Q&A: Potty training almost 3-year-old girl

S writes:

"My daughter who is abt 2 months shy  of  being 3 yrs was able to indicate that she wanted to poop when she was 1.5 yrs old. I didnt push  it then to train her to pee as well. We started potty traing when she was 2.5 yrs old . She started  showing some positive results i.e there would be accidents  but sometimes she would say she wanted to pee. Suddenly she had accidents all day and  wouldnt tell as well.

It could be my fault when I did get a bit angry when she was peaking at her accident rate. Now she is 2 months shy of 3 and she is still not trained. These days she doesnt even tell when she wets her pants.

However she never poops in pants, always does it in potty. Im really confused if I should go back to diapers or should I continue training.

From a confused , guilty feeling MOM"

You know how potty training in the 1940s seemed to be about making the kids feel guilty? I think potty training in the 2000s and 2010s is about making the parents feel guilty.

Seriously. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. At least in the '40s they knew they were supposed to start at a year, and if the kid wasn't trained before the age of 2 it meant Something Was Wrong With The Child. Clear (if damaging) target. Now there's conflicting advice everywhere: wait until after 2, wait until after 3, do elimination communication, use cloth diapers, use disposible diapers, use pull-ups, don't use any diapers, use rewards, never bribe, boys should stand up, boys should sit down, girls are easier, boys are easier, it's all genetic, train daytime and nighttime together, train daytime before 3 but wait to train at night until after 5.

Holy crap. (Ahem.) How does anyone potty train a kid ever with all the conflicting advice? (And I say that as someone with no dog in the hunt whatsoever, because remember that my kids each potty trained themselves, pretty much.)

A few months ago, one of my friends, whose daughter had dug in her heels and refused to poop on the potty, told me that she felt like a failure because as a SAHM it was Her Job to potty-train her kid, and since she hadn't done it it meant that she failed. When she said that it felt like she grabbed my heart and squeezed it and crushed it. I mean, one thing, one tiny, blip-on-the-radar-of-parenting thing, and she'd decided that meant she'd failed. Despite the fact that her daughter is brilliant and funny and connected and polite and curious and makes friends easily.

Those of you who have for-pay jobs with performance metrics are probably thinking this is as unreasonable as I do. If I hadn't finished a project with a client because the client didn't want to work with me or wasn't ready for some reason, I'd formulate a plan to try to get it done the next quarter, but I wouldn't let that one project make me think I was failing at my job (assuming everything else was still working). And my boss wouldn't evaluate me solely on one project that wasn't even pegged to a specific time schedule, either.

So please, please, please don't take potty training as a reflection on yourself. Especially if you have the kind of kid who won't learn from you specifically. It doesn't mean they don't love you and that you're not the most important person in their life. It just means you should let someone else work on potty training with them, and when the time comes you should let someone else teach them to drive.

What the heck does any of this have to do with poor S and her daughter? Three things:

1) Stop feeling guilty, S. Maybe someday you'll do something to your daughter that you actually should feel guilty about, like showing a baby picture of her to her prom date, or picking her up at school wearing an ugly shirt. Loving her enough to try a bunch of different things to potty train her is a good thing, not something you should feel guilt for.

2) From anecdotal evidence of the kids I've known, not being potty-trained completely by the age of 3 (and she's not even 3 yet!) is pretty normal. There's plenty of time.

3) How to decide whether to keep going or stop? I think that if you're writing me an email, it means it's stressing you out. So you might want to just take a break for a week, and catch your breath, and then go back to it.

(Now, how did it make you feel to read #3? Did you feel relieved? Then take a break. Or did reading the suggestion to take a break make you feel defeated? If so, keep going and don't take a break. You know she'll get it eventually, whether you take a break or not. There is no Right Answer, just the answer that doesn't break you.)

Who was traumatized by potty training? Conversely, who has largely forgotten potty training?

Comments

[Shandra]

Our Montessori did the training. They told us when our son was ready, how many pairs of pants to bring in, and how to reinforce it at home. Worth. the. year's. tuition.

S - I don't know any normal-functioning adults who don't use the toilet properly. It will be okay, promise. I have no advice because: See above. But support to you!

[Beth]

Amen, Moxie!

I'd like to add that almost every parent I know has admitted to getting angry about accidents during potty training. And personally, I think the ones who don't admit it are lying. Ha ha. As long as you're not brow beating your child every minute of the day I personally don't think there's anything wrong with showing anger toward a child who has shown they know how to use the potty but start having frequent accidents. Within reason and without extenuating circumstances, of course. I quickly lost my resolve not to get angry with my older son because I'm sorry, I just can't be the Mom who cheerfully cleans pee off the floor five times in one morning. We're all human and for many of us potty training is a frustrating thing (For many of the reasons Moxie laid out). It's natural to get frustrated and be unable to conceal that from your child 100% of the time.

I have no idea if this is at all relevent to your situation but a few times we had a sharp increase in "accidents" after I gave my son an out. The morning with five floor pee incidents I said to him after the first one, "I'm sorry honey, I should have taken you to the potty ten minutes ago. It's not your fault." The other four times he peed that morning he said, "It's not my fault!" Months and months after he was trained he had an accident at school and I told him, "It's okay to have accidents, honey." All of a sudden he was having "accidents" at least once a day. Like standing in the bathroom with his pants down peeing all over the floor saying, "It's an accident." Coincidence? I think not.

And before everyone gets all up in arms I'm not suggesting being punitive or angry with your child after every little accident. Just sharing what I experienced with my very stubborn boy. A potty training expert I am not. Ha ha.

[SarcastiCarrie]

No words of wisdom, but I found something that made it easier on me: no pants on the training kid (to facilitate quicker trips to the bathroom and an aha realization / connection between the feeling and seeing pee coming out) and lots of time outside where I could just hose accidents away (if I cleaned them up at all...it's just urine).

Stickers motivated my first son. I'm still trying to find the bribe/reward for my second. He stays dry all the day time, but he wears diapers and only pees in the bath tub (and you just rinse it away), but the bath tub is a little inconvenient at Target, you know. We've tried letter cookies from Trader Joe's, cat cookies, stickers, tattoos, ringing a ship's bell, beeping my car's horn after using the potty, jelly beans. I think this one will just have to figure it out in his own time.

[Charisse]

Was definitely traumatized, have largely forgotten now! I don't have specific advice for S since we had the opposite issue (peeing in potty and pooping in pants) but I do have a big hug and a hang in there!! I don't know what it is, but most kids decide they want to at some point, and just like weaning, you can wait for that, or it's also OK to find a way to hurry the wanting along.

