad anyway and poo was an enormous event staged over a prolonged period of time in the potty. If she used the potty then i'd just say "good girl, well done for using the potty", but didn't go really mad on the praise - I think she began to cotton on that using the potty was important to mummy because i was going over board with delight, so therefore something that was "an issue".
I found the less attention i paid to the whole issue the better she was with it. We did have wees where there shouldn't have been wees (:eek: ) but that lessened quite quickly.
Does that help at all? Hope it's not too waffley - I played it very much by ear, and as she decided she wanted to use the potty quite early in life, I wasn't overly bothered if it took her six months or so to get the hang of it.
I found it best to just take a step back and think about my daughter, her character, and what works with us as a family generally.
Just wanted to add that you and he are both doing really well with the PT - well done.

Elle00

I bought two five packs of pants from Tesco for £4 a pack and 10 Tesco Value Flannels for 20p each. The flannels are quite thin (but still have some absorbancy) so roll up easily to go inside the pants like a reusable nappy insert would do. I'm pleased to say they're a perfect fit and the pants hold all of the flannel in without anymore bulk than a slim-fit nappy entails.

So that works out at £10 for all the pull-ups I'll need to potty train my son rather than the disposable pull-ups at around £8 per week. You can even knock £2 off that £10 by going for plain pants rather than character ones but I wanted my son to choose his own and he picked Thomas and Noddy.

My son was comfy in them and liked the pictures on his "big boy pants" and I was surprised to find my plan worked quite well. A big pee later and although the pants were wet in patches, the flannel absorbed most of the wee and none leaked down his legs. Plus the obvious bonus was that unlike if he had of worn a pull-up, he realised he'd done a wee and that wees don't go there, they go in the toilet (or "oylet", whichever). If anyone's wondering about stools, remember that toddler stools are usually firm unlike baby ones so they can be flung in the loo and the flannel just put through the wash as normal - no scrubbing required to date.

My son's still not too sure about this potty chair thing that's been sat in the living room for a good fortnight now but will sit calmly for a minute or two on the toilet on a padded toddler seat now. We even had a wee in the toilet last week! He started going in the bath and I said "uh no dumpling, wee-wees go in the toilet don't they baby?" and he stopped (pleased to see bladder control in action so know this is not a lost cause LOL) and I sat him on the loo where he proceeded to finish his wee, clap his hands and yell "I DID IT!!!" at the top of little voice. Oh bless!

Obviously my carpet has been peed on a few times in the warmer weather while he's running around bum-less and I expect it will take a little while until he can manage to leave the house in pants even with the inserts but we all have to start somewhere and he's clearly not a happy bunny about wearing nappies when they get wet or dirty so I think it's the right time. He goes a few hours inbetween wees now, can say loo and bum etc and lets me know when he needs to move his bowel so I think he's self-aware enough.

Just wanted to share my cheapskatery with you all in the hope someone else might benefit from this lightbulb. Don't know if we'll have success anytime soon as he's still quite young but at least I've not wasted any money trying with disposable pull-ups as the pants and flannels aren't going in the bin everytime we don't ask for the loo! A lot of the problems I had with reusable nappies in general no longer apply at his age and build plus this was only a tenner wasted if it all goes wrong and I'm still left with pants that would no doubt still fit next year.

Feel free to hi-jack and add any tips or suggestions or experiences on the matter as I'd love to hear them and I'm sure a few other people who read this board are thinking about this subject or might be doing so soon.

alwaysonthego_2

I found it really useful to introduce the potty at a young age, just have it about the house. It was summer when I toilet trained dd1, so she walked around naked, the only problem was that she was so use to not wearing clothes, it was a struggle to get her to wear them again.

Elle00

alwaysonthego wrote: »

I found it really useful to introduce the potty at a young age, just have it about the house. It was summer when I toilet trained dd1, so she walked around naked, the only problem was that she was so use to not wearing clothes, it was a struggle to get her to wear them again.

I had a sister like that LOL. She was bloody determined that even if she did get dressed she wasn't wearing knickers. She once went all the way up to the park with no knicks on under her short skirt (aged 4) and we had to convince her 20m old sister to remove her knicks from under her shorts to lend them LOLOLOL.

alwaysonthego_2

Elle83 wrote: »

I had a sister like that LOL. She was bloody determined that even if she did get dressed she wasn't wearing knickers. She once went all the way up to the park with no knicks on under her short skirt (aged 4) and we had to convince her 20m old sister to remove her knicks from under her shorts to lend them LOLOLOL.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Ted_Hutchinson

Just too good to be true? No nappies - and no potty training