Keep her in diapers or panties??

My DD is almost 2 1/2 and we are trying to tackle this whole potty training thing. She will eagerly pee pee on the potty IF you strip her down and tell her to go. If you do not tell her to go every hour to 2 hours (depending on how much she is drinking) she will ALWAYS pee her pants. I have had her in panties for almost 2 weeks...but only by my insistance will she go on the potty. She also refuses to poop on the potty (that's a fun daily clean up in panties...ewww!!!) and also use public toilets. I don't know if I should just put her back in diapers until she makes her own effort to go, or if I just keep her in panties, since she is not refusing them at this point. I am getting tired of cleaning puddles, but I know this is not forever. How long will this last??? Any advice is welcome !!

 

I think I would keep her in the panties and put the vinyl covers over them to minimize cleanup. That way she will still feel wet and you won't have as many puddles to clean up, just wet undies. Does she poop at a pretty typical time of day? Maybe you can sit with her in the potty and read a book, talk, etc. around that time and see if taking her mind off it helps her relax and go! I just ordered the vinyl pants for Catherine and then I am planning to switch to panties full time except for naps/bedtime and school. For naps/school I'll still use pull ups and then diapers at night until I think she's ready for just a pull up or panties. I'm not an expert by any means but I hope that helps some!

 

I am real big on not starting things I know I am going to want to stop so I never stripped them down and I never asked/told them to go. I wanted them to realize when they had to go, not for them to go because I was watching the clock. Not sure in the whole grand scheme of things if it really mattered but it mattered to me so I wanted to choose other tactics.

What initiated the potty training? Was it something she did? That would effect how I continued. If it was her taking the initiative then I would probably give it a couple more days but if it was adult initiated then I would hold off until she shows the ready signs.

The pooping thing is relatively normal. It can be very intimidating for some children. Kayla would never do anything in her underwear, she would wait for her nap or bedtime pull up to go. I worried about constipation so I didn't make a big deal of it. One day we were out of the house and she had to go, she just couldn't hold it and she would never soil her underwear so her only choice was to go in the toilet. From that day on she stopped holding it, sometimes I just takes a break through like that to jump the hurdle!

 

I would keep her in underwear... at her age, she is willing enough to sit on the potty..if you send her a mixed signal that diapers are an option again she might just get even more willfull about not sitting on the potty at all. Public toilets will be an issue for awhile...it's a phobia most kids have even after fully potty trained. Just avoid them for a few months if you can. What I did with my older dd is to insist on underwear and then put the potty in the living room so she could sit more frequently. I put towels everywhere and insisted that she sit on one if she was on the couch or the rug. She knew that Mommy was in this for the long haul, and that she had to figure something out or she would have to go through this ordeal every day. Don't push the pooping issue or you might just have constipation issues. If she seems like she needs to poop you can try sitting her on the potty and really reassuring her. I used to have to hug my dd while she was trying to poop...and I took the time to tell her that everyone poops on the potty.. I would go through a whole list of names while she was trying..so and so poops on the potty..and so and so...etc. Anything to distract her for a little while she was trying... If she gets really, really upset about it, crying that it hurts, then I would put a diaper on her just for pooping. The other thing I did for my older dd when she did have a poop in her underwear (and she only did this once) was I showed her the dirty underwear, explained to her that it was too messy for mommy to clean and let her watch while I threw out her princess underpants. I explained to her that if she pooped in her pretty big girl underpants that mommy would have to throw them out. That was incentive enough for her to not have another accident. But you have to make sure it's a pretty pair, not just a plain old white one.

Stick to your guns... she's old enough, and shows enough willingness...it's just a matter of figuring out how to control that muscle..and practice makes perfect.

