Going on 5 months of PTing, Help! (Bit long)

hollywoodgirl311

My son goes to daycare and they require the kids to start potty training at 2 years old.  DS wasn't ready and we are closing in on 2 1/2 with him still having trouble.

DS will pee and poop fine on the potty, but only when we bring him.  He will even pee standing up or sitting down.  We have almost figured out pooping and he rarely goes in his pull up anymore, but the peeing is a mess.  He never tells us when he needs to pee. I can only keep him dry by taking him to the potty every 20-30 mins, longer than that and I risk him going in the underwear.

We've tried putting him in big kid underwear and it didn't help.  He just went around soaked and never cared.  I put a pull up on over them to keep the floor and couch getting wet but it also didn't make a difference.  He is going through his naps dry some days and even made it overnight dry last night.

What else can we try?  I was reading about the 3 day program that many of you have used.  Does it work with a toddler who is already comfortable with the potty?  When we got home from daycare today, I removed his pull up and pants and moved the potty into the living room.  It seemed to help and he surprised us by going over to it to poop and pee by himself, without us asking, a couple times before bed.  He even made up a silly potty dance to go with it.  

Any advice on other things we can try if this 3 day program doesn't work?  I can't tell if he isn't developed enough to understand the feeling of needing to pee or if it's something else.  All I can say is 5 months of this is talking it's toll on my sanity and confidence as a mom!  

lovely40

We have a potty in literally every room of our house and we keep DD naked at home as much as possible. When she's naked she goes to the potty all by herself, when she has underwear on she forgets - plus she has a hard time pulling down her panties. We also do the potty dance every time she makes even a little bit of anything into the potty - huge celebration. She's doing really well with this system - we started last Saturday.

hollywoodgirl311

lovely40:

We have a potty in literally every room of our house and we keep DD naked at home as much as possible. When she's naked she goes to the potty all by herself, when she has underwear on she forgets - plus she has a hard time pulling down her panties. We also do the potty dance every time she makes even a little bit of anything into the potty - huge celebration. She's doing really well with this system - we started last Saturday.

 

We are trying the same thing with keeping him naked from the waist down.  I am not sure how long he will be happy that way since it's getting cold here.  

So far it's working though!  Yesterday he had 2 accidents peeing but one was during dinner in his high chair and the other was bouncing on his zebra bouncy thing.  I don't think he could help the bouncing one

I've resorted to bribing him, saying he can have an M & M whenever he uses the potty without us telling him too.  It's working today and he's ran to poop twice without us asking him.  Peeing he's done alone once and the other times we mentioned that he needs to pee soon.

I'll keep him inside tomorrow doing the same thing and Tuesday I'll try taking a trip out with underwear and see what happens.  My maternity leave is over in 2 weeks so my goal is getting this fixed before I go back to work. I am loving the savings on pull ups though! They are so expensive!

 He LOVES the potty dance!

welshgirl

We've been PTign for a long time as well - at DS's desire, not daycare or me. Some days he's great and suprises me, but others, he just completely gets distracted with play. He can be dry all morning at nursery school, but then last night, for example, had 2 accidents between nap and bedtime (3-7pm).

I know it doens't help you out, but I think I've nearly come to peace with it being a loooong haul - until he decides he really wants to pay attention 100% of the time, you know? We just keep up with our policies: reminding him to tell us when he needs to go (but not too frequently as he's a stubborn boy), taking him before going out, etc, a gummy bear when he tells us and we get something out, and lots of praise (or 'it's okay it happens, we'll work on next time' if we have an accident).

It's hard, this PTing business!