Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I also agree with the poster who pointed out that there is a "window" of early readiness, and it is earlier than many people think. We hear about the terrible twos, but my three-year-olds were far more stubborn and willful than they had been at two. Jump on potty training at two, and it may not be nearly as bad as you are thinking. Wait until three, and then you are dealing with a child who is more likely to resist just for the sake of exerting his or her independence.
Except of course by your own posts, you never potty trained a child after the age of 2.5
Sorry but I'll rely on my personal experience rather than your speculation and non-experience on this particular point
It is not common. Ask his mom about it in a non judgemental way, and see what she says.
I imagine his lack of interest is because when she normally would have worked on this, she did not. Perhaps she told him he didn’t have to use the potty yet.
If this is a problem for you, I think you could justifiably give her notice.
Except of course by your own posts, you never potty trained a child after the age of 2.5
Sorry but I'll rely on my personal experience rather than your speculation and non-experience on this particular point
LOL! Your personal experience is after the age of 3.5; you are only speculating that potty training your son at an earlier age would have been an ordeal.
I'm sure we can both provide many anecdotes of parents to support our theories, both those who started too early and had trouble, or who started too late and had resistant kids.
But since you apparently have only one child and I have three, maybe we can at least agree that my "personal" experience is three times greater than yours.
So you do have a lot of children who "decide" to use the toilet at 3.5, and then you have the ones that are almost the age for kindergarten, where they expect kids to be reading and writing, for heaven's sake, and they are still in diapers.
I found that by starting potty training when *I* thought they were ready, at two or two and a half, it was about two weeks of effort. Not six months. As I said, my kids were all different, but I do have three and they were all trained no later than 2.5. And while my friends were still buying and changing diapers for another year or more, we were long done with that. That alone was worth the two weeks of potty training.
This.
It all comes down to parent led vs. child led training. There's nothing wrong with parent led training. You don't have to use force either. What it means is starting the process and laying the ground work and putting in the time to lay said ground work. Introduce the potty/potty chair after eating/drinking. Learn the bathroom habits of your child (i.e. ten minutes after drinking, there's a wet diaper for example). Teaching the kid to communicate that they need to pee/poop, even if it's in the diaper). If the kid resists, cut the process short and sweet. Offer rewards. It's a process. Even if it doesn't result in no diapers for weeks, you're laying the framework for recognizing the need to go to the bathroom.
It was a lot of work with our second daughter. Amazingly it wasn't the initial training that was hard. The first time resulted in a soiled floor, but subsequent attempts were successful. At the very least she was learning to be aware of her body. There were regressions for several months and it had nothing to do with her being "not ready" when we trained and everything to do with not wanting to be interrupted while playing to use the bathroom and lost motivation. It was far easier to pee and poop in the pullup and have someone readily change you. We didn't have to keep our oldest in pullups for a long time, but we had to use them for several months with our youngest. (She refused to wear diapers and actually got red faced mad when her grandfather threatened to return her to diapers when she had an accident). Ultimately the accidents stopped when she was exposed to her trained peers.
A while ago someone on here advised parents to make the kids clean themselves up if they still chose to use diapers at an older age. If your kid is old enough to reason and respond, he'll catch on.
Boys learn later than girls, three and half is not uncommon. Just have him change himself, especially if he's the type that doesn't want to stop what they're doing to go. Btw, bedwetting can continue for years with boys.
There is really nothing that fires up the forum like potty training and circumcision, is there? Here's a potty training story that hopefully will lighten things up. Years ago, I had an acquaintance who lived on a rural plot of land that he mowed with a tractor, and it was his habit to "water a tree" rather than trudge back to the house to use a toilet. One day, he took his young son out with him to ride on the tractor, and after a bit he needed to empty his bladder, so he proceeded to his usual spot and lowered his trousers to do his business while his young son remained seated atop the tractor mower. (Reader, I'm sure you can imagine by now where this is going.) So a few days later, my acquaintance hears a slightly panicked voice from his pre-teen daughter, "Dad.?..Dad?...Dad?....DAD! Jimmy is in my room, and HE"s NAKED!" Jimmy was a little too young, I guess, to understand the not-so-subtle difference between a tree outside and the wall of his sister's room, and he was happily peeing in the corner of her bedroom and very proud to be taking care of himself.
That young man is now in his mid-twenties, and if their family is anything like ours, I'm sure this story is recounted at Thanksgiving dinner every year.
