Can I just stick with diapers til they are ...say 5?

I find diapers so easy. Both at home and when we are out. When we are out, I just change in the back of my truck and toss the dirty diaper--and I only have to do this once every three hours or so. My friend who is PT'ing takes her kids to the bathroom pretty much every hour. I just cannot imagine having to drag TWO kids to a public bathroom by myself every hour when we are out. I don't even know how I would get DD to pee while trying to keep DS from sticking his hands in the toilet bowl (ugh!).

Their school won't require them to be PT'd until they are almost 4. But my mom thinks it is time to start. They are almost 22 months and I definitely see signs of readiness in both of them.

But is there really any reason for me to push PT'ing?

 

I hear ya!! My 3.5 year old is resisting potty training. I've tried twice. He just doesn't care if he is wet. Good luck! I hope they 'get it.'

IF they are showing signs, jump on the bandwagon! If not, it's still early. My twins did not PT until they were 3 years, 1 month. They 'got it' after about 2-4 days, with lots of reminders. Good luck!

 

I am of the (fairly unpopular) opinion, that if you are constantly having to run your child to the bathroom, they aren't actually pt'd I prefer to wait a little bit longer, and have them learn quickly in less than a week, than to spend months coaxing, cajoling, encouraging, bribing, and cleaning up messes

So, for us, my twins are 2.5 yrs old and I haven't started pt'ing yet, and I'm in no huge rush. My older kids were almost 3, and 3.5 each when they pt'd, and it was super easy, they learned quickly in just a couple of days and with very few accidents. When I tried earlier (around 2-2.5 yrs, several times), we went through WEEKS of accidents with no progress. So I'm not pushing the twins, we'll all know when they are ready

If you want to give it a try, by all means, go for it! Some kids do learn before they turn 2! That would be fantastic for you! But, if after a week or more of no success, you chose to go back to diapers, don't feel like it failed, consider it a work in progress

 

I wish I would have given it a try earlier and see if they got the hang of it. We are just starting and it isnt fun - the Lora Jensen method says that 22 months is the ideal age. If it doesnt take you have lots of time to try again later.

 

What's it with these crazy mothers who think kids should be potty trained by 2? If you have to take the kid to the potty your trained not the kid

 

I agree with Danielle and Jackie. There is no harm in trying now if they are showing readiness but if you try for say 2-3 days and they aren't going for it or where you want to be...there is nothing wrong with shelving it until they are older and more ready.
I can tell you my two are 3 years 8 months and my DS will not touch a public potty with 39.5 foot pole. He's more then happy to use the potty at our home and other people's homes...but he will hold out when we are out (something he apparently got from dear old Mom, because my Mom said I did the same thing). My DD will use public potties but she tells me or DH when she needs to go. I do not ask her every hour...it took her some time to work up the nerve to use a public potty because prior to that, she just held it.

 

I definitely think it's fine to leave them in diapers till they're 5!

In all honesty, I'm with those who say wait till they're ready - it goes so smoothly! Also, as others have said, if they are showing signs of readiness now, it wouldn't hurt to pick up some potties & let them try them out here & there (before baths, naps & bedtimes are all good times to try) & see how it goes. If they're ready, you'll see significant progress quite quickly. If they aren't, don't worry about it. Keep the potties around, talk about how you & your partner use the potty, let them know they can try if they want, but don't push it. In a couple of months, you can try again & see how it goes. We started this sort of "pre-training" when the girls were 18 months old. We never pushed it or made a big deal out of it. Then, about a month before their 3 birthday they both just decided they were ready to use the potty. I followed their lead & within a week we were only using pull-ups at night. :good:

 

I totally agree with this. To me, "PT'd" means they not only use the toilet, but use it (almost always) on their own initiative, and hardly ever have accidents.

There's a big difference IMO between pushing a not-quite-2-year-old and pushing a 3.5-year-old. I'm a huge believer in waiting till kids are both physically ready and internally motivated (which doesn't always happen at the same time). Some 3.5-year-olds may need some pushing to get over the hump, but there is no reason to push a young toddler, I don't think. Yes, you may be "successful" and get them out of diapers early, if that's important to you, but you are then (probably) dealing with more accidents and regressions over the next several months.

I felt like the OP -- I was perfectly happy with my kids wearing diapers. We started encouraging them to use the potty around age 2, but didn't make a big deal of it until at least 2.5 and left it totally up to them when they actually wanted to switch to underwear.

 

I love diapers. It doesn't cost us that much (got to be smart and not pay full price for brand named diapers), and it's just so convenient. I can't even imagine our 17 hour trip last year if we had to do potty stops every 2 hours even... yikes. My kids love sitting on the potty but have yet to go in them, and couldn't care less if they're wet or have poop in their diapers, so I'm just not in any rush...

 

I'm with you all! Mine are showing some interest and DS even asks to be changed when he's dirty, but DD doesn't seem to care and they dont seem all that excited when we praise them for going. We have the potties sitting around and let them go if they ask, but I'm about to have our 3rd and I can't imagine having to rush to the bathroom with all three of them if one starts doing the potty dance while we're out.

