Parenting: 3-Year-Olds Community

Pullups did not help us to potty train. With Emily, we tried using them while we PT'd, but I think it just made things take a REALLY long time. Why go to the trouble of going on the potty when you can just go in your pants like you've been doing the last 2-3 years?

With Elizabeth, I just bit the bullet and put her in regular underpants. The first day was AWFUL. I think we went through at least 10 pairs of panties. The next day, though, it clicked and she didn't have a single accident.

IMO, I think you should try and see how she does in regular underpants for a couple of days. If she isn't bothered by having wet underpants/clothing, she just might not be ready quite yet. I would then just back off and try again in a few weeks.

Don't stress too much -- she'll get it eventually!

Thanks! I will just have to really stick with the undies... even though she fights me on it sometimes... because obviously it's easier to just pee in her pull-ups.

So when you first went to the regular underwear, and it was bad that day with all the accidents, what did you do? Did you just clean up and change her and move on? Did you make her help clean up? Did you say anything to her? I don't want to discourage her, but I want her to know that going in her pants isn't good either. I always hear not to push them or whatever, but at the same time I feel like she's almost three and not "pushing" her hasn't gotten us very far. You know?

Well, to be honest, I had tried putting her in the undies before, but it hadn't worked. She just didn't care if she had wet clothes. This time I think it worked because she HATED it when she was wet. I would just take her into the bathroom, set her on the potty, and told her that was where she needed to go. Then I would clean up.

I gave her lots of fluids so she would have to go often. I tried to put her on the potty every 40 minutes or so, but that was BAD. DD is also very strong-willed, and hated me telling her when she needed to go. I backed off telling her when to sit on the potty. I would ask or remind her, but not force her. I found if I forced her, she refused to go. (In fact, it's only been the last few months that she would go if I told her. It always had to be her idea to go potty or else she would just sit there and refuse to go!) I think she needed to feel like she was in control.

Potty training is a tough thing for everyone involved. I think it's just as important for us to be in the right mindset as it is for them to physically be ready. HTH!

My DS showed absolutely no interest in using the potty until he was 3 yrs and 3 months old. That was like the magic number for us, it happened very quickly but what I've found with both of my kids is that pushing it when they aren't interested simply doesn't work. Maybe take a few week break from it, no mention of it, and try again and see where you are. She might just want it to feel like its her "own idea".

I agree with PP, right at 3 yrs, DD was not interested and not ready. About 2 months later, bingo, she was ready and it went a lot better.

I bought some of the thicker training underwear at Target and put those on her. They are cloth so she gets the wet feel, but they are thicker through the crotch so she it does soak up most of the wetness of an accident so that we have a chance at getting her to the potty before it soaks through to her pants. We started with using them only when she was awake, still putting on a diaper for naps and bedtime. Then she started staying dry during naps, so we let her have the big-girl panties for naps too. Then she started staying dry overnight on her own, and asked for the big girl panties overnight, and has kept them dry as well. We kind of let her lead that part.

I think we've had probably 6 or 7 accidents in 3 months time, and they have been mostly when we've not realized how long it's been since the last time she tried to go. She's been in underwear overnight and keeping them dry for about a month now with only one accident and that was because I was in the shower and didn't hear her banging on the door to get in the bathroom (DH was sleeping).

I suggest making sticker charts and giving prizes (dollar store/target $1 bin stuff) after she gets a set # of stickers. The first month, she got a sticker each time she went pee or poo on the potty, with a prize after 10 stickers. The second month, she got a sticker for each whole day without an accident, with a prize after 10 stickers. My DD loves stickers so this has worked well for us.

We've had some lulls where she would refuse to go and sit on the pot, so for a while we had to bribe with an M&M to get her to go sit on the potty. DD is super stubborn too, and we still have days were she throws a fit when we tell her to go to the potty even though we knew she has to go! Other days, she says she loves going on the potty. Sometimes checking out the different potties in public restrooms is great fun for her as well. (Not a fan of the loud - self flushing toilets!).

DD does go to daycare, so of course the other kids all encourage each other - so funny to have her telling me that another kid went poop on the potty for the first time. It's a big deal to them and huge change from the convenience of diapers, so just be patient. She'll get there.

Thanks ladies!! It's nice just to know that I'm not alone in trying to train my almost three year old. It seems all the kids we know around her are trained and younger than she!!! So I feel like I'm failing here! But I am trying again with those training pants (the thicker cotton kind as mentioned) and she is at least trying to sit on the potty... so far no pee this morning, but I am hoping we'll get there. If it just doesn't work at all I might just take a break for a while and let her feel in control... because she for SURE likes that! LOL Thanks again!

I definitely "pushed" the issue, figuring that he did understand and was ready, and that even if we were only breaking even in terms of the number of times I had to clean up accidents vs the number of times I avoided having to change a diaper, he'd get it. And he did.

No pullups here either during the major training process, I didn't think that it would help him. My mom bought some for us without asking, thinking that it would be "helpful" to have them while we were at the in-laws, and I really didn't want to use them. I used up the pack on him for nighttime and now he's back to cloth diapers at night because I already use them for DS2 and I just don't want to keep throwing away pullups for no reason.


Anyhow...it really helped for him to have something really cool to do on the potty, to make him want to go there. DS1 got to play with my iPod. I'd ask him if he wanted to take it with him to the potty, rather than just asking if he needed to go.

