Potty/toilet training advice needed

MrsSippi

My daughter has just turned 3 and she is still not potty/toilet trained. I know that you can't rush this but I think that by now we should have progressed a bit. I have tried lots of encouragement, sticker charts etc etc but nothing seems to be working. It also seems to me that she is still not grasping the practical side of it at all. For example if I ask her where she needs do a wee or poo (sorry! ) she will say "on the potty". She knows what the potty is and she has even before now used her pull up and then tried emptying it into the potty but she will not actually sit on the potty and use it. I have also tried putting her on it in the bathroom when I use the toilet to try and show her that when Mummy goes for a wee so does she but this doesn't seem to be having any affect.

Any advice/suggestions would be hugely appreciated. I'm starting to tear my hair out!

SmlSave

How does she react to being nappy free?

It might be an idea to go right to basics and let her run around nappy free as much as possible with the potty in a obvious place.

Bribery with a chocolate button if she wees in the potty/toilet works with DS and after a while they forget to ask for it.

Then after a while (will feel like ages) start putting knickers on.

We are still going through this, 80% of the time DS is in pants or naked and 95% wees on the potty. No 2's are another matter though!

mumlady1

Hiya
wee ones often don't actually recognise the 'urge' to go to the loo the way adults do as they haven't learned to connect the feeling with the act.
She's too old now to use a potty so just put her straight on the toilet but maybe with a training seat if she needs the security.

Also don't ask if she needs to go as she won't actually know yet. Just put her on the toilet every 30 minutes (yes, seriously tots only have tiny bladders) a huge amount of praise when she 'performs' & a sticker on the chart.

Depending on how quickly she catches on to the routine (maybe a week or so, maybe longer) you can then increase the length of time between visits to say 45 minutes. Continue to increase the time every week or so until she recognises the feeling of needing to go and she will start to ask.

The trick to this is consistancy. It is restricting at first so time your trips & visits accordingly. Make sure she visits the toilet before you go anywhere, once you get there, make sure she goes again & then keep to the chosen timescales.

Wee ones get distracted easily & if you leave it to them to choose when they go they never will as there is always something more interesting happening elsewhere! A tv programme, a toy, a friend, a game !!
Stick with it, good luck.
BTW - accidents will happen so be prepared, lol

sweaty_betty

mumlady1 wrote: »

Also don't ask if she needs to go as she won't actually know yet. Just put her on the toilet every 30 minutes (yes, seriously tots only have tiny bladders) a huge amount of praise when she 'performs' & a sticker on the chart.

BTW - accidents will happen so be prepared, lol

I second this, it's what we did. I remember our LO sitting on the toilet with a big smile saying "I'm doing it!" as if it was a real revelation We also bought some pants with his favourite cartoon characters on, he really wanted to wear them so we told him that he'd need to keep using the toilet if he did, so that spurred him on a bit.

Make-it-3

I read in one potty training book that YOU need to be really committed to go for it too. You need to be prepared to take away the security blanket of having a nappy and see what happens.

Prepare her for it, explain how big girls go to the loo, buy her some nice knickers, get her a book that explains it to her in pictures. Give yourself a few clear days when you can stay at home and then go for it by saying from tomorrow no more nappies. Day 1, go naked from waist down and put them on the toilet/potty every 20-30 mins. You will have accidents, don't shout just explain what you would like her to do next time. Then, probably more by luck you will get a wee on target. Cue lots and lots of praise, stickers etc. She will then want to please you by doing it again next time.

Keep it up, after a couple of days try with knickers and then short trips out (knowing where you can easily get to a loo) and taking spare clothes with you. If she is truly ready you will be surprised how quickly they pick it up and she will be 80-90% there within a week.

thriftylass

We've just been through this with DS (2.5) and he just doesn't get it. I ask him if he needs potty (or toilet) and he says no 8 out of 10 times. He's been coming with us for most of his life and knows what we do in the bathroom. I put him in pants only and he's succesfully weed/pood into both but only if we caught him in the or just before the act. But still he'd say no to the question if he has to go, or even doesn't do anything if we manage to get him to sit down on the toilet or potty only then to wee his pants 3 minutes later and tell us he's wet and needs changed. We tried for 3 weeks now with rewards (stickers), praise, not getting upset about mess etc. I don't think he's quite ready yet, ok we had to be out and about a lot over christmas (put him in training pull up pants) but there were also enough 2-3 day stretches where we stayed in and tried. He knows his best pals at nursery are in big boy pants etc but nothing seems to be an incentive.