BTW, could there be anything in the bathroom that is scary to your daughter (beside the potty)? We had one truly awful potty regression where Mouse, who always hated accidents, suddenly started peeing on the floor, in her pants, everywhere, without getting upset or even telling us. We were about to take her to the doctor after a couple of days of this when we realized that she was freaked about something else in that room (tweezers, long story) and using perfect 3-year-old logic, decided she was never going in there again and would just have to live with wet pants. So I guess one thing could be, it's worth it to ask her what's going on, if you can do it neutrally.

Good luck, so many hugs!! Truly, that story above is about all I remember of training now. (Mouse is 7)

[Corinne]

This exact thing is happening to me right now! Just this morning I told my DD that it was soon time to pee, and her response was, "I already peed. On my bed." Not what I wanted to hear! If I don't remind her to pee every couple of hours, it is guaranteed that she will have an accident. It's very frustrating, because as the OP said, she has shown that she CAN do it, and did do it when she first started. But then the novelty wore off, and I started having to "remind" her every couple of hours, to which I get a lot of excuses and arguments against. And if I have to take her to the toilet every time (under duress much of the time), I have to ask myself, is she really toilet trained? She goes to poo on her own in the toilet every time, and I'm not going back to diapers, but man it's frustrating. I'm not above bribes, but they don't seem to be enough incentive for her to go on her own anymore! I'm looking forward to the comments :)

[Sarah S]

We tried several times with my son over the course of the year after he turned two, with middling results. Then my friend gave me a tip her dentist had given her, and it was like night and day.

The dentist said to give them M&Ms after each time they went potty successfully. (We used chocolate chips and also rewarded trying).

Now, maybe he was just ready the last time we tried (3 1/2), and maybe that won't work for everyone, but it was like a miracle in our house. I'm not a huge advocate of junk food, but it was worth it to me.

[Jen]

It's good to hear that the process is easy for some people and hard for others. Seems like most of my friends and family have had a hard time with it! We are just approaching the potty training thing. My son is 1.5 and tells us when he's pooped, though he doesn't tell us before hand. We're trying to stay really casual about it but offer some small praise when he tells us, hoping to encourage the awareness. I'm trying not to build up anxiety about this because I've learned the surest way to stop my son from cooperating is to create a situation where he feels we're opposing him. Sigh...very stubborn. My nearly 3 year old nephew is working on potty training too. He goes on the potty at daycare, but at home he only does it occasionally. They've been working with him for months and months now with very little progress. You'd think something we all do multiple times a day would be easier to learn, but for some kids it's just not!

[Claudia]

My DD, now 5, was pretty indifferent to potty training til we went on a long vacation when she was 3 1/4. Suddenly she was fascinated with all the public toilets. *oh joy*
But when we got home, she said straight up no more diapers. She announced to everyone that she stopped using diapers. And for the most part, she succeeded. Maybe 5 pee accidents in the space of 2-3 weeks, and never a poop accident. Only days after swearing off the day diapers, she insisted on underwear at night. I said, essentially, yea right. Then the next couple of days she got more and more insistent, and I went with it. She didn't do it perfectly, but of those accidents above, only about 2 were wetting the bed.
She just knew when was good, and then it really was good.

[Erin]

I have much better luck with "It's potty time" than "Do you need to potty". And he's potty trained. He was over 3 when everything finally clicked for him, but when it did. Ah. It was so much easier.

I will fully admit to blatantly using bribery. I got lots (LOTS) of cheap matchbox cars in the multi-packs and he got "pee cars". My car crazy kid STILL knows which cars were reward cars and which weren't. And he announces the pee cars to anyone that will listen. When he FINALLY pooped on the potty, he got a water gun (that was his choice of a reward).

I'm guessing your daughter is in undies? What happens if you put her in pull-ups (or diaper)? Does she get mad? or does she not care? If she cares, pull-ups until she can put her pee in the potty. If she doesn't care, I'd wait a month and then try again.

[mom2boy]

Oh the guilt. Some days when I hear people say just stop feeling guilty they might as well be saying stop feeling hungry. It just comes of its own accord. So you could just wallow in the potty training guilt and it'll free you from feeling guilty about all the other things that are lined up to take its place. Because as someone else has said, no matter what method you do or don't do she will be able to use the bathroom on her own when she is an adult.

If you are tired of changing her out of wet clothes, put her back in diapers and tell her why. At some point she may on her own decide she is ready for big girl underwear. Two months is a long time in the potty training scheme of things. My son wasn't reliably going pee in the potty at two months shy of his 3rd birthday and by the time he was 3 he was fine to be in underwear while awake.

[Judy B]

DS just turned 3, and although he's never had a problem going on the potty since he was 2, it's been a matter of getting him to WANT to go on the potty. We've tried stickers, candies, a reward chart ending in a bubble machine, timers. I'm almost to the point where I'm want to tell him "See this pile of diapers? Once these are all gone we're not getting any more and you can wear big boy undies." aarrrggghhh

Now that warm weather is here, if he is pant-less, he will go potty on his own. Once the diaper or pullup or even undies go on, he let's loose. I need to keep the faith that we'll get through this before I lose it.

[Mary-Christine]

We did two definite runs at potty-training for DS. The first time he was just over two and we went the Pull-ups route - no dice, he was as happy peeing and pooing in those as his diaper. And he really resisted sitting on the toilet. And honestly, we got sooooo tired of suggesting brightly every 30 mins "its time to go pee!".

Second time, he was 2.5, and we went straight to underpants (but diapers at night), and lived with the accidents. We tried bribery (stickers & m&ms), exasperation (we felt better - he was impervious), praise at every success and a 'not to worry' at the accidents. It took my son 11 months really to get to the point where he would yell "I have to go pee/poo!", and run to the bathroom by himself (and man, I remember the joy when that happened for the first time).

In retrospect, I really don't think that we had any influence, it happened when it happened! And before starting the process, I truly thought that it would only take a week of us both lounging around in our underpants in the house for him to get it - HAH!

But night-time was a different story - we ignored all advice about waiting until he was consistently dry, and just tried him in his underpants when he had just turned 3, and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many accidents he's had at night....go figure!

[Cloud]

Don't feel bad! Our now 4 year old had a similar story. We rarely got poop accidents, but at the worst, we were getting >5 pee accidents per day. This despite the fact that when she first started training (at about 2.5), she had it figured out and wasn't having accidents within a week.

So in our case, it was all about the power, I think. What eventually fixed it for us was that we started doing the following:

1. If she had an accident, she had to change her clothes herself. (She screamed and threw a major fit about this for about one day, and then stopped fighting us on it.)

2. She could have a "potty treat" anytime she sat on the potty. This worked well, but we are, unfortunately, still giving her a small candy most times she goes potty. She doesn't get much candy otherwise, and she will go potty when we're out and about even if I don't have candy with me... so I don't worry about it. But at some point, this will have to stop, I suppose.

