Potty Training 2: Electric Boogaloo?

I'm wondering what else to say about potty training, since my own experience is so limited. And I've noticed that the parents I know don't seem as consumed with potty training issues as we are/were with feeding and especially sleep problems, so we don't talk about it constantly. I wonder if there's some shared wisdom that's being lost with our generation because we're just not talking about it as much as past generations were.

One important thing to bring up is that it's often a shorter process to potty-train a child that's "older" when you start, meaning over 2. (Witness P's stomach-churningly daring but successful plan to go cold-turkey, or -Blue's done-in-a-couple-of-weeks system.) OTOH, it seems like a kid who is closer to 3 when you start can be resistant and really dig in her heels. I've been told that there's definitely a window in which kids are interested in potty training, and if you miss that window it'll be much harder to train. My own personal guess is that there are several windows that vary from kid to kid, so you have to be alert and hop on the interest when it pops up.

So here's a question for you guys: If, for whatever reason, you've missed that typical early-2-year-old window, how do you get an older kid (closer to or older than 3) to be interested in training? I've gotten this question several times by email, and the only thing I can offer is to try to use peer pressure and have the child spend as much time as possible with a potty-trained child. But is there something else they can be doing? Surely there's got to be another answer, since you don't see many kids who are still in diapers at the age of 4.

Comments

[Lisa]

You don't. My oldest son was about three when he started peeing in the potty consistently. He had found, in a sack of hand-me-downs, a pair of tighty-whities in his size and asked me one day if he could wear them. I said he could, but gently reminded him that they wouldn't hold pee, so if he had to pee, he needed to go in the potty. He did, and that was that.

But poop? Well, poop was a WHOOOOOLE other story. He found out that he could control his poop a lot more than he could control his pee, plus he realized I WANTED him to poop in the potty and well, we just COULDN'T do what Mommy WANTS us to do, that's just crazy talk! So we'll hold our poop until we get impacted! And then we'll get hemorrhoids! At 3 1/2! Fun!

After six months or so of trying EVERYTHING, I just gave up. I had had Boy2 by then and I was just too exhausted to deal. So I stopped saying anything. I cleaned out underpants in silence. When he would wear underwear just fine, then go get a pull-up JUST TO POOP IN IT, I said nothing. After about a week, he realized I wasn't going to fight with him anymore and all the fun was gone. Then he started pooping in the potty, at four.

It was a nightmare. I heartily endorse getting it done in the window you suggest.

[Meira]

My son worked out much the way P's did-- we had books & videos & a potty around the house for a while, but never an intention to "train him", and about a month after he turned FOUR, he came to us & said he'd used the potty, we said great and handed him some underwear. And except for a bunch of "accidents" during his brief stint in pre-school (that oddly went away when he stopped going, although I only realized that years later) we never looked back.

But now I have 11 month old twins, and I'm reading about people's reason for EC and wondering if I did him (and the babies) a disservice by "training" them to go in diapers. Eh, whatever. I'll let them run around naked the way your grandmother did, and if it takes, it takes. If not . . . well, I really don't mind diapers much. Although 2 in diapers until 4 seems a bit much.

[Jamie]

My oldest son was not interested in using the potty AT ALL. I kept trying in a low-key way, and he kept refusing (nothing low-key about it). As his fourth birthday approached, I said, "Four-year-olds don't wear diapers. When you turn four, we're done with diapers."

He was not happy about this plan. He begged me to stop him from turning four.

It was a hard first week, but it worked out fine. I knew he could do it; it was just a matter of saying, firmly and pleasantly and repeatedly, "It's time. Here we go."

[liz]

My son resisted the potty until early last summer (3 & a half) then his favorite teacher went on vacation for the whole summer and he wanted to be with his friends in the older classroom. Boom. Just like that he was going on the potty.

Poop, however, is a whole 'nother story. He's still using diapers for that. He turned 4 last month. Sigh.

[Em]

Peer pressure worked for us. My son wasn't interested at 2, plus we had a lot of upheaval in our life (9/11 homelessness & moving countries) so it wasn't a good time to start potty training. When he was 2.5 I tried really hard to get him interested so that he could start preschool at 3 (he had to be potty trained to go). My efforts failed but the preschool told me to send him along anyway (he was 2 years, 11 months). After only one day at school, he told me he wanted to wear underwear - and that was that, he was trained day and night.

I'm now trying to PT my daughter (aged 3 years, 3 months). She is keen but has SO MANY accidents. Any tips on what to do when they have accident after accident after accident? (BTW, she is developmentally delayed so I started training her later than I might have otherwise, but I do feel she knows what she needs to do - she just isn't interested in doing it....)

[el-e-e]

I'm so glad you're posting this. I have lots of questions. My son (first/only) is 20 months. Two months ago he was very keen on telling me when he was "going" or "about to go," but that has stopped. At that time I bought him a potty seat and he seemed interested in it but now... "AJ, do you want to go potty?" Answer: "No." Plain as that. I'm trying not to think I missed my window (it was early, right?) and hoping to hear more on the subject. :)

[Twinmama]

I would love to know what works, because for one of my twins I don't think there was any window to begin with. We're coming up on 3.5 years-old, and she absolutely refuses to have anything to do with the potty. Totally. Hates. It. Meanwhile her sister will pee on potty, and is very good about it, but still refuses to poop on potty. We're getting nowhere fast.