Moms of boys - potty training questions

ECUGirl2004

I have a lot of questions!  I hope ya'll don't mind!

First off, how did you decide that your son was ready to start potty training?  What level of interest was he showing?  How old was he?

When you started potty training, how did you go about it? Did you use pull-ups or underpants around the house?  Did you follow a potty schedule?

When do boys go from sitting on the potty, to standing up to pee?  How on earth do you make that transition?

Nate's potty interest has been increasing recently, to the point where he'll say he wants to go potty and then he'll take his pants off and head to the bathroom.  It's not consistent at all, but I wonder if it will be without us encouraging him more (we celebrate when he uses the potty, but we don't ask him to use it much, except before bath or if he's obviously trying to poop). 

mrsmikey

It was all so gradual, I don't even know when to define "started".  We just had the potty in the bathroom, and he started out just sitting on it before bath.  When he actually started peeing in it we started sitting him on it more and more, just whenver we felt like it or whenever he wanted to.  They also started a potty schedule at daycare in the 2 year class.  They encouraged (but didn't force) him to go every hour.  So we started doing that at home too.  Sometimes he'd go, but not always.  And then he just started going more and more and it got to the point where everytime he'd sit, he'd go.  He was still wetting his diapers too though, and never told us he had to pee.  We started doing M&M rewards too.  We also read lots of potty books.

One day daycare said they just thought he was ready.  Like I said, he was still wetting his diapers alot and never told us he had to pee, but I think it was because he didn't understand the need to stay dry.  So we just did it, cold turkey.  One Monday morning I sent him to daycare in underwear.  From that day forward he only wore underwear except during naps and nighttime.  He had lots of accidents at first, several a day.  But he just started having them less and less.  And then when he stopped having accidents (for the most part) we started letting him nap in his underwear too.  It took awhile before he would tell us he had to pee.  They kept on that every hour schedule at daycare, and at home we'd go about every 2 hours, or when he did the potty dance.   We still have that problem, and I imagine will for a long time.  He just is too interested in whatever he's doing to want to stop and go.  I often have to make him go. 

Pee training was relatively easy for us.  I was impressed with how well he did.  There were some frustrating times, but overall it was a non-issue.  Poop on the other hand was much more difficult and it took a long time for him to really be poop trained.  That was frustrating.  And you think after CD'ing it wouldn't be that big of a deal.  But it's the nastiest thing in the world.

I can't remember for sure, but I know at 2 he was absolutely not using the potty at all.  I think it was about 28 months when we put him in underwear, and by 2.5 I declared him completly PT.  He still sleeps at night in a diaper, although he wakes up dry more often than not.  We attempted underwear at night, but he just still had too many accidents for my preference.  So somewhere between 24 and 28 months he went from using the potty the first time to being ready for underwear, and then another 2 months before we were accident free all the time.  As much as one can be anyway, I expect he'll have an oops every now and then until he's at least school age. 

As far as standing up, we still really don't do that.  He can, he can even pee outside.  But it's just easier to sit.  At school the pottys are short so he stands there to pee sometimes, just whatever he feels like.  And sometimes in public we'll go that route, but it's difficult since the toilets are taller.  Of course he pees standing up outside.  I'm not really sure how he learned it, I didn't really teach him, it just naturally progressed.  Probably from watching daddy and his older classmates.

VivianLee

Potty training has been a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG process for us.  We started I know at least a year ago.  Not extremely consistent but we started encouraging him to use the potty last summer.  DH would take him with him when he had to go and we would encourage him to use it before bath or before bed. 

He started really taking an interest in peeing in the potty sometime last fall.  But again, it wasn't at all consistent.  When he would go he would refuse to use the little potty and had to stand up like daddy to pee.  To this day he will not sit to pee, but that's quite ok with me, it avoids the nasty public toilet issue.

I spoke with his daycare teacher (at the time) around the first of this year about sending him in underwear (once you send them in underwear they have to stay in underwear).  She kept telling me how she didn't think he was ready, we'd have a lot of laundry each day, etc.  So, we left it at that for a little while.  He would go to school in diapers but be put in underwear as soon as we got home.  We bypassed the pull-ups for daytime wear because we wanted him to feel what it was like and be uncomfortable in wet or dirty underwear to kind-of discourage accidents.  We had our fair share of accidents but he was quick to recognize them and I think it really helped a lot.