Anyway, this sorted out our problem within a week or two. She even decided on her own that she was ready to ditch the pullups at night, and she has yet to wet her bed. Go figure.

Anyway, don't feel bad, because then I'd have to feel bad, too. Some kids just get a bug in their ear about potty training and make it a challenge. You'll get through it, and no one will care in the long run.

[meggiemoo]

Yes and yes. Was traumatized and have now largely forgotten about the whole thing. So hopefully that's reassuring to everyone going through it now.

My DS has a particular personality that made potty-training a nightmare. As in:

- wants to do everything right the first time and gets furious when he doesn't

- cannot be coerced and conversely, isn't necessarily motivated by rewards

- hates being reminded of things

He didn't train fully until he was almost 4 or was 4. I've blocked it out. The kicker was that they wouldn't move him up to the next class in his preschool until he was trained, so he was in with 2 and 3-year-olds for a long time, and that did become an issue (he was hella bored).

What worked? Diving in with both feet. Underwear instead of pull-ups. The school finally said, "He needs to move up, just bring in lots of clothes and we'll work on it." He had a couple of accidents and then was pretty much trained.

The *good* thing about his personality is that once he accomplishes something, he's set.

My DD, now 2+, will likely be easier to train...she's already gone over to the potty, sat down and pooped without any prompting. So we'll probably tackle that this summer. My approach now is pretty lazy though: we'll keep her naked at home as much as possible with the potty a short distance away.

As with every other issue we've dealt with, stressing over potty training made the issue worse AND delayed the resolution.

My advice? Ditch the pull-ups. They're expensive and they don't let the kids feel as connected to their bodies as they will if they have nothing on or underwear. Yeah, the laundry will make you crazy, but I think in this case you need to commit fully.

And to the authors of all of those "Potty-train in 3 days!" books? You can bite me.

[ianqui]

I'm so relieved to read these posts. My son is about to turn 3 in two weeks, and we've been trying to train him for about 3 weeks now. I'm not even focusing on poop (which he consistently does in his pull up when the school takes them to the playground at 10:30am...) At home, we put him either in underpants or nothing at all. For the first 10 days or so, he was mostly peeing at will with a few accidental pees in the potty during the regularly scheduled trips every hour. But just this weekend, he's started to kind of indicate that he needed to go (he told my mom yesterday that he wanted to sit on the potty) or go happily when we suggested it if he really did have to go instead of resisting by default.

At school he's also in underpants, and hasn't yet once peed on their potty. I'm really hoping for a turnaround this week.

I think we probably have a good few months left in us before he reliably tells us that he has to go. The thing that has compounded the agony is that a good 3/4 of his classmates (20 kids in two same-age classrooms) were self-motivatingly potty trained months ago with seemingly no effort. So it's good to know that they're just a freak sample and that other people out there are going through the same thing we are...

[electriclady]

TOTALLY traumatized. You know how Moxie has said that she figures everyone gets one parenting free pass and hers was potty training? I came to think of it as everyone gets one parenting nightmare and ours was potty training (because our daughter was a very easy baby/toddler in most other ways).

We had a very similar situation, daughter (now 4.5) showed potty interest at 1.5 but we didn't seriously start potty training until 2.5 and she wasn't fully trained until just a few weeks shy of her 3rd birthday. The last couple months were actually the hardest, filled with accidents (WAY more accidents than when we started) and guilt and yelling. I could fill a book with all the things we thought we did wrong. It really was darkest just before the dawn, in our case.

The archives here are filled with potty training advice from readers, some of which worked for us and some of us didn't. Keep at it or take a break, whatever works for your family; try a little of everything. Just know that this too shall pass. And that anyone who says they never got angry when their kid had an accident is a lying liar.

[AmyinMotown]

I am currently being traumatized. Again. In retrospect I thought my daughter was hell to train but she was fine, we just started before she was really ready. Her brother? now THAT'S hell to train. And I do feel like a huge failure and someone who is just BAD at potty training (especially since my daughter has been "officially" out of school for two days and gone through five pairs of underwear because she can't make it to the bathroom in time). However, we'd been struggling a bit with training and then the DAY BEFORE she turned three we were at a family dinner and she turned to my mom and said "I have to go potty" and off they went, she peed, and has been doing it on her own ever since.

My son (over three! yes! I am a shitty parent!) has been able to tell us when he's peeing and pooping for some time now, so we decided to just buckle down and get him on the potty instead of waiting for some magic time when we could concentrate on it. It was AWESOME! He was actually holding it until we put him on the potty! He had a huge hangup about pooping, it was clearly making him anxious, but the peeing was going great. for TWO DAYS. Now, he'll fight us about being taken to the potty, sit for a nanosecond, and announce "I'm done!" and then five seconds later pee in his pull-up. He is super stubborn and will not do any damn thing unless it's his idea. We were using bribery with cheap dollar store toys and now it just isn't working. I just got him dressed a minute ago and put underwear, a diaper, and training pants over the diaper on him, hoping that he might not like the feeling of wet underwear. As far as the pooping, he is thoroughly unbothered by a poopy pull-up so I have no idea what to do.

I'm going to have to go to college with him to change his diapers, won't I? And why don't my husband and I, both pretty inteeligent people overall, have the slightest clue about potty training a kid?

[Sherry]

I'm reading these comments trying to psych myself up for putting my 4 year old in panties at night instead of pullups. But what if she wakes me up MORE than she already does? She'll need a change of sheets in the middle of the night! She wakes up wet every morning. Guess I need to bite the bullet. Or maybe not.

I have a terrible memory, but I know our girl eventually got daytime potty trained after tons of accidents, backsliding, etc. For quite a while, she'd only go in her little kid potty. Bribing didn't work. It was just something that Ms. Stubborn eventually wanted to do. Definitely helped when older kids came over and used the potty. She would observe. So glad all that's over.

[Vquirey]

Here's the thing about potty training--we approach NO OTHER step of child development like it. I've never heard mom say, "I'm staying home this weekend so I can teach my son to walk." or "My daughter will be talking in full sentences before we go on vacation next month." That would be ridiculous.

So why, then, do we freak out when kids need to take some time to go through the necessary steps to potty train? Take it slow, keep it chill and celebrate the baby steps! (We spent close to 18 months all told "training" our son, but mostly following his lead.)

[meggiemoo]

@AmyinMotown...I think potty training is so hard (like teaching your baby to sleep or self-soothe, etc.) because how do you teach something you don't recall learning yourself?

And, like sleeping or eating, I think using the toilet is one of those issues that kids will always push back on when they realize they can. Part of them is probably thinking, "Hey! This is my body." And also, "Ooh, this REALLY makes mommy and daddy mad. Look how red they're getting! Whee!!"

It's the perfect issue for children who aren't naturally compliant to resist. And the perfect issue to judge ourselves and others on. "Your kid is still in pull-ups at WHAT age? Oh my gawd."