 

We didn't get serious about potty training until a few months ago (up until then we let them sit on it and they would go, but for our convenience would put them in pull-ups if we were out and about or on a car trip so that kind of sent mixed messages ) when they had to be trained to go into the next class at school. Now, they are doing great and will go on their own when at home when they need to (key that they can now dress by themselves) and tell me when they have to go when we are out - BUT we do still use pull-ups for nighttime. When we are out we rarely have to go unless they just had a lot to drink, it is after lunch or dinner, or has just been a while, and the good thing is that they can hold it if necessary (discovered that when we were stuck in traffic on the interstate). So, I think it is better to wait (even though I was definitely being pressured to start way earlier since they were the only kids in their preschool class at 2.5 who weren't fully trained). I think waiting helps in more ways than just them being physically ready - but it also helps for them to understand that a potty isn't always readily available and be able to wait just a bit, that they can pull their pants and underwear up and down and get dressed and undressed on their own, as well as climbing up on the stool to actually get on the potty unassisted, etc. Maybe it is just my two, but only near the end of age 2 were they independent enough for me to trust them to go into the bathroom at our house on their own and take care of business without me being right there to help or for me to be in a public bathroom with the two of them and be able to manage helping one on the potty and keeping an eye on the other!

 

I'm a lazy PTer, I haven't even attempted it with any of my boys til they were 3.5 - and it happened pretty much immediately (within a few days) for all of them - with very few (less than 5 accidents total). I would never dream of potty-training a child younger than that unless they were training themselves - seriously! :laughing:

There is WAY too much pressure to potty-train 2-year-olds in my opinion. They are babies! Who cares if they are peeing and pooping in a diaper still?

 

I really like not spending the money on diapers. And until now, it's been fairly easy. But today I'm about ready to give him to a friend for the next year. He had a very runny, messy accident while in underwear, then tried to clean it up myself. My entire library carpet is covered in poo. Seriously, if the Family Circus cartoon had drawn this, instead of dotted lines showing where the child went, it would be poop. And then he had it up to his armpits and all over the container of wipes because he tried cleaning it up.

 

I started one of my DD at 26 months and I kind of regret it. She's great with poop - has never had a poo accident but has had multiple pee accidents almost every day since we started (she's almost three). I feel like maybe I have made potty training harder on all of us because she's just gotten used to peeing in her pants and it will be difficult to break the habit. I tried to start my other DD a few months ago and she still doesn't really get it.

If I ask them every 30 minutes if they need to use the potty and keep on them, they can go through the day without accidents - but as soon as I lay off a bit they go back to having accidents every time they have to pee. I'm seriously sick of being the potty police! I recently decided to let them wear pull-ups and if they want to use the potty, I will help them, but I'm not going to stay on their case about using the potty anymore.

If I had to do it over again, I would wait until 3 (or even older) until they are both physcially and emotionally mature enough to take the responsibility to use the potty.

 

I PT'd my oldest at 37 months. We taught him the basics before that but at 37 months I told him I was no longer buying diapers and he had to use the potty. We had 1 accident and none since then. I agree that they need to be physically and mentally capable. I have 2 friends right now who tried at 24 months and their kids didn't get it. They tried again right around 3 and it was so much easier. Kids will potty train when they are ready, not when their family tells them to.

 

I say do what you want to do... I did spend a lot of time NOT going out and about b/c we were potty training and I didn't want to deal with public bathrooms... but I was really happy to not spend any $$$ or time on cloth diapers either! so it's kinda what you want to do.

good luck with whatever you decide to do! I did the 3 day potty training method and she does say that a 22 mo. old is able to learn... I will say that even though we quit diapers at 27 mo. their bladders didn't seem to hold it very long... and in the beginning they would go a couple of times an hour. Now it's just so cute to see them run to the bathroom when they need... so cute that they are independant.

 

We just started PT and it was really only to see where my boys were at with it. The one has taken of with it and now tells me when he has to pee and poop and has had only one accident. The other couldn't care less and does not want to wear underwear. So he still wears a diaper and I will wait to PT him until he tells me he's ready. There is just no sense in pushing it if the child is not ready. It wouldn't hurt to try it and see if they're are interested but if they aren't than don't stress over it!!!

 

In my experience, the earlier I trained them the easier it went. Also, I always trained them to poop on the toilet first. It worked. Then as they could control that well, we moved onto peeing. It was so nice not to clean poopy diapers in that interim time! In my opinion, some people miss that window of opportunity when they are younger. If you ask your grandmothers children used to pt train much earlier, but then again cloth diapers did help.

Everyone is different. That was just my experience. Some moms love to wait. Whatever you decide, it's bound to happen one day.

 

I was one of the crazy moms that thought potty training should be done around 2 - so we got potties around 18 mos and they wore them for hats, climbed on them and generally thought they were just another toy...2 weeks before their 3rd birthday Abby decided she wanted to wear panties - and has had only 1 accident ever...Ian trained at around 3 yrs 2 mos for pee within 3 days...poop was an ongoing struggle until he was nearly 3.5 and it finally clicked for good when I made him throw out his favorite underwear because he pooped in them and I wasn't scraping man poop out of his underwear for the 3rd time that day...

moral of the story - don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed...