training a "spirited" child

RD'sgirl

My dd has been occasionally peeing on the potty for at least 6 months.  I say occasionally because she is a very stubborn kid and I ask her all the time if she wants to use the potty and a lot of the time she says NO, so I don't push it, I never push her!  She will go sometimes in the morning when she wakes up and before her bath at night.  She has never told me she has to go before she goes and she has never told me when she is wet or dirty even if I ask her if she peed or pooped in her diaper and I know she did, she will always say NO.

 I really want her trained before the next DC is here but I don't want to push her, should I try a weekend diaper free and see how it goes??  Her pedi told me "spirited" kids usually don't potty train until closer to 3 and I really hope that's not the case with her.

I'm just so worried, because she is a high maintenance, very high energy kid that fights me on EVERYTHING, I don't think I can handle a newborn and potty training her at the same time. 

MelissaS5338

Congratulations on Baby #2!

I will share my experience. DS (also very energetic) will be 3 next month and I so badly wanted him trained before DD arrived, but DS had other plans. He would only go sometimes and the majority of the time he showed zero interest in the potty. After DD's arrival (as I figured would happen) he lost all interest. DD is almost 4 months now and we decided last Sunday to put DS in underwear only. He had 4 accidents on Sunday, 1 on Monday at Daycare and zero on Tuesday. (hopefully zero today as well) We are on day 4 and he has been doing awesome!!! He even wakes up dry (although I do still use a pull up at night just in case)  My Pedi said he would do it when he was ready and I think he was finally ready. He just needed that last little push to get rid of the pull ups. I know boys are different but I hope this helps ease your mind a little.

kmlkjh

I would call my daughter spirited and very stubborn and knowing that, I pushed to potty train early before she got even more hard headed and stubborn. I went against even the pediatrician's advice, it's the only time I have argued with him. At 15 months, I introduced LO to the toilet, at 18 months I started PT. 'No' was a very popular word for LO during our early weeks of potty training and like you said I didn't want to force her to do something she didn't want but I was also dead set on being potty trained early. I won.

My first effort fell flat. On advice from my mother and SIL (potty trained 7 kids between the two of them so I figured they knew what they were doing), I tried taking LO to the bathroom based on a timer set every 15 or 20 minutes. LO and I were both miserable and cross with each other for the first 3 days, complicated by the fact that LO absolutely freaked out over peeing through the panties and onto herself - pull-ups to the rescue here...and a new training idea was needed.

Second attempt worked. I tossed that 15 minute timer potty training idea and decided instead to adjust that timer to something more friendly for LO since she was already comfortable holding the pee in for 2-4 hours. I set the times up like a count down. After that first morning pee the timer was set at 2 hours, then 1 hour, 30 minutes, 15 minutes until she peed. While on the toilet she got to play with an object that she picked out herself from my bathroom shelf, the hairdryer (unplugged of course) was a favorite, books and magazines came in second. The timing and the special item helped decrease the number of fights over whether not LO was actually going to get her behind on the toilet. I'm not going to lie. We had a few tantrums in front of the toilet and in the bathroom doorway. I just let her scream herself out, then put her on the toilet anyway. I did not use any bribes such as candy or stickers, just massive amounts of cheering and praise. I did eventually set up the rule of no outside play time until LO pees in the potty but LO was nearly trained at the time and most of our accidents were happening outside. We had some regressions, but I would like to point out that nearly all those regressions happened right after she spent a day with her father, so it did take us a while to get completely potty trained, father visits or not.

Good Luck and Congratulations on #2 

Purplehayzes

My son is definitely spirited.  We're on Day 5 of potty training.  Three out of my four girlfriends who have potty trained kids suggested going the underwear only route, so we went with that.  He's doing pretty well....only a few accidents in the last couple of days.  It's a lot of work monitoring him being in underwear only, and time consuming helping him get in out of the underwear, etc.  But, I think being in underwear only helped him pick it up faster.