Potty training (Read 563 times)

Ok I'm asking advice from all those parents out there.. My oldest daughter is just around 20 months and we're trying to start the potty training thing.. We know that in a few months we will have other things to worry about with the youngest daughter, ie walking and stuff, and we just don't want things to go to the wayside.. any advice on getting started? here's just a few things to know.. 1. Mom is at work 5 days a week during the day so it's me. No way to show by example. :-) 2. For some reason she gets scared, like it's a punishment or something. Any other time she thought it was fun. The sooner we can get started the less diapers I have to change and let me tell you, I won't be complaining. Thanks in advance.

As the father of 5 I can speak from experience. Each child has a different time schedule and you have to be patient. I would just continue to encourage her to use the potty and one day the light bulb will go off in her head and she'll start. Being afraid to use it was always a challenge in our house. Kids think they are going to fall in. Try having her sit on it with her clothes on until she feels confident that she won't fall in. Once that happens I think your over the hump. Mr. Mom

ITA with Sully - we couldn't rush our kids into potty training. One of them took FOREVER! Getting upset or impatient with them does no good at all. In the long run, it goes much more smoothly when it's in their time frame - months of struggling is no fun! Good luck - before you know it, they will be learning to drive.

DD7 was easy. Candy and sticker rewards worked like a charm. My DS5 made it difficult, but I learned a lot. He showed just the slightest bit of interest so we jumped on it. After 2 months of attempts we chose to take a break. We were making ourselves crazy, coming up with new ways to keep the kid motivated. What happened. The little PITA decided after 2 weeks of us backing off that he would do it on his own. He trained 100%, day and night. Yes, he is our more difficult child, stubborn as $h!+, strong-willed, hard headed, but absolutely brilliant. He certainly taught us about the differences between children, and to never compare them. We will hopefully be ready when DS2 is ready to potty train...any day now (crosses fingers). Good luck. Remember to not push her too hard. She'll do it when she's ready (and right after you've just bought a new package of diapers )

The light bulb went off for our 2 year old son when we purchased the Elmo Potty Video and some Elmo underwear. Needless to say - we saw that video more times than we wanted but he understood the process. Plus - it was always funny to hear us say "do not poop or pee on Elmo". Good luck. A potty trained child is a great thing .... Kevin

we had a hard time with our son. He was never bothered by dirty diapers...finally at around 2.5 years old we had to tell him that we don't have anymore diapers...after about two weeks of minor accidents here and there, he is now good to go.

We did stickers on the calendar, which worked pretty well--you could do larger rewards for certain #s of stickers/week. And lots of cheering.

that's a Great idea.

of course, when you are all happy that you're child is potty-trained, you get stuck in horrendous traffic and you hear the dreaded 'daddy...i have to go poopoo', then commence driving like a maniac to the next rest stop or McDonalds.