I did think my son would be the one kid in a million denied entrance to kindergarten because he couldn't use the toilet. And I doubt he even remembers anything about potty training now.

And now I'm getting ready to start it all over again...sigh.

[Anonymous]

Traumatized here. Mostly because I couldn't find good advice about how to train slowly, and my personality is a little all or nothing. My kid is stubborn, so it was a lot of yelling then guilt, then guilt-induced frustration that led to...more yelling.

We stopped and started at least twice and then sometime around three, she was trained but still had accidents if we were in unfamiliar settings. Then she asked to go at the park once, and we were set. She's four now and still wears a diaper at night because she wants to.

We're working with baby 2 now, and she likes to sit on the potty. So we let her sit there and play with toilet paper and sometimes she pees or poops. And I feel like I learned how to do something gradually, which makes me smile.

In any event, it is crazy frustrating for some kids, but you'll get through it. If you aren't beating on her or being really punitive in some other way, you'll both come through okay.

[Kate]

Frustrated, though not traumatized. Tried lots of different things - bribes, charts, praise, pull-ups, nudity, blah blah blah. Nothing worked consistently or any appreciable length of time.

Until he was ready (around 3 or 3.5, I think? I've blocked it out). Then he trained virtually overnight. The only specific technique I remember is that we had him stand in the bathroom to go in his diaper.

The only accidents he's ever had were because he was sick ("Hershey Squirts," as we so charmingly refer to them).

YMWV.

[SarahG]

It's a complex issue becuse it affects us (parents) so directly... we are the ones who have to clean up the stuff, people look to us for a reason our child isn't trained yet. Sigh.

That said, it took us a full year to 'train' DS. We started before he was ready and for the wrong reasons (to get him out of diapers before #2 arrived...), but it wasn't an entirely painful process, just took a long time.

We went through the "It's okay!" phase. Not wanting to damage his (supposedly) fragile ego, we told him it was totally fine any time he peed his pants, accident or not. At a certain point - him standing in the living room, peeing in his pants while saying "It's okay Mommy!" - we realized it was okay to tell him, it's not okay to pee in your pants. He was ready to hear it, and we knew it wasn't an accident, so we said, It's not okay. That was a turning point for us.

What worked (for pee): a chart with 5 spots to put a sticker when he peed on the potty. Full chart = trip to the toy store. He chose a 1.50 dinky car as his reward. Second chart had 10 spots. No third chart needed.

Second came pooping. He would wait until he got a Pull-up for nap to poop. Had no issues with the toilet as far as I could tell, just prefered to do it in his room and have me clean him up after. After a few months of this I said enough... stickers, chocolate chips, no reward worked - he had dug in his heels. I didnt' want to punish, but I needed a 'consequence' for pooping in his bed. Put him in undies - his favourite McQueen undies - for nap, with instructions to use the toilet and NOT poop in them. He did. He had to clean himself and his bed up (with help from me) and throw away his underwear. Day 2, same thing, underwear sadly thrown away, huge hassle of cleaning himself up, stripping his bed, etc. Day 3 (and every day after) - he ran to the toilet to poop instead. Huge party, trip to the toy store, full fanfare. Success. He needed a bigger incentive than just stickers or a toy... he did NOT want to throw away more McQueen undies or *shudder* clean THAT up.

He just turned 4... still wears a Pull-up to bed, pees in it every morning and says "That's okay!"... we'll tackle that soon.

[My Kids Mom]

To those who worry about being woken at night to change wet sheets-- don't. Have a good quality, waterproof mattress pad and if it gets wet, throw a bath/beach towel over it all until morning. Pee will wait.

As soon as my son graduated to a Big Kid Bed, he also was given the instructions on what to do if he wet it. (1) put the wet pj's in the tub (2) put on dry pj's (3) put a towel on the bed (4) tell Mama IN THE MORNING! Still happens sometimes (age 7) and the weakest link is the remembering to tell me about it!

My neighbor had two teens when #3 came along, my son's age. Her hindsight kept me sane. "They all be potty trained before college."

[Wilhelmina]

Traumatised indeed. Heck, it's traumatic still.

My DD will be 3.5 years old next month. I've slipped two discs in my spine lifting her up and down to the changing mat on top of her dresser to change her. No I can't change on the floor at all. And what do I get ? All these comments about how lazy I am to keep DD in the " convenience" of nappies. She's very tall for her age too, so we're in kid bed-wetting pull-ups meant for overnight for bed-wetters.

DD has very severe eczema. I spend several hours a day looking after that. Actually nappies and eczema gives fungal infection very easily or bacterial. Easy and convenient.

I did know, as in was told by doctors and other mothers, that potty training is harder with eczema. But not why. Not really.

The advice was waiting until " ready" so it's over in a hurry. Not a smart thing. She showed no interest at all. We invested in all the kit and tried but she wasn't.

DD started Montessori in the afternoon after Easter. So at Christmas I got training pants and we did the gently does it but persistent training. I'm a SAHM.

The training pants had plastic and gave a fungal infection. That hurt badly. So we had a break in the pull-ups until that healed. She couldn't sit down on her butt.

Then we did underwear and we did pretty well. In the sense that she has strong enough muscles to hold for hours.

But she had an accident, the urine kind. She screamed in agony and when I looked there were sore red wheals on the skin where the pee went. That's why eczema makes training hard. Whenever you train, early or late. I also can't leave DD naked on the legs as she'd tear at her skin. Not easy.

DD had two anaphylactic shocks to food allergy and one of them a blue-lighted and sirens to the hospital kind. She's had major medical phobia since. She needs restraining by two staff for anything medical.

The sore legs, the sore behind and the pressure linked the phobia to the toilet. Full hysterical thrashing fits to screams of NO TOILET !

Paediatrician said wait and take pressure off. The Montessori said she couldn't go. Then when I appealed that if she needed a pull-up to feel comfortable she could come in in that.

First four weeks all was blissful at school. Then the fifth it wasn't but DD doesn't tell me.

I pick her up and in the school grounds, in front of DD and assembled parents the teacher has a go about how the school has to do all the training and she doesn't even know how to pull her trousers down. What was happening at home? Nothing. She'd be excluded.

Trauma and very real. I complained to the principal and bursar as her training impasse is fear and pain related, not rebellion.

If she has an accident at school she has to go home for the skincare. Even if she were 100% trained she'd probably still be in a pull up.

The principal apologised and the pressure is now off. It's how they train. First weeks nothing, then they use " peer pressure" group toilet sitting.

She now sits at school on the same buddy seat as at home and alone. She sits often at home. We read books etc. but she's still tense and if you're tense you can't let go.

There is a special training pant for eczema that is cotton, catches everything but gives no fungal infection. I've ordered them. And if that works I'll give it my all over the summer holiday which is two months.

