October 18, 2005

• Porta potty, tied to rear at all times. heh To the point; offspring knows this has become 'an issue' with mater. You could try change of focus and let said offspring stew in own poo/juice. The game, though smelly and frustrating for you, will soon pall for the offspring .. er .. in theory! Natural for small people to want to control own body functions since little people are very aware they are at the mercy of the bigs. Suggestion; the more choices you allow the smart small person in small things, (clothes for intance) the more co-operation you may receive with the larger. Alternatively, be prepared and always take porta-potty along with pup.
• Musical potty. Potty with Elmo.
• My experience is that it just takes a whole lot of time and perseverance. Getting them to remain on the potty for a sufficient length of time can be difficult. Try to get a book to read to them whilst they sit there. We actually got a book specifically about going to the toilet. (Scatology for the very young) Obviously lots of encouragement / reward if they deposit. One good way to reward behaviour is sticker charts, kids love stickers, one star for a number one, two for a .... you get the picture. Once they get 10/20 stars buy them a chocolate or treat. Peer pressure, the kids in the nursery were all toilet trained so the wee man wanted to be the same. we had him trained early as possible as nappies were way too expensive for us to continue to buy in bulk. It will be a big load off your shopping budget.
• one more thing. He may have a dislike of potties. You can buy seats that fit on your regular toilet that may not have the same stigma. I would suggest hes big enough to use one. Plus you get the added bonus of not having the clean the potty out.
• I've never had to train a whelp myself, but my father tells that he just let me watch him and my mom. I saw what the Big People were doing, and I wanted to do it too. That's what they tell me, anyway.
• Those padded toilet seats Peacy mentioned do appear to work well, if you're not using them. I also find that copious amounts of bourbon will loosen your child's bowels.
• My brother in law has a little boy who was toilet trained with jelly beans as a reward. The jar sat on the bathroom counter and he'd get a couple of jelly beans if he went potty. One night a big group of us came over for dinner, and one guy excused himself to use the bathroom. When he came out, my nephew asked him very loudly, "Did you get your jelly beans?" Candy is a big incentive for kids. Use what works for your child - lollipops, M&Ms, etc. But only reward for results, not effort. Soon the "effort" will be just that, without any results, and you'll be out of candy and right back to square one.
• My sister-in-law invented The Potty Dance, a silly dance that they'd do in the living room every time my niece successfully dropped one in the toilet. It worked pretty well -- kids'll do almost anything if you turn it into a game or somehow make it silly.
• They do that at weddings, don't they?
• http://www.pottytrainingtips.com/
• Our kids are now well beyond this age, but waaaay back when, there was a book called Potty Training in 24 hours (not to be confused with the book PT in 3 days). I can't sem to find it with google-fu, but I'll keep looking. You'll probably have your child trianed by then, but as I recall, it required the parent to watch for signs--much like one does training a dog to go outside--then working positively to make sure the child took advantage of the opportunity and praising the hell out of them. Sure as heck don't want to create another Diaper-Man.
• Thanks for all your advice. (Altho' I think I'll take a pass on the bourban idea,MCS.) (OTOH, a Potty Dance might be worth a shot!) The only thing I really haven't tried yet is reinforcment with videos. That might help a little. It seems to be his nature to not want to do things until he's certain he can do them the 'right' way, so I'm afraid this process will continue for a while.
• Thanks for the link, Possum!
• MCS Missle-class stool. Heh!
• Sure as heck don't want to create another Diaper-Man. Oh god. Add that to the list of things that are keeping me up at night...
• my father tells that he just let me watch him and my mom. I saw what the Big People were doing, and I wanted to do it too Yeah that's how my dad told me 'bout the birds and the bees.
• Training. Oh, yes we remember the times. You will do a lot of laundry. Accept it. Keep an eye on him for signs, and then send him to the bathroom Right Away. The Toilet Training in 48 Hours, or some such book, was looked at by us and our friends. We renamed it The Nazi Potty Training Book.
• "Fire on the Toilet, its made slaves of you all. Iíve seen it sitting in there, lazy slothful porcelain lay-about, feeding on other peopleís doo-dooís while contributing nothing of itís own to society. YOU GET A JOB!" -Stewie
• Monkeyfilter presents: The Potty Dance!!
• Wait. I guran-fucking-tee you it won't be an issue when he is 6.
• What pikestrider said. The less pressure from you, the more likely he'll do it on his own. And it's not unusual for kids to reach 5 or 6 before they are toilet trained. Get a portapotty and / or one of those seats that fit onto a normal toilet. Show him where they are and talk to him about how to use them. If he wants to try, just let him sit on the potty. He'll eventually figure out the rest. If he's getting frustrated, don't let him sit there forever. Just tell him that you're glad he tried and that he can try again later. --Pat
• Everyone above has brilliant ideas, and since I've just gone through this with my son I can vouch for all of them, combined. :) I was wussing out about potty-training until a friend told me I needed to bite the bullet and just do it. I wasn't keen to wash poopy underwear. Turns out he doesn't actually do that. But I just put him in big kids' underwear one day and told him that from now on he needed to go potty. Every two-three hours at first I'd persuade him to sit (bribing with a book or video) and pretty much every time he'd do something, so he stayed dry for a surprising length of time, like three days (still in nappies at night, of course). In the last three weeks I can recall maybe half a dozen "accidents". Let him come in the bathroom when you're in there (let them come in whenever they start showing interest, although it's obviously a little late for your trainee), and keep the potty in the bathroom for all the right associations (plus the transition from potty to toilet is easier if they're in the same room from the get-go). Make sure that when he's sitting on the toilet, he has a firm base for his feet so he feels safe up there. We got a pre-made star chart with four rows of seven blank squares. Every time our son used the toilet or potty successfully, he got a star. At the end of a row he got a treat, which was a bowl of icecream after dinner. At first it took a week to fill a row, and by the last row he filled it in a day and a half. We also pointed out friends of his that we knew were potty-trained -- it didn't really seem to matter to him but it may work for your son. One thing that worked for him was giving him silly reasons to want to use the toilet: if he wanted to poop, he'd get all excited about making a big splash in the toilet. I read somewhere about putting food colouring in the toilet water, so they can pee in it and make it change colour (blue --> green, for example). I also think jereboam might be on the money; you need to wind it back a little. If he pees in his pants, change him without a word. If it suits you, let him get used to the discomfort of wet pants, so he realises it's better to be dry. I could have waited, but the cost of nappies is insane, plus I want my son to go to preschool early next year and they require kids to be able to use the toilet by themselves. If those sorts of things aren't issues and you don't mind changing nappies, I'm sure it would be fine to wait.
• My son is 3.5, too, and is just now mastering the skill. He only started about two months ago. No matter what we did, it didn't work. We were a bit frantic because we, too, wanted to make sure he could get in to preschool (I can't believe they start at 3 years old, now) without much problem. Our solution, just in case, was to put him in pull-ups at school and hope that he felt motivated enough to go just like the other kids. It worked very well. But, honestly, the thing that worked the best of all......Dad's enthusiasm in Logan's potty success and having Lo go into the bathroom with him. Dad was the key. Anyways, don't stress.........you will have many messes to clean up--no way around it. And he'll get it when he is good and ready.
• I've never had anything to do with any of this (except presumably I learned somewhere myself) but it just struck me - I've seen a pretty good number of discussions of potty training, but I can't recall a single one that centered around a girl child. Is there any sense to that or am I just hallucinating? Do girls have it easier?
• I hear that girls potty-train more easily than boys. But I don't know if that's an urban legend that comes true because the parents believe it and hence make a bigger deal of it for boys.