Tanswell88

We do lots of naked time, If they go on the potty lots of praise and cheering and offering of a reward. If they have an accident we just say 'oh dear, never mind... we'll try and make it to the potty next time' and leave it at that. Try not to say anything negative. We then eventually when they are getting pretty much all the naked time toilets on the potty introduce knickers (let them pick them out) and see how it goes from there.

MrsSippi

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies. If she is nappy free she will just make a mess and I think that she realises that what she has done is 'wrong' (I never tell her off but I do explain that we do wee's etc on the potty) but despite continuing with this she would still consistently having accidents - it was like she was still wearing a nappy.

I will definitely follow all the advice here (mumlady1's post is particularly helpful) and hopefully I will see some kind of improvement. I wouldn't mind if it was a 1 in 10 time she used the potty or toilet but she never seems to. I don't think I have been lazy but maybe I need to be a bit firmer (with myself too) and a bit more consistent. I probably haven't been giving 100% to this as I suppose a bit of me feels like she is not ready so I haven't wanted to push it. However she is now 3 so even if she is not fully ready I think I should be emphasising using the potty/toilet more. Fingers crossed!

P.S. Just so I can be prepared, has anyone any tips for what to use to remove stains from the carpet?

pinkshoes

MrsSippi wrote: »

If she is nappy free she will just make a mess and I think that she realises that what she has done is 'wrong' (I never tell her off but I do explain that we do wee's etc on the potty) but despite continuing with this she would still consistently having accidents - it was like she was still wearing a nappy.

P.S. Just so I can be prepared, has anyone any tips for what to use to remove stains from the carpet?

I potty trained DS just before he was 3, and put him straight into pants. If he wet himself, I pointed out that big boys don't wee in their pants, that it didn't feel very nice (he didn't like it), and I then cleaned up the puddle before sorting him out.

He HATED staying in his wet clothes for 15 minutes, but it only took 48 hours for most accidents to stop!

He also got a new car for every dry day he had.

As for the stains, it was just wee (poos stayed in the pants and were tipped into toilet!!), so a good carpet cleaner, and lots of kitchen roll was fine!

dingdongsaving

Definitely routines. After a week of you taking them to the loo every 20 minutes they'll start thinking about it on their own (regularly) and realising that sometimes they do have that "feeling" and sometimes they don't.

My son soon hated me taking him away from play and bringing him in from the garden to "try" and soon could tell me "I do need" and "I don't need" to avoid leaving his fun.

Boys also LOVE peeing at something...so let them have a stool and pee at a ping pong ball that floats in the loo.

I'm a teacher and have only met 1 child (out of hundreds that have been through my reception classes) that had a medical need that meant they couldn't tell when they needed the loo due to nerve damage. For every other child it's habit, awareness, training, realising that they're NOT wearing something that'll just keep it in (pull ups at night are great as they help heavy little sleepers, but in the day...a nightmare for stubborn toilet-trainees), sometimes it's also just also being bothered/having to leave a chosen activity and being bothered by not fitting in with everyone else - eg, nobody else in class is doing it/when I do it everyone moves away and doesn't want to be near me/my friends say "don't sit there xxx we himself" etc etc.

Good luck x

bossymoo

The Gina Ford potty training in one week book is great. It runs through how to tell if they are ready, you are ready, then just bite the bullet and get the pants out. Our floors are not carpeted downstairs so easy mopping but I sat the potty on towels and had some snap cards, stickers and books nearby.

Every 30-40min I sat little one on potty for 5 min whilst we did some sticking or whatever (used footstool as table!).

By day 4-5 I was tearing my hair out then something just clicked. Worked with both mine (boy and girl).

Good luck - just go for it!