toilet training

Cottontail

this question has probably been asked before but we will soon be toilet training our 2.5 yr old son and not sure how to go about it. He knows what the toilet is for etc and sometimes tells us he has to go to the toilet and when you take off his nappy he will do his wee in the toilet so it's a good start. poo is a different story though, even when you know he's in the middle of one he'll tell you he's not doing it!!
so, how to toilet train, do you bring him and sit him on the potty every half hour, or what exactly do you do? also, how do you manage if you want to leave the house for any length of time?? It'll be great not to have to change his nappies any more, but I'm not looking forward to the toilet training process!

Fatscally

Toddler's are sometimes surprisingly self conscious when doing a poop. Our one tells us she wants to go potty, we strip her and sit her on the potty (toilet now) and she tells us "Bye!", which clearly means please leave now. If you re-enter too soon she'll tell you "Bye" again.

I've heard a tonne of stories about how to teach them including letting them walk around dirty so that they don't like how it feels but honestly what I felt worked most was by telling her over and over for a couple of months to do her pooey "here" while pointing to the potty. "We don't do weewees in our nappy now, we do our weewees on the potty! When you want to do weewees tell Daddy or tell Mammy" Sometimes we did our pooeys together thus showing her it's normal to do it this way (and not in a nappy). Eventually it clicks.

Talk about it with Elmo and Dora books.

Like all things patience is key. And don't worry he'll get there and it's such a reward when he poops on the big toilet eventually and you don't have to do a thing )

Hannibal Smith

Well...I'm not sure what the correct process of doing it is, but this is what I did, there maybe something in it you can work with.

Pick a stretch of about 4 days where you're not going anywhere. We made the mistake of putting underpants and trousers on....needless to say, it just led to more washing, so we ditched that idea after day 1 Then every 15 mins we asked if he needed to go to the toilet and say every 30 mins bring him to it, if he hasn't gone.

We got a few gold stars and every time he did a pee he got a gold star, when he got 5 gold stars he got a prize. Something small about 2 euro lego or something.

Sometimes kids aren't ready. The first time we tried potty training he wasn't ready....I only twigged this when I saw him standing in front of me peeing goodo and he didn't even realise, so I thought if he doesn't twig he's peeing, no point in pushing it. So we stopped and a few months later tried again. When we tried it again he took to it no problem. Very few accidents, compared to the first time!

Poos are a totally different ball game and they usually get that a while after the wees. He did it once in the potty and scared the life out of himself and never did it again for a good while. That was one of the reasons we changed to training him in the toilet rather than the potty, because cleaning the potty afterwards was too gross We were lucky in that the crafty beggar kept his poos for his night time nappy, which meant we had very little poopy trousers to clear up. Just to add, we'd change the nappy straight after he pooped and didn't leave him in it!

We didn't go anywhere for the four days and the first few times we put a pull up on. After that he peed before he left and that was it, we didn't look back.

If he's ready for it, you'll never look back!

Cottontail

Thanks for the replies, some good ideas there. I know he's ready for it, we'll be doing it in about 4 weeks time. He's starting playschool in sept and one of the pre-requisites is that he's toilet trained. Hopefully he'll be well on the way by then!

caprilicious

Hannibal, that's gas my little girl does the same. She keeps her poo til her bed time pull up, or if she has underwear on a the time she'll ask for them to be put on so she can have her poo :rolleyes:

She got the weeing in the potty bit really fast, the no. 2 is very hit or miss though!

Cottontail good luck with the training, it's great getting them out of nappies

brianbaru

Unfortunately we found that it's perseverance. Decide one day when you are going to do it and take off the nappies. Bring them every 30 mins and keep doing that. Make a game out of the whole thing. It took us two weeks! But it just clicked with them out of the blue and that was it (apart from the odd accident.

Hannibal Smith

It took him ages to get it. Nothing worked...not even the star system lol. It just clicked one day. I never thought a poo could make me so happy lol