 

Dianne,
we have been "trying" the potty since before she was 2. No pressure....if she wanted to get on great, if not that was OK too. I would always ask her if she wanted to use the potty before bath time and she was pretty regular about going. She was still full time in diapers, but I was just getting her familiar. I would ask her if she wanted to wear panties and some days she would say yes, others she would say "no...diaper". Whenever she would want to wear panties she would proceed to pee them, so I just told her she would have to wear diapers until she went on the potty. I backed off for a month or 2 and now I have been watching a little girl a couple of days a week who is 3 1/2 who is fully potty trained. The days I have her, Claire is gung ho on wearing panties and using the potty whenever the other little girl goes. I started putting panties on her and she has been insisting to wear them, but she just does not take the initiative to go on her own. She is a total creature of habit, so the plastic pants may not work.
She freaked out when I bought some "cotton training pants" since she had only been wearing the fun panties. She even refuses pull ups because she thinks they are "swim diapers" and wants to go swimming. Personally, I think pull ups are kind of silly and really just a glorified diaper, that gives kids too much security, but convenient for the parents. I guess this may be more of a vent than anything else. I know I just need to be patient......Claire just came in wearing clean panties and no pants...I asked her if she peed her pants...she said yes.....but she can take off the wet clothes and put on dry....AGGGHHH!!!

 

I don't know that I necessarily agree that she is old enough. To make a blanket statement like that about children 2 years 4 months is not really fair. Neither of mine were old enough until 3, to assume differently would have been doing them an injustice.

Potty training does not have to be torture for you or the child. I think I would probably tell her that unless she is going to stay dry (I wouldn't even discuss poop individually at this point) an entire day then she is going to have to go back to diapers. There is no reason for you to have to be cleaning excessive laundry and messes if she just isn't quite ready physically.

 

Dianne, I would love to hear your opinion and anyone elses...my girls are 3 1/2yrs!! They have NEVER yet peed or pooped on the toilet/potty. They will tell me when poop is coming but just too fast to get to the toilet...its out by than.
When asked if they want to pee or poop on the toilet, they say no....we have told them that when they are wearing panties and no more diapers, they are big enough to have a baby kitten for a pet.
They are quite excited by this, but nothing has changed...actually the opposite...Kalyna does not tell me when she has pooped alot of the time now!

The other day, at nap, they were not sleeping and took off their diapers and pants. They said they wanted panties...well within 3 hrs I had changed them 3 times...the certainly did NOT like it when they were wet,...BUT by the third time, Kalyna did not even complain about being wet...I discovered she was wet by getting her undressed for bath.

What do I do???
I thought about taking one week and putting their panties on under their diapers...so they are wet but not making a mess around the home. Than I would try the next week with panties and their plastic pants.
We would like to send them to JK in Sept, but if there is no progress...???

ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Hi, I just wanted to ditto a lot of what Dianne said. My twins were potty trained at around age 3, but I actually wasn't going to start until they were 3, but a few weeks before their birthday, they started showing interest, so we did it and it was easy.

HOWEVER, my oldest son was over 4 before he was willing at all to do it. I was pulling my hair out. I was driving everyone crazy, including my son. He would not do it, flat out refused regardless of what I did. I tried everything. I finally just threw in the towel and let him be. Once I took all his pressure off, and let him be, he did it. On his own. The pooping was what was holding him back, and once he got over the fear, he was fine...

I remember talking to the pediatrician about it. He told me not to worry about it. His own son was not potty trained until he was 4, and now he is a student at Yale!

 

I do agree that they will do it when they are ready...but what do I do if they are still in diapers by Sept...not send them to school and just wait until senior kindergarten?

Thanks for you experiences and stories,...it is encouraging reading about them...knowing I'm not the only one with older ones not interested.

 

Thought I'd just mention a DVD I got recently called "Potty Power" http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002B55DO/?tag=mytwins02-20 . I don't think my kids are quite ready to toilet train yet but I had read about the DVD and decided to get it so that my DH could get free shipping at amazon. I intended to hold on to the DVD for a little but the kids saw the DVD case and wanted to watch it so why not? Immediately afterward both wanted to sit on the potty and we've had only limited interest before from DD and almost zero interest from DS. They ask to watch the DVD several times a day and love it. I think several times a day is a lot for Mommy but if it helps get them into the going on the potty I'm all for it!