need potty advice! :)

Mattingly23

DD has just turned 2. We are still int the getting her used to the potty phase, we haven't begun actual training. She sits on it sometimes before her bath, she has purposely made a pee twice now, but mostly doesn't have a real interest in sitting on it. We have a pool and if she's already pooped around the time we go swimming, we let her swim with no swim diaper. Lately she has been getting out of the pool when she has to pee, and standing on the side of the pool and peeing on the ground. This seems like progress to me because she a) knows when she is about to go and b) makes the effort to do something about it rather than just pee in the pool. I am kind of wondering lately, since she has no real interest in the potty in the bathroom if we should bring the potty out to the pool and see if she will sit on it instead of peeing on the ground. Does this sound like a good idea that will kickstart her into wanting to use the potty, or do you think it will totally derail actual potty training? TIA!

sucredee

I tried PT DD at 25 months with the 3 day PT method becuase so many people here raved about it. It didn't work for us and it was a disaster. She would hold her pee and poop but the poop was what made me stop since she had not pooped in 4 days (that was 1.5 days into training). She did not want to have anything to do with the potty for a couple of weeks after that so I didn't push it.

I started letting her run around naked as much as possible when home and drag the little potty everywhere around the house and outside in the yard. She would mostly hold it until she was back in a diaper but she did have a couple of small pee and poop accidents. She never peed in the potty. I let her watch me pee. I never go to the bathroom by myself but I let her actually watch the pee come out. Every time she was pooping I would ask her "are you pooping" and once she pooped we would change her diaper and throw the poop in the toilet. We had a peepee in the potty song. I told her when her diaper was dry (in the morning and after nap) and if I caught her peeing in her diaper I would point hat out. I never made her sit on the potty unless she initiated it. After a couple of weeks of refusing she would start sitting on it again but not do anything.

Then we went on vacation and took the portable potty with so she could continue to "practice". She spent a lot of time naked on vacation and I would tell her to sit on the potty if she had to pee or poop or to just ask for a diaper. 3 days into vacation she decided to pee and poop on the potty. We had a couple of minor accidents but that was it. She went to daycare in panties the day after our vacation and she has done great. She has had no accidents at home at all. She had one accident the first day at daycare because they have the little toilets and she did not like them. The second day she did fine (she only goes 3 mornings a week). She had one poop accident a couple of days ago at daycare because it was a crazy morning.  That's it for accidents and we are 3 weeks in. 

I think what really helped was just letting her run around naked a bunch and having a couple of accidents to make it click so to speak. I was going to try and Pt again after vacation but there was no need. I was going to use the John Rosemont method of putting all the control in their hands: here is your potty, if you need to pee/poop here is where it will be. It is sort of what I did it just wasn't scheduled.

 3 day PT has worked for plenty of people it just wasn't for my DD. Some people will say not to do any sort of training until you go at it with the 3 day PT. In our case what worked was doing some prep work with no pressure and she decided she was ready and went for it. Obviously in our case it didn't derail any training. She was just over 26 months when she PT

I think your plan sounds good.  Since you are in CA I would think you have lots of time left for naked time. Good luck!

I never needed any rewards or sticker charts. She was happy with a high five and a knuckle bump