She is not dry at night, but she can " hold" it during the day. I'm sure we'll get there. Through a vale of tears.

[Charisse]

@vQuirey, really? what about sleep milestones? (and I say that in the same spirit because I've always wondered why we treat those the way we do, when we don't teach kids to walk, talk, etc.) I think it may be because these two are the most unpleasant for us when things aren't working...

@Sherry & @My_Kids_Mom I agree! Although my daughter was very very upset by a wet bed so "only tell us in the morning" didn't work. But the lazy solution of throwing a blanket down, changing pajamas, and dealing with the mess later was fantastic.

[Amy]

THANK YOU for acknowledging that there is a world of advice out there and NONE of it matches up. It really does make you feel like this one marker either makes you a failure, or indicates that something is wrong with your child.

Potty training is a mess right now. We've been living this crapstorm (haha) with my daughter for over a year now. She seemed ready at just shy of two, but I was having a new baby, we started training at just past two when the baby was 6 weeks old. From there....well, she was trained, then she was poop withholding, then she was trained, then she got a bladder infection, then she was trained, then she was poop withholding, then she was trained, then she was peeing all the time, everywhere. We tried EVERY DANG THING there was to try, including quiting entirely once of twice. It's been the longest year of my life so far. And this is the second child I've trained--my son was not ready to start until he was close to three and pretty much trained himself, with the odd M&M bribe within two months.

She's now 3 years and 2 months. The current system is a six week long chart that she gets stickers on the clean and dry days and frowny faces on the accident days. If she has more stickers than frowns at the end of the month she gets to start dance classes in July. At this point she has all the skills in place and I needed to back entirely out of the process. So, I've said very little, offered no reminders or commentary, and just helped her put the sticker/frowny face on before bedtime with either a "Good for you, you must feel proud!" or a "You can try again tomorrow." It's been interesting--the first day of the chart she was clean and dry. Then she was wet for 8 days in a row. I was grimacing and gritting my teeth to keep from commentating on it. Then, all of a sudden, two dry days. The light was coming on. A wet day, she was personally crushed, but again, very little commentary. And then, lo and behold, 10 dry days running as of today! Halle-freaking-lujah! I think this is gonna be it, please, please, please let this be it.

Okay, I apparently needed to rant about this. But you're SO not alone in this one.

[Kara]

I don't think I or my child was traumatized by potty training, but I think it was one of the harder things to do for my child. For me, it was really figuring out what he needed in order to learn how to use the potty, and the tricks/rewards that he needed were not any of the common advice that books or websites give you or my friends or my mom or my aunt or my grandma gave me. So I think I came into potty training with a preconceived idea of what it would take, and did some wheel spinning because of it. We ended up trying several times off and on for about a year, and finally hit on what worked for him when he was older (umm...4.5 years) than what society might expect. So what if he was a little slower to potty train? And on the other hand, he learned his colors and letters at age two, has a memory like an elephant, can swim like a fish, and can draw better than I can, and he is now, at age six, totally and completely independent in the bathroom (can't even remember the last time I wiped anyone's butt but my own--woohoo!), so it's balanced out in the end.

[BiteSizeTherapy]

As Moxie suggested, you can take a break for a week to catch your breath. Another week won't matter.

When you feel like you need to tackle it (even if that is right now), just take a deep breath and go back to the basics. Start from scratch. Several times a day, at predictable times (ie. before leaving the house, after meals, before naps, etc), tell her it is time to try the potty. I have no particular opinion about rewards/bribes - they work great for some kids and not for others. It depends on your daughter's personality.

Focus on the positive! You say she always poops on the potty - that's great! Build from that. You're further along than you think.

[Alanna]

We've been very relaxed about training our son (4 in July). He's 99% daytime trained and he sleeps in a pull-up. We also take him to the bathroom before we go to bed just to make sure he's empty. The reason we've adopted a "don't care" attitude is that he started with-holding poops about a year ago. Obviously he wanted to be in control. Unfortunately he ended up having to have suppositories. After 2 of those he decided going to the bathroom was way better. There was a lot of talk about "listening to his body." He was one of those kids who got #2 way easier than #1. Backwards to most apparently, but it works for him. So long as he's 100% by kindergarten in 2012 I'll be happy. And if I don't push it, it's one less stress for me.

[Casey]

I have 2 boys who are potty trained. They went about it completely differently. Knowing what I know after having those two experiences my philosophy on any future children will be to do as little as possible. Provide a potty. Provide underwear. If child has too many accidents and I start feeling frustrated about the accidents, provide diapers.

We're led to believe as parents that there is *a* way to do this and if we were doing it right our kid would have the proper behavior response. I call BS. Let her decide when she's ready. If you're tired of washing clothes and carpet, put her in diapers. If you're okay, you can keep doing what you're doing.

[T.]

Two bits of advice I received about potty training really stuck with me. The first was something I read (I can't remember where) that said it helps to imagine that inscribed somewhere on your child's brain is the date on which he or she will be potty trained. That date is a secret from you. No matter what you do or don't do, that is the date upon which your child will be potty trained. It's easy to point out lots of flaw with that theory, but I took comfort from it.

The second bit of advice came from a mom of slightly older children who had already gone through the whole potty training thing. She said the big stumbling block for one of her boys was fear of getting older. Diaper change time is, among other things, a time when a mom and dad are really focused on the child. It's often followed by a hug or a kiss. Kids value that and sometimes they worry that they'll get less of those one on one moments. We tend to pitch potty training as becoming a "big boy" or "big girl" which sometimes sounds great to kids, and sometimes... not so much. With both of my kids I always tried to remind myself of this and remember to reassure them that learning to use the potty would never cut into their one on one snuggle time with mom and dad. It seemed to help them.

I guess, for me, it often felt like diaper changing was the least of my parenting worries. When they were really little I felt like I could always pull of a quick change in the back of a car, but getting them to use a public bathroom - oh, gag! So I wasn't in a hurry and kind of left them to it. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but the are now 6 and 9 and I haven't thought about potty training in years. So right or wrong, we got through it. The less you beat yourself up in the process, the better, I think. It will happen... maybe on the magic date that is hidden from you.

[the milliner]

Ugh. We are here now. But, fingers crossed, coming very close to being day trained. DS is turning 3 tomorrow.

I'm so glad @Moxie pointed out how much conflicting advice there is and even incomplete advice. Potty training, so far, is the one thing that I have felt totally unprepared for, feel like I have no control over, and not sure what to do about in relationship to my kid's temperament (sensitive, slow to transition, doesn't like accidents/making mistakes etc.).

