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Working Moms
AlisaS
member
PTing post - am I not doing this right?
AlisaS
member
in Working Moms
So at daycare, the boy's teacher basically invites all the kids to go to the potty several times a day. If they want to go, great, but they don't push them or force them at all.
My guys have very little interest but have gone pee in the potty once or twice over the last several months.
Should I be putting them on the potty daily to try or just wait it out a bit until they start showing more interest? Should I be doing some sort of schedule with them? They are 2/1/2.
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Re: PTing post - am I not doing this right?
It depends on your kids. Some kids need a little push so you could start to put them on in the morning and at night and see if it sticks. But with boys, what most people tell me is that when they are ready, they are ready and they will let you know. So if they aren't asking or telling you they have to go, you don't need to be in a huge rush to push it. A lot of boys don't PT until 3 years old.
The problem I have is that at daycare my son goes pee fairly regularly but we haven't been that consistent at home so I'm afraid that we are slowing him down. The truth is with a baby in the house, I just don't have the time to devote. So I think over the holidays when I'm home more, we'll dive right into PT and try to put him in underwear and see if we can just go for it.
Not to start a flame war, but I'm not in the "when they are ready, they're ready" camp. I think PTing is just like any skill, and I think kids are ready far before 3 and 4.
We bought DD her potty around 18 months. We consistently asked her if she wanted to go potty, we brought in books, we made it fun. We built it into routines: at first she brushed her teeth while on the potty just to get her used to sitting on it. She was doing well, and then we got busy and we stopped asking her, and she stopped going.
We started up again recently, and she has been not going in her diaper at night at all for the past couple weeks. Mornings haven't been such a success, but honestly, I think because it isn't part of her routine yet. We are good with nighttime because we have more time - mornings are always a rush.
I think if you just ask them, then it will be a battle of wills. They are unfamiliar with it, so why would they want to do it? Make it something they want to do (have a special book that is only a potty book). Announce when it is potty time, praise them if all they do is just sit there for a few minutes.
There are parents that think that 3 year olds should learn to read, too. And you know what, they probably can learn to read, but if they learn when they are 5, it's a lot easier for them. I think what you have done is great and every book and article on PT says you need to get your kids comfortable with the potty so that they know it's a good thing and give them all of the right instructions. But - some kids really just aren't ready at 2 or even 2.5 which is why generally pre-schools don't require it until 3 (and sometimes not even then). And yes, you can teach them if you really want to but if you aren't a SAHM and don't have all the time in the world to do it, why push it if it isn't necessary? Once your kids are PT and you are out of the house, if they have to go, you need to get to a bathroom within 2 minutes or you are out of luck. If your kids aren't that ready, why put yourself and them through that?
No flames here - I can of ride the fence on both sides. I don't want to push my kids certainly and i do believe if kids are not ready, then they just aren't ready. I think I kind of dream of some future day when they are almost three when they will look at me and say"I don't want diapers anymore...can I take a d--p in the toilet"?
But being less passive, making it more of a game or getting them used to it is something I think I need to do a little bit more of. Sometimes I think you can underestimate your kid and what he/she is capable of, too.
We bought DD a potty when she was 9 months old because it was on sale and we would leave it in th bathroom for her to just sit on. By the time she hit 12 months we sat her down on it whenever she showed interest in it and then we started to do it without the diaper and would pour a bit of water down there, she would then stand up, we'd wipe her and she'd go and pour it into the big toilet and flush. She really loved this and thought it was a game. I didnt have a routine per se as to when it would happen. Once she hit 15 months, we started to do it once a day and by 18 months she peed once and we made a big deal. We did high fives and then a potty dance. Then Flyer mentioned her daughter watching a DVD on the potty and so i gave mine our ITouch with the once upon a potty song on it. She would sit for a good 15 mins before anything happened but she would ask for the potty song and then go stand by the potty. I then started to sit her on it every morning and those 15 mins became shorter- it was ok because I was getting ready for work so I didnt mind so it worked out great for me!
