Parenting: 3-Year-Olds Community

I would think if you stop putting him in diapers or pull-ups altogether (except at night), he would learn to pee elsewhere. I wouldn't worry too much that he can hold it as long as he is. DD can do the same thing, and actually sleeps 12 hours without going. I asked the pedi about it and she said as long as it doesn't appear to hurt when they pee, you are good to go. But, that said, I'm not a doctor.

I don't have a boy so I'm not sure what else to suggest. What about doing the Cheerios in the toilet thing and making a game out of trying to hit them?

I agree with everthing that Ali said, in addition to the Cheerios I have heard tinting the water blue with a drop or two of food coloring, so when they pee it turns green can make it interesting.

My son is about that age and he can communicate, so does your son say why he insists on the diaper or pullup? Also do you have him sit or stand? Maybe try the other way then what you are doing. I am leary of the outdoor peeing as we did that last summer to get the PTing going, and yes it was helpful, but now DS does not have any hesitation about going outside while he was playing and even dropped trou in front of other kids in the park the other day.

I think I would just be clear with him that during the day there will be no more diapers or pullups and he needs to go in the toilet. Be firm about it and he will come around.

Thanks for you reply. When we are home, we only use underwear. We only use pull-ups when we are leaving the house and diapers are used at night (b/c we still have them).

My son sits and tucks to pee. I was told that this was the easiest for boys and to use the Cheerio method after they master it. Using blue food coloring is something I have not heard and will have to try.

The issues I have is the actual release. He panics and tries to get diapers and bangs on a door that I keep them in when he has to go bad. He applies pressure to penis by clutching it tight to keep it from coming.

Just now, he had to go so bad that he knees were clutched and he was clutching his penis. My husband ran him to the potty. It's been 15 minutes and we have no pee. He will not go. It seems as though it's psychological. How do I get him to realize that it's ok to pee outside a diaper. He see us go and watches my husband go... but it has not clicked and he will go hours without peeing.

Have you tried running water in the sink while he's sitting? That helped my DD to release when she was first learning. I'd also push the liquids so that he just can't hold it that long. Once he gets the hang of it and it doesn't seem so new and scary, I'm sure it will probably get better.

Hi! I just saw that this was posted about 2 months ago, but wanted to comment anyway.

Hopefully at this point your little guy has come to the realization that peeing in the potty isnt that bad after all!

My son will be 3 in July and we started PTing a couple weeks ago, but it was very difficult. He didn't even want to let me put underwear on him! He would cry and try to take it off.

One weekend, I decided I had enough. He KNEW how the use the potty, he KNEW what it was for. I KNEW he was ready. So we went out, bought some cheap underwear and put him in it and he peed on himself all day Satuday and half the day Sunday before he FINALLY came to us and said he needed to sit on the potty and voila! He's been peeing on the potty like a champ. Pooping... well, we're still working on that.

The ONLY time he wears a diaper is at night and during nap time. He would come to me in the beginning and ask for his diaper when he had to pee and wouldnt let me sit him on the potty even though I knew he had to pee and then 5 minutes later he would pee himself. But I just told him that diapers are for night time and that was it.

Anyway, hopefully you are already past this!

We are going through the same thing with our son! However he will turn 4 in October. It's been such a struggle. Have you had any progress? He is afraid to release in the potty as well. He'll tell me he went, but I know he didn't. He'll hold his pee pee while on the potty. I try not to stress him out, so I leave him be for a couple of minutes. We've tried cheerios, the sticker method...nothing works. He just screams No! Wants the pull up on. He has had accidents on the floor of course, and helps me clean it up. Then I noticed he thought the mopping up was fun, so that didn't really work either. (I had read to have them help you clean up the pee pee)... He starts school up again in a few weeks...All we can do is keep trying. Your not alone

We had a pretty difficult time for a while as well. We also tried Cheerios and he couldn't care less. What ended up working very well was Skittles! Eventually he could earn up to 4 Skittles per potty trip. I don't normally allow our kids to eat candy often but a few Skittles until he was trained wasn't a big deal.

This was our system:
He earned 1 Skittle for each accomplishment:
1. Coming to tell me he had to pee.
2. Having a dry pull-up when we got to the toilet.
3. Actually going pee in the toilet.
4. Going #2 in the toilet.

After we were done in the bathroom we made a trip to the kitchen and I got down the CLEAR jar of Skittles and allowed him to choose which color(s) he wanted. And, after going #2 three times on the toilet, we made a trip to the toy store and he could pick out a new Cars 2 car. All of this was TOTALLY worth it, I'm telling you.

It is difficult to get them to go #2 on the toilet but using a little padded seat (with their favorite character on it of course) to fit inside the toilet seat makes a HUGE difference. Otherwise they feel like they're going to fall into a giant pit. We were pretty fortunate that Cars 2 was huge during this time and we got Cars pull-ups, toilet seat, toys, etc.

Eventually, he was trained and we explained that now that he was a big boy and always used the toilet without accidents, it was time for real underwear (which he had to call "skivvies" because, according to him, underwear were for girls.) So, we made a trip to Target and got his special skivvies, with Cars 2 characters, of course. This was a huge deal for him. We had very few night-time accidents before he was fully trained. BUT, problems with bed-wetting can be a totally separate issue from potty training. So, if he never had accidents during the way but still continues when he sleeps there are other methods to try but bribing may not be one of them. A lot of kids deal with this for many years so be patient and super supportive during this time.

OK, that's my opinion. I hope it helps!

Thanks for your feedback!! I will try that for sure. I have tried telling him he could have a Scooby snack as a "reward". But he wanted the snack just for sitting on the potty...Ahhh, they are little smarties aren't they? We have a SpongeBob potty for him that goes on the toilet. That hasn't made much difference.
I'll try the Skittles.... At this point you try anything. He has plenty of underwear. I even let him pick them out at the store. We arranged them all out on his bed after we came home that day. This was about 5 weeks ago. Doesn't want anything to do with them.
I'll keep you posted, and thanks again!