Also, I just can help but feel like one false move on my part and I will delay things significantly. I don't really feel like this about any other parenting issue. And, I must admit, that when we decided not to send DS to the must-be-trained Montessori school this fall, the pressure I felt was alleviated a lot. However, the amount of extra laundry with accidents is not my idea of fun. I'm thinking that maybe we should buy a new sofa (ours needs replacing soon anyhow) when DS is fully trained. Accidents on the wood floor or clothing is one thing. On the sofa though...argh.

It was the Moxie archives that helped me the most in making a plan, and I cobbled something together that has worked OK for us. I have books about many parenting subjects, but for some reason I just didn't want to read (other than Moxie) about potty training.

So, our data points: DS has been going through the potty training process for about 7 months. Daycare initiated when they noticed he was often dry in the day. We switched to pull-ups (I would have rather used cotton training pants, but the new daycare we switched to didn't accept them). In retrospect, we were really not ready at home to go full speed ahead into potty training. Lots was going on around here at the time. But, since DS was showing signs, I didn't want to hold him back.

For the first 6 months there was a lot of inconsistency. Especially at home. I'd finally had enough as it just felt like it was dragging and I knew we (the parents) had to buckle down and put some energy into it. So, I made a sticker chart for DS. The plan was to get him to be more consistent in going. So he gets a sticker every time he produces something (pee or poo) in the potty or on the toilet and after 6 stickers he gets to pick a small potty present (dollar store finds - art supplies, little books, etc). I also tried very hard to follow the timing they had at the daycare and to roll it into the routine as his teacher suggested.

The chart mostly works well for us in that it's not often a struggle to get him to go to the potty. We started on a weekend, and the chart's magical effects even got him to go to the potty at the playground (which he had never done before). Then...

Last Wed he decided that he wanted to wear underwear. I had run out of pull-ups and gave him the choice of cloth training pants or undies. He chose undies. So, forward we went. I was both anxious and excited - could this really be the beginning of the end?

I think he had about 3 accidents in 3 hours that night between 5pm - 8pm. And then he had a screaming fit when I tried to put a diaper on him for bedtime. Finally clued in that he wanted to wear undies to bed. Ooookkkaaay. So, I explained how it works (no water or BF after his last pee) and that if he woke up because he had to pee, he had to call for me to come and get him to go to the potty (he's still in a crib). We went back and forth to the bathroom 3x before bed. He actually lasted a whole 4 hours before wetting the bed. He was quite upset and requested a diaper. I didn't know if it would delay progress, but honestly, I was relieved.

He wore undies the next day to daycare and was really good in the am at home. No accidents in the car. He had 2 accidents that day, but overall did pretty good. Then Friday he got sick - food poisoning I think, so he wore a pull-up. Saturday and Sunday were birthday madness and he wanted to wear a pull-up. By Sun night I thought I had screwed up all the progress we made as he wasn't going to the potty much on Sat & Sun. But, low and behold, Mon am, he wanted to wear undies again. 3 accidents total. This morning, no accidents.

We'll see what the rest of the week brings.

Hang in there S. You're not alone!!!

Oh, and a few extra data points:

-DS pees sitting on the potty, or standing at the potty, or standing on the toilet or sitting on the toilet. Various things have worked at various times.

-On our first trip to the park bathroom, I took off one shoe, one pant leg and one side of the pull up and swung everything to the opposite side. DS stood on top of the toilet seat and peed. Most of the time this is what we do in public bathrooms (although I usually take his pants and shoes off now to avoid any accidents of stray pee). Most bathrooms are clean enough to manage this. And I make use of the baby change tables to do the undressing/pant & shoe storage when the floor is less than desirable. All of this means I don't have to cart around the fold-able kid seat that goes on top of the regular seat. Much more convenient.

[Andrea]

Just want to chime in that I've got a 2.5 yo boy who isn't anywhere near potty trained.

We tried for a while but after 5 days he lost interest and wouldn't even sit down.

We're a two-working parent household with a nanny who never potty trained anyone, so it's been a combination of ignorance and laziness around here.

One of these days I'm going to just get him some underwear and M&Ms and go for it again. We'll see.

[SG]

I have twins, and there is nothing like having twins to reassure you that they will frequently do their own thing, regardless of your parenting. One of my little ones was trained over a year ago, almost effortlessly, and the other one is still not into the concept. I could probably have trained the first one much earlier, but I waited because the other one wasn't ready.

[hush]

(Looks like my initial comment got eaten, so I will re-post..)

Hugs to you, S. Amen to what @BiteSizeTherapy said: "she always poops on the potty - that's great! Build from that. You're further along than you think." Pooping on the potty is really challenging for a lot of kiddos, so that's really awesome your kid has that part down pat! Woot!!

I also really agree with what @electriclady said about the benefits of reading the archives here, and that "anyone who says they never got angry when their kid had an accident is a lying liar." So true.

My favorite potty book (that I heard about here first, thank you Moxites!) is "Diaper Free Before 3" by Jill M. Lekovic, MD. Worth its weight in gold, although it may not be as valuable to you if you are grappling with a 3.5+ year old's power struggles. I love it because it is not one of those silly, ubiquitous guides about "how to train a kid in 48 hours by giving them craploads of sugar!" Amen @meggiemoo, those authors can bite me, too.

Lekovic's method involves getting started with "potty learning" when the kid is 1, by having a potty chair in the house, suggesting they sit on it occasionally, reading books while they sit on it, plus using nudity, cloth underpants and training pants to let them feel wetness, etc. It worked well for us, and we were particularly in awe of this method because it doesn't involve bribery with gifts, and/or using food as a reward or punishment; tools that I personally do not choose to include as part of my parenting, but YMMV - doing the exact opposite may just be the perfect thing for your kid!

DS started potty learning at 12 months and started potty training at 33 months. It took awhile, but was low stress and fit comfortably into our natural day-to-day routines. There were certainly many accidents and some power struggles on his journey - but by 37 months he was finally dry during the day. He's over 3.5 now, and plenty of his same-aged peers are still in diapers and pull-ups, which is perfectly normal, too!

DD started potty learning at 19 months, and we will probably be ready to start potty training this summer (she'll be 2 in October). Having an older sibling seems to make her want to use the potty. We have a bunch of all-in-one cotton and plastic training pants that we used to potty train DS at age 2.5 (because in our experience, like @meggimoo said upthread Pull-ups are expensive, are seen by the kid as identical to diapers, and don't allow the child to feel actual wetness - so we only used Pull-ups at night). We're thinking it will be a long process like it was with DS, but we're glad we can do it on DD's terms, and are hoping this will avoid power struggles down the line! There's an adage that the sooner you start, the longer it will take but the earlier you'll be all done.

Man, reading back over that I wish we had access to a daycare that would do some of this heavy-lifting for us! ;)

Oh, and @Kate, "Hershey Squirts" LOL, Iove it!!