Anyway, long story short- she's now 21 months, she tells us that she needs to go potty "potty please" and she'll grab our hand and take us to the potty. She also has peed every single time after telling us and she's held it in too. In some cases she'll pee then come back and do it again 10 mins later. poops have happened twice and she's not happy to do it in there just yet. But dhe will tell us when she poops or if she's about to poop she'll say "Assa stinky"...then poop...but she isnt ready to do it on the potty and we arent pushing her.
BTW- we gave her stickers the first few times but she didnt associate it as a rewrad, rather she wanted them all the time and would throw a fit until i gave in...lol!
ok sorry for the super long response! BTW- my DD hates diapers and fights me whenever we use them. I think this has motivated her to use the potty more just to be out of them! We're going to try the pull ups this weekend and see how that goes.
Also my DC puts her on 3 times a day and she's peed 2/3 times most days.
PT was a bit hard when my DS was not cooperative. We bought him a potty seat early and a few times he wanted to sit on it, then no more. In his room at daycare they were putting him on the potty every few hours but he would never go on it. He continued going in his diaper. We tried and it turned into him screaming "no, no, no!". I felt based on his response, he just wasn't ready. This went on when he was 2 1/2. He started visiting the preschool room in daycare and those kids are potty trained. He loved spending time in that room, but they would not move him until he was potty trained. I would talk to him about it and let him know that in the big kid's room the other kids don't wear diapers so let's start going potty so you can spend more time there. He faught me again (now he was 3). Then he wouldn't even let us change his diapers...that was a battle. I finally went and bought a bag of Hershey Bars (the snack size) and gave him one. He has never really had an interest in candy. He LOVED it. So I put a bowl of the candy bars out on the counter where he could see them and explained every time he put pee or poo in the potty, he could have one. The first day he pee'd 4x! Yes he got a lot of chocolate but who cares? Then he started doing better (now he was 3 years and 2 mo's old). He did better but was still having some accidents so I found a picture in a magazine of a really neat toy he wanted. I hung it on the refrigerator and told him that if he had clean/dry underwear for a whole week we would go buy it for him. We also made the potty regular...every 1 1/2-2 hours, first thing in the am and last thing at night. Every time he did not want to go on the potty I showed him the photo of the toy and reminded him...he would go. We bought the toy within 2 weeks. He is potty trained but we do us a night time pull up - I think we are almost ready to ditch that. He is 3 years and almost 4 mo's now. The other day when I went to the bathroom, he said "Mommy you can have a chocolate bar now!". Too funny. The novelty of the chocolate wore off quickly...maybe within 3 weeks. He didn't really ask much for it after that....we just didn't mention it.
My key learnings from going through this and talking to lots of friends is that each child is different. There is no right way to do this. I also think that a child's readiness plays a role. I offered an incentive for my DS to PT and it worked for us. It may not be the right plan for someone else or work for someone else. I just felt that it offered him a positive thing for going on the potty. I also think that boys tend to take longer. I have 5 friends all with boys and none were PT by 3 years - not for a lack of trying. They just wouldn't do it. All of them laid off for a while and when they tried again the boys were more ready and it took only a few weeks.
Good luck. Keep trying...trust me, your little one's won't be 5 in a diaper. They'll get it!
Until I met my DD, I would have thought any kid could be trained with practice. I tried EVERYTHING with her, and she'd hold it for 16 hours to avoid the potty. And I didn't push - just made it fun and easy. She has been physically ready for a while, but emotionally, she just didn't want to do it.
One day, she decided she was ready, and bam. She was over 3. First showed interest at 18 mos. When she was ready, it took 2 days.
DD likes sitting on the potty and sometimes will do so 2-3 times while at school. Her two best friends are PTed and she likes the underwear she picked out.
But she's not ready. Everytime she wears underwear she has an accident. And she asks to sit on the potty because she wants to, not because she needs to go. She's never pooped on the potty and she's only peed a handful of times.
Everyone I know who has a PTed kid says that when they are emotionally ready, it is easy. I really hope they are right. I might try putting her in underwear more consistently while we're home over the holidays, but I fear we'd spend half our precious weekend time cleaning up accidents if we tried to force it now.
I've got great respect for those that do elimination communication with their LOs...but I've never had any desire to spend that kind of time sitting next to my kid on the potty.