Making potty times attached to events rather than putting him on every x number of minutes helped too. Particularly since he doesn't really go all that often, he didn't really appreciate being made to go every 20 minutes. So I'd say to him, "let's have a snack when you're done on the potty" or "after you've gone potty we'll go outside" or "we need to go potty before we leave" which didn't always work because he doesn't really like going places. He does, but he has a hard time with transitions.

Once we felt like he did understand the concept and could take himself, trying NOT to pressure him to go at times when he didn't need to go, even if it was more convenient for him to go before leaving rather than when we got somewhere. We still ask him when we are out somewhere if he needs to go, because it can be easy to forget, but at home, he is totally in charge.

Not night-trained yet. Sometimes he stays dry and sometimes he doesn't, but given his extensive medical history, I don't want to push the issue or limit liquids at any point, even if he wakes up wanting water in the middle of the night.

In public bathrooms if I think he needs to go, I tell him that he needs to take me to the potty, and when we get there I ask him if it's my turn first or his turn. Usually he'll take his turn and sometimes he'll even go first.

They need to feel like they're in control of the situation, but you also need to get a good handle on their habits so that you can anticipate, as best you can, what their needs are going to be and when you may need to remind her. Like if you know that she's a morning pooper, get her on there with a book or a game right before or right after breakfast and let her sit and play for awhile until she relaxes and goes.

Potty training took a very long time with my son. I spent a good 4 days of keeping him in underwear and taking him to the bathroom every 30 minutes (spacing it out as he got better at it). But he wasn't fully potty trained for about 4 months. We had several setbacks along the way.

Try to use a lot of encouragement, though it can get very frustrating. We treated him with a chocolate chip every time he peed in the potty. In the beginning I treated him with new toys (from the dollar store) for pooping in the potty and then switched over to a small cookie for it. I kept him in underwear (except for sleeping) the entire time except through one of the setbacks. I kept a large folded towel on the couch for him to sit on to protect the couch. And I tried to calmly explain to him what happened when he had an accident and that he will try to get to the potty the next time.

That being said, I lost my cool way too many times and there was a lot of screaming and craziness in our house. And I'm pretty certain that many of the accidents were not "accidents." I'm convinced that the accidents need to happen because that's how they learn the feeling of having to go and even the accidents that they seem to have control over are the child's way of experimenting with it. Like everyone told me, your kid will be potty trained eventually, they all do!

Plenty of the accidents aren't accidents at all. I feel like an accident is when they actually are trying to get to the bathroom and don't make it. If they stand there and poop in their pants because they don't want to stop what they're doing, that's them behaving as they did in diapers because they're still testing to make sure that it's for real, that they really do have to stop what they are doing to go to the bathroom.

Another thing I forgot to mention is the "potty rhetoric" that you start espousing to really get them on board. Even though David is trained and takes himself and asks to go and all that, I still say the same things, also to get Jesse ready for when it's his turn. If I have to go, I say "Mom has to go potty! Gotta stop what I'm doing and run run run!" And I say that to David, and he says it too..."Gotta stop what I'm doing!" and he gets himself to the bathroom.

My mom was big on making David "practice" after accidents. I didn't mind her doing that with him but I never really felt like it. It just meant starting from the scene of the accident and running to the potty a few times. Not "punishment" per se, just drill and practice. If your kids respond to that, it's worth a shot.

Hello , I have a son who is turning 4 in Sept. I have tried several things to encourage this potty thing but no luck. From rewards , the potty dance video, mommy potty , do u need to potty too even.
He will sometimes go pee but the other is off limits to te potty it seems . He will hide under tables and corners instead.
I do use pullups , but after reading previous post here , I do believe that will become a halt come tomorrow.
So my question is , is there anything you other mothers may suggest?
Fyi I even installed a cushion toliet seat lid.

It's nice knowing someone is in the same boat. My DS will also be 4 in Sept. and we just recently starting trying to PT. DH will sit him on the potty every hour or so but still ends up with a wet pull-up.

Ditch the pull-ups. They're just like diapers. They are helpful for nighttime and long trips but if your kids still use them like diapers then they aren't helping. Get some cool underpants with spiderman or whatever they like on them instead.

My son turns 4 at the end of August, so he is the same age, and like I said, he really got it over the past few months.

You might also try letting them be naked in the house and be prepared to clean up some messes. If they're in pull-ups all the time they aren't seeing what actually happens.

Oh, and since you've got boys, you can try and have them pee on Cheerios in the toilet or shoot targets, and when it's nice out you can teach them to water the plants!

In my opinion, pull-ups are useful, but only for certain situations at a specific phase of the potty-training process. Which happens to be the phase that my son is in right now, so I just bought some today. He is pretty much naked all the time at home, now, when it is just us (well, on the bottom anyway. He wears socks and a shirt). He can bring himself to the potty nearly every time, and has almost no accidents. Whenever he wears anything, though, he usually has had an immediate accident. We do underpants practice every day, but because I don't have a washer and dryer, I don't want him going through a dozen pairs of underpants a day, so we usually only do one or two pairs a day, just for practice. When we go out or have company, obviously he has to wear pants, so I've just been putting him in a diaper. However, just recently, he's started asking to go to the bathroom when we are out. It's really inconvenient having to take off his diaper and put it back on him, so that's why I bought pull-ups, so we can just pull them down when we are out, or when he has to go to the bathroom when someone is visiting at the house. He is not at the point yet that he will hold it and not have accidents, so I can't just put him in underpants when we go out or someone is over, but since he IS understanding about asking to go potty even when he is wearing pants, being able to have a diaper that pulls down is SO much more convenient than having to take a regular diaper off and on.