Thursday, June 26, 2008
Potty training woes
We have started working with Matthew on potty training. He's been doing pretty well the past few days and pees in his little toilet whenever he feels the urge without prompting. He did have a few accidents at first, but I made him clean up his own mess and I think that helped. He has been going around the house bare-bottomed which probably has been helping too. I am now trying out underwear to see how that works. He wore it 2 evenings ago to the playground and had an accident so we had to come home and clean up the mess. Last night we decided to brave the playground in underwear. We also knew he has been saving up some poop because he doesn't want to do it in the toilet. We still haven't been able to get him to poop in the toilet yet. He usually waits until I put a diaper on him to go to bed or for a nap or to go to the playground to poop. Well, the kids were having fun at the playground and we were mainly paying attention to Corinne since she's a little daredevil on the playground equipment and likes to dangle off of 6 ft platforms and hang from bars. After about 15 minutes Matthew approaches me and says "poop mess." I look at his pants and notice that yes, they're wet and he had an accident and then felt his bottom and noticed a sizeable lump. So we head home to clean up the mess and yes, Matthew walked all the way with saggy underwear. When we got home I had him flush his lump down the toilet and clean up as much of the mess as he could under my supervision and then he had a bath to finish up the cleaning job. I read somewhere that having the child clean up their own accidents gives them more incentive not to make more. We'll have to see if it works. Any suggestions on getting a child to poop in the toilet or getting them used to underwear? I'm trying hard to have Matthew fully potty trained before #3 comes.
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7 comments:
Good luck. You're brave to try undies at the park! Will still hasn't done poops in the toilet and he's almost 3! Most seasoned moms tell me they just wait until the child is ready. I make Will do peepees before bed and at a few other times, but beyond that, I hate the fight! I don't know, but I'll be checking back to see if anyone else does.
That's a great idea about having them clean up their own mess (with your help).
With the girls' I would take them to the store and let them pick out whatever underwear they wanted. That way they were excited about it, even if they were the more expensive kind. At this stage, you want them to WANT to wear underwear no matter what the cost. :)
Also, invite a boy over that is potty trained to come and play for a long period of time (so that a couple of potty trips were completed). Just by seeing that other kiddo with underwear on is a huge example and usually they want to copy. This really helped with Brynlee because her best buddy (1 yr older than her) was already potty trained and Brynlee wanted to be like her!
During the potty training stage, I usually made sure that I cut out EVERYTHING I could off my schedule for a two week period so that we were home almost the entire time until they had their potty training under good control. It's worth it.
For Brynlee we also rewarded 1 M&M for pee pee (which was her favorite candy) and 2 M&M's for poo poo. I had the candy in a jar on a shelf in the bathroom so she got immediately rewarded. After awhile we phased out the candy because she no longer needed it. Candy didn't motivate our 2nd girl though, she just loved praise.
Good luck! He'll get it. You're doing great!
Ding Dongs worked for Aaron. (Great bribe, plus it's about the same size as poop.) After being awarded a ding dong twice, he had the poop in the toilet thing mastered!
All I can say is, "Good Luck with that". I was not able to train mine until about three. And Tanner was closer to four than three.
Zach wasn't potty trained until about 4 1/2. His motivation was they wouldn't let him start preschool until he was. He just didn't want to. I was about ready to just put him in the yard and let nature take its course
-Dallin
One of the things I did that worked well with both my kids was setting aside one or two days that we stayed home and worked on it. I kept them completely naked and gave them lots of juice (what ever flavor they wanted) until they recognized the urge and used the potty on their own. For the "poopies" by the second day, they could no longer hold it, and because they were naked and it had nowhere else to go, the potty became their only option. Both of my kids were fully trained after this, including night time trained. It was a miserable few days, but ultimately worth it. Also, I hear boys just click at 3 when it comes to potty training. That was certainly the case for mine. Good Luck!
While potty training Anna I read her a few books on the potty since she loved sit for a minute, hop off, then pee her pants. Maybe if he hangs out on there a while he'll go. Good luck, I don't envy you! :)
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