About 2-3 months ago I was completely ready to be finished with diapers.  To me, there was no reason for him to do so well at home but have to be in diapers at school.  The first teacher is no longer with the daycare so I talked to his current teacher about underwear and she was 100% on board with working with him.  Since then, things have been GREAT!!  He has maybe 2 accidents a week but those are mostly attributed to nap time accidents (which I know will take time).  He has totally quit pooping at school (used to go 2x a day at school in a diaper) and holds it till he gets home but always has a BIG poop at home in the evenings.  Him recognizing that he needs to poop before he does it in his pants has been a bit of a challenge but he is getting better and better by the day and his accidents are fewer and father in between. 

So all in all, its been a long road but it has worked for us.  I still put him in a pull up for bed time.  He may wake up with a wet pull-up 2-3 times a week.  He is a super solid sleeper so I imagine it will be a little while before he is in underwear for bed. He just doesn't wake up.   But 1 pull-up per day is wonderful compared to 7-8.   

If he shows interest, encourage it! But know that the total process can be long.  I'm quite jealous of those who have it mastered in a matter of days.  But as long as Connor completely gets it before this baby is born then that's fine with me!

I forgot to add, when we first started him in underwear at home I would take him to the bathroom about every 45 mins-1hr and have him at least try to go.  If he couldn't go, that was ok, but he had to at least try.  We also did the M&M's reward every time he tried - successful or not.  I did the mini
M&M's and he got 2 for each pee and 5 for each poop.  We've since phased that out.

SpeedGlenn

We introduced the potty at 2yrs and would get him to sit on it at bath time. I would say he was 2 1/2 or more before we got serious about it.  I did the pantsless approach. I tried pull ups, but he treated them like a diaper - so I skipped that.  I would let him run around without pants on all day and that way, he was unencumbered when the urge struck.  This also meant that he peed on the floor on more than one occasion.

The sticker charts and rewards didn't really do much to entice Ben to go.  He didn't really care.  I would set the timer for an hour and a half and we would try to go.  If he didn't have to go, we'd set it for another 15-30 minutes and then try again.  This helped me not to let it get too long in between tries, and it also put the blame on the timer.  "Buddy, the timer says it's time to potty..."

Slowly but surely he started to get it.  I would also purposely not take a change of clothes with us to play dates and outings.  If he had an accident, we had to leave.  It wasn't punishment per se, but a natural consequence.  "If you take the time to potty, you can keep playing. If you choose not to take the time to potty and pee in your pants, we have to go home." I never scolded or yelled or anything like that, just was very matter of fact about it.  This seemed to help speed things up with the pee training and peeing in places other than our house!

The poop, we got kinda lucky.  We didn't have many accidents but it is so gross.  This was more frustrating than the pee.  We go lucky in that he was pretty regular and would go at bathtime almost every day.  But on those days that he wouldn't - YUCK!  One day, after a setback on pooping in the potty, I asked him if he had to go.  He said no. Are you sure? Yes, he was sure.  We no sooner got outside and he pooped in his pants.  This is when drinking and potty training need to go hand in hand.  I was livid!!  But I very calmly brought him inside, explained that we weren't going to play outside now because I asked him if he had to go, he said no, and he went in his pants and going in his pants was not good. He had to go sit in his room for a while and when mommy was done cleaning up the mess, he would be allowed downstairs, but we were no longer doing the activity we were going to do.  This may not be the best tack to take, but it's one that I took because I was frustrated.  After that day, he never had an accident again. Whether something finally clicked, or me sending him to his room did it, I don't know. But it worked!  He was 3 by the time I would say he was 100% potty trained - as in, no accidents in weeks.

As for the peeing standing up, I think he just started doing it on his own. He doesn't sit at all to pee now. I think it's just a natural progression kind of thing that they see Daddy doing it, so they do it too.  I dunno...It's actually less messy than when he peed sitting - but not by much

luckygirl0818

Aound 2 and a half, Christian had an increased interest in the potty.  When he started to sit on it fairly consistently (he wasn't using it, just sitting on it) we started taking off his diaper right when we got home.  We would leave him naked from the waist down.  Whenever he asked to put on his diaper, we knew he had to go potty, so we'd make him sit on it.  After about 2-3 weeks of this, we bought some underwear, and that is all he wore from that point forward.

We potty trained for a bout a month before we went to  Disney last year, and by the time we got to Florida, he had it down pat.

When we returned from vacation, he regressed a little and started to poop in his pants each day at school.  The teacher at daycare started offering him one M&M anytime he made a poop in the potty.  That did the trick!  He would sit on the potty and try to squeeze one out at least 3 times a day--anything to get an M&M.