[Ann]

We had a very tough time potty training my son and my pediatrician suggested this incentive: Buy a special toy, but be sure to call it "Mommy's toy" and put it up in a high, but visible place that's not accessible to the child. When the child is successful using the potty (for us it was pooping in the potty instead of holding it until he was totally constipated), give him a chance to use "Mommy's toy" for a short period 10 minutes, say. Keep repeating until success on potty becomes a habit.
In our case, we got a remote control car and overall, the method was relatively successful. It didn't make all potty issues disappear, but we did make progress and it seemed to work better than just giving our son a new toy. By making it "Mommy's toy," it was a privilege to use it every time, instead of just the first time. Good luck!

[Julesag]

We also went the route of not pushing the munchkin. He'll be 4 in August, and finally picked up the potty-training thing in January this year. We didn't have the daycare move up pressure, which helped. We introduced the potty when he was around 2, but he had no interest whatsoever (teachers confirmed). So we buckled down and tried to bootcamp over Thanksgiving last year (day 1 okay, day 2 SUCKED). Two days back in school, his teachers said he just wasn't ready, so we backed off and used pull-ups. Fast-forward 6 weeks in January when he asked for a specific Toy Story toy. Opportunity! I told him I'd buy him the toy if he "peed and pooped in the potty forever and ever." The first week he went through all of his extra clothes each day. He got the toy about 3 weeks after he started. But since then, he's probaby had 10 total accidents since then, and no poop accidents (100% trained during the day, still pull-ups at night). Now if managing his nearly 4-year-old mood swings was this easy for us ...

[CarrieH]

I just want to say that I'm so grateful to read all these responses and to hear about a kid like mine - he's pooped in the potty nearly 100% of the time since he was 16 months old, but at 2 years, 3 months, pee is a total free-for-all. My mom delights in reminding me that I was trained in one day: "There was a doll, and some raisins, and terrycloth underpants, and that was it!" Thanks.

My guy has days he wants underwear and stays totally dry, and days he pees his pants eight times. His daycare is totally committed to letting the kids be ready, no prompting, so he wears a pull-up there. It can be frustrating to have three dry days in a row with him over the weekend, and then go back to pull-ups, but the truth is that without hourly "hey, potty time!" reminders, he will have an accident.

We've tried letting him go naked ("Look Mommy, I'm pee-peeing on the floor!", repeat 5-10 times), buying awesome Cars underpants (whatevs), jellybeans (creating an insane begging-for-jellybeans habit). I've had to admit that my ego is wrapped up in this - he's smart, he's verbal, he's outgoing, what am I doing wrong that he won't do this?

At the moment I feel like there really is no way to make him go any faster than he's ready to go. In the morning I give him the option of peeing in the potty or putting on a pull-up, and he usually chooses the potty. When I'm home with him Fri-Sun, he wears underpants and seems to enjoy using the potty. It's a process, and not a one-day one, either.

[Kristie]

I was completely by potty training. In fact, my younger son (now 2 and 3 months) asked if he could pee on the potty and I told him, "No!" He is essentially going to have to beg me to potty train him.

But my daughter reminds me of S's little girl. At 16 months or so she was pooping on the potty. She would tell me she needed to poop and we would go. It was not even a thing. At about 2 years old she wanted to start peeing on the potty. I went with it even though I had a newborn at the time. Huge mistake. DO NOT try to potty train one child while you have a newborn!!!

Anyways, my daughter quickly learned she could get all my attention instantly by having an accident. And yeah, I completely lost it a few times over accidents. It took us months to work back to a place where she didn't feel like she could get attention (negative or positive) with an accident. But she didn't stop having regular accidents until she was nearly four. Also, at 4 and 4 months she is still not even close to being night trained.

One thing that did seem to help...my friend told me that if your child is constipated they sometimes can't feel or can't distinguish the sensation of needing to pee. We started giving my daughter prunes and everything seemed to click. No more accidents. Of course, it could have just been a developmental thing, too.

[Anon]

Well, I hate to use Moxie's site to promote products of any kind - I swear I'm not associated with it in any way - but we used Lora Jensen's 3 day potty training method after a series of fits and starts with our kiddo between 2-2.5. Doing it ourselves wasn't getting anywhere and we were getting really frustrated and alarmed and didn't know what to do. A friend recommended it and we bought it and did it to the letter, and for us (that's a big disclaimer obviously; as everyone has noted already there's no one-size-fits all solution) it worked beautifully. Z. rarely has accidents, takes himself to the potty (even in the middle of the night he will go on his own), he just gets it. It feels like a miracle to us - the one thing about parenting I was dreading the most and it kind turned out the easiest (eventually). Anyway, I'm just throwing it out there because it was helpful. Don't know if it would work for anyone else. The three days were intense, but it had clicked for him before the end of the third day (that was almost four months ago). her method includes going straight to underpants - throwing the diapers away. I was terrified of night time accidents, but we only had two (in row, there have been one or two randomly since then). We have a small baby, so getting up in the middle of the night wasn't so bad.

[BiteSizeTherapy]

@CarrieH - You are not doing anything wrong! For his age, it sounds like your son is doing great overall.

The vast majority of kids will have accidents without regular reminders. Kids need to be reminded about everything - meals, manners, behavior, hand-washing - the potty is no different.

[Elizabeth]

My son trained pretty easily at 2.5. My daughter is 26 months and we are following her lead: she wears underwear around the house for a couple of hours a day and a diaper the rest of the time. She can poop and pee on the potty but we are being a bit relaxed (too relaxed?) about the whole thing. She doesn't seem 100% ready to me but maybe she is. I've been waffling about whether to just go all out and go straight to underwear during the day or whether to keep muddling along and using some of both and seeing what happens.

Who knows? I don't want to 'miss this window of readiness' but I don't want to push it and set her up for 'failure.'

Advice?

[Karen]

Similar to some of the above comments, we introduced the potty at about 12 months and would just sit DD on it when she had a diaper change, on the off chance that she'd do something. When, after a couple of months, she finally did pee in it, we threw a mini party of celebration to make an impression on her.

After that, she slowly learned to push in her bottom to put something into the potty, and since she's the type of kid who seems to poop by the clock, we just put her on the potty right after breakfast every day and she'd poop into it, no problem.

We waited until she was 29 months to pee train, because that was when we had a blizzard and it was convenient to stay home for a few days. We stashed away all diaper-related items (including changing pad, etc.) and switched her to panties. We had many accidents the first few days, and found that she could only hold her pee for 15 minutes at first. Gradually she figured it out and learned to hold her bladder and by day 5 we had a day without accidents, though she was still going every 30 minutes. Those first few days she got a sticker on a chart every time she peed and when the chart was full she got to play a game with us (which is her favorite thing).

(Oh, and we had some regressions and yelling and an incident in the zoo parking lot that I want to block from my memory forever...)