My older three were toilet trained in 3-4 days, diaper-free from day one, at 19 months, 27 months and 30 months (boy). All very agreeable and it was, shockingly, a smooth and easy process. No charts, no stickers and no pull-ups. They were easy-going toddlers and were physically, mentally and emotionally ready.
Enter my almost 4 year old. Definitely not agreeable. Spirited, stubborn and likes her routine. It's not that she couldn't, it's just that she didn't want to, because it was less "work" for her to just continue using diapers. By kid #4, I was just...meh. I was in no rush. I was very pregnant with #5 when she turned three and just wasn't in a rush. (despite my MIL's incessant annoyance over the issue when she herself did not toilet train her own kids. Daycare did it.) Having a very good grasp on current early childhood development and readiness, I knew she would eventually decide when she was good and ready. It would be her decision.
And sure enough, she just decided to start going #2 in the toilet. She picked out the toilet seat, underwear and we purchased a chart with stickers, because she is the type that responds well to this form of positive reinforcement and visually tracking her progress. Going #1 on the toilet took more time since there were a couple times she was embarrassed for making a mess (didn't sit on the seat properly) and didn't want to feel like that again. We didn't push it. Just gave her gentle encouragement and positive reinforcement. Then she just decided she was going to use the toilet 100% of the time. No real effort on our part. No power struggles. Easy-peasy. Given her personality and temperament, it was the best approach.
I've been babysitting this 3 1/2 year old boy and shows zero interest in potty training. He's still stuck in diapers. His parents says he refuses to wear underwear or pull-ups. I would of thought by 3 kids are usually showing some interest in potty training or getting close to potty trained unless there was some medical issue going on. The boy I'm caring for has zero interest in getting out of diapers. When he wakes up, I'll ask him do you want to try the potty? His response, no, I don't have to. So, I'm like okay and let it be. He's seems to talk well enough for his age so not sure what his deal is.
Not judging, just curious. I have babysat other 3 year olds in the past and they all were either potty trained or in the process by 3 1/2 during the day. He's the first 3yr. old kid I've cared for that was still in diapers during the day. Far as I know, the boy doesn't have any medical issues. His mom doesn't seem too concerned by it that he's still content being in diapers.
Even when I worked in daycare long time ago, kids had to be potty trained during the day before graduating to the Three's room. Not sure often he's around other children his age. He does have a younger sister close to year old.
Yuck! Who the hell keeps a child in diapers until 3 1/2? I don’t know, I didn’t hang around and wait until my children told me they’d like to have a go at using a toilet! They couldn’t even go into the older 2s class at Mother’s Day Out if they weren’t in underwear. All mine were in underwear by 2. A 3 1/2 year old in diapers is disgusting and LAZY PARENTING. When I was babysitting, there is no way in hell I’d been changing diapers on a kid that age.
My kids were all poop potty trained at 3ish, but my middle child who is my second son was not pee potty trained until he was 4. He simply wasn't interested. I tried the fun toilet tricks. They didn't work. What finally happened is that we had some prairie dogs and ground squirrels invade our back yard with their little tunnels. I had my boys pee into the holes which they thought was a lot of fun. My middle child was fully potty trained shortly after that.
There is a window of opportunity with most babies that is easy to miss. It is A LOT earlier than we give them credit for....not just for potty training, but for things like feeding spoon skills. They want to copy what the parents are doing. I see this already with my 8 month old granddaughter wanting to feed herself with a spoon..
I agree. My experience with relatives and friends is that a lot of parents actually discourage developmental milestones like that, in the name of cleanliness/easiness. For example - my sister-in-law used to hold her toddler son hands so he wouldn't get them in the way when she fed him, until after his first birthday. She said she couldn't handle the mess and inefficiency of him feeding himself. There were other things as well. FTR - he's a preteen now and just fine and dandy, so it's not like these decisions must have lifetime horrible repercussions. They're pretty much only important for a short window of time.
My own daughter showed pretty subtle signs she was ready to toilet train the summer she reached 2 1/2. Even then I noted that I was lucky I listened to her, because it would have been easier for me to miss or ignore the signals. Finding a bathroom NOW! when out and about is way harder than eventually changing a diaper, until they have the ability to hold it better. But she was ready, and nightime dry from pretty much the get go.
Last edited by bondaroo; 09-14-2018 at 09:04 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