Now it's been almost 5 months since we started and she's 98% day trained and about 10% night trained, wearing pull-ups at night. Looking back on it all, she was easy to train, but in the middle of it sometimes it feels interminable and hellish.

2-year-olds have very little control over their lives...where they go each day, the rules of physics and of the house, access to tantalizing objects placed out of reach by parents, etc. But they have a lot of control over 3 things...sleep, eating, elimination. They do tend to make the most of the control they have!

[Alex]

I started practicing EC with my boy at 6 months precisely because I'm completely afraid of the traumas of potty training. He's now 9 months and makes most of his poops in the potty or toilet, with me holding him of course, and he will pee in them too almost every time I give him the opportunity. He still wears diapers and I don't see him being diaper free anytime soon. I just want him to be familiar with the idea of using the potty and I want him to be sensitive to the signals his body gives him to tell him he has to go. I guess the ultimate goal is that we never have to do potty training and it just becomes part of the natural progression of what we're doing now.

[erialc]

I don't know what internet guru commenter wrote it first, but I think if I met them I might fall on their neck and kiss them- she wrote "you can start at 18 months or 3 and either way they'll finish when they're 3" which in our house looked more like 3.5, but it certainly took the pressure off me to feel like I had to start at all before he was 3.

I think that advice, and the advice my paediatrician gave me "Never fight about food or toileting, its the 2 things kids can & will use to fight a control battle - opt out before it starts." are the things that saved my sanity at the time.

But also parents who don't admit the huge frustration level of potty training - lying lying liars. Which is why there's no point starting until you can see an end in sight - don't beat yourself up, you can't hurry learning and you don't want to get caught in a control fight.

[wealhtheow]

Moxie, I don't know if you remember but you talked (or rather tweeted) me off the ledge during potty training. A friend had given me a method by which a kid should be potty-trained in 3 days. For my kid, the basic mechanism of this method was sound (putting him in underwear so he could feel when he was going) but the idea that it would happen in 3 days wasn't.

And it DID feel like I was failing. It was awful--and even though looking back I can see the whole process wasn't really that bad, in the middle of it it felt like my world had narrowed to my son's bodily functions, and it was so discouraging and frustrating and exhausting.

But at the end of the day, I think you need to follow your gut. My gut said my kid was ready for this step (and he was, it just took some adjustments).

[Jac]

@Anon, we used the same method and my son was daytime trained at 23 months. We started at 22 months. I'm not a lying liar when I say it was I've never been angry over an accident, because they have been few and far between. But, I also agree that everyone has a parenting pass and a parenting nightmare. Potty training was my pass. Sleep was my nightmare issue.

[Jessica]

When my older son was 2.5, we thought we might try to potty train him. He was already big for his age, in size 7 diapers, and his butt was too big for the little potties. Well, after a week of undies one day (three accidents per day), diapers the next (because he was afraid of accidents), culminating in a Friday where he held his pee so long it hurt, we gave up. He didn't potty train until he was 3.5. You want to talk about being too big for diapers? Try my 90th+ percentile son at 3.5. Sigh. His preschool teacher told me at a conference that he was ready, and just send him the next day to school in underwear. I'm not lying when I say it took about three days - Friday through Sunday - for him to work it out. And he's never *never* had a daytime accident since those first three days of practice (he'll be 5 in October).

Now his little brother is 2.5, and I'm wondering if it's time again. I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy with a third son, and I have fantasies of having only one kid in diapers. But then I think how we hated having to jump up in the middle of dinner, or traipse ALL. THE. WAY. ACROSS. WALMART. whenever those frightening words ("Daddy? I have to go poop.") crossed our son's lips. We're lazy. I dread the idea of cleaning up pee accidents with a 9-month belly. (Plus, our whole house is carpeted...) I am terrified at the thought of a poo accident at Starbucks. Or *GACK* in the car! Especially since once my older son was ready, he didn't have any accidents!

So, son #2 has a little potty. Occasionally he wants to "sit on my pobby," but he doesn't produce. I'll have him sit before his bath, he'll do nothing, get up, get in the bath, look down at his penis, and out comes the pee. So he recognizes the sensation, but doesn't know how to "make" it start. In fact, the first time he sat on his "pobby," he asked me to "help" him. "Help me, Mommy. Where the pee?" Yeah. Cute, though.

My older son is still in a pull-up at night, mostly for his own peace of mind. He's terrified of having an accident at night, even though he's dry 59 nights out of 60 (I'm not kidding - he wets his pull up at night maybe once every two months.) I don't think it's a big deal for a <5-year-old to wear a pull up at night. Who's gonna know? If he does happen to have an accident, he gets up, changes his pull up, and goes back to sleep. I remember my parents night-training me, so I must have been at LEAST 4, probably older. Some kids just don't have the right set of hormones up and running to stay dry while sleeping, or they sleep too soundly to be alerted to the sensation. There's no shame in that, and no reason to pressure them, or yourself! I do appreciate the suggestion above (change yourself, put down a towel, tell me in the morning), though, for when we do take the dive to undies at night. :)

My friend's son had trouble potty training until he was motivated by his best friend at day care moving up to the preschool class. He wanted to move up, too, so he consented to be potty trained. Heh. This incentive didn't work for my son, unfortunately, but, as I say about almost any milestone, from talking to sleeping through the night ... every kid is different!

[Elaine]

I'm reading these comments and thinking that perhaps my nonchalant attitude around potty training might actually be confusing him. Basically we follow his lead.

He just turned 3 and he is mostly in diapers. Well over a year ago he sat on his potty chair and got pinched, so now he won't sit on anything. When he is in the mood at home ( hanging around the house with nothing on below the waist) he will stand to pee in the big toilet. But he will go get a diaper and hand it to me when he has to poop. And forget it when we're out. We have a little kid's toilet seat that goes on the toilet, but he won't sit on it - we're thinking about bribing him with M&M's to even get him to sit on it.

He also will NOT put on the new undies we got him. Oh, he loves to look at them, identify the super heroes. But will.not.wear.them.

So I don't push any of it. I know the motor control is there because he holds it when he is waiting for a new diaper (that is maddening - to hear your 3 year old peeing in the new diaper less than 5 seconds after you've put it on them).

I point out when the boys at play dates are wearing big boy underwear. I encourage him to go diaperless at home and do big boy pee-pees, but if he says he wants the diaper I give it to him. I take him into the little kid's bathroom at the library when we are there to show him the cool teeny toilet. He always declines my offer to help him use it, but I ask anyway. One of the reasons I chose not to do preschool in the fall is that none of them will take him if he isn't trained and I won't turn this into a battle of wills. I have 6 nieces and nephews. Not one of them was fully potty trained before 3.5.

So am I being too much of a slacker about this? I don't know. Maybe I need to try some rewards and see how that effects his process.