Pre-Potty Training

I am planning to wait until the kiddos show more interest in the potty before we attempt potty training them. Needless to say, this is hard as I am getting a lot of pressure from co-workers with similar aged singletons that did the 3-day method and swear by it. (Is it still considered successful if they are having accidents 3 months after being potty-trained???) My kids do not show enough readiness for me to even consider starting...I want it to be as pain-free as possible!

Anyway, I have had two Bjorn potty chairs in the bathroom since before they were 2 years old. They will sit on them for 10 seconds and then hop off. I have tried to get them to stay longer and even had a successful pee from DD. However, we screwed up and only gave her a treat for peeing on the potty. They were still too young and didn't understand why DS didn't get a treat, too...the whole experience ended in tears and I took the potties away for a few months. I have them back in the bathroom and they will sit from time to time, but nothing that will likely result in pee in the potty.

So, would you remove the potty chairs until we step into full-blown training mode to make them novel and new and exciting again? Or should I just keep them in there and still ask them to sit before bathtime?

 

I would say the best you can do is wait until they show some interest. I would leave the potties out and see if they want to sit on them or bring it out certain times of the day (say when they first wake, before nap, after nap, and before bed) and offer them the option of sitting on the potty. If they don't go for it at all, I'd put the potty away for a while and then go back to it a little later.

 

I totally agree with Nancy. If they aren't showing interest, you're just going to end up frustrated and upset. You can give it a good shot, but if by day two it's not successful, then wait. My girls got so upset with me when we first tried at 2.5 that they wouldn't even look at the potty.

 

there are several methods out there... and I did the 3day one on the internet, and I really liked the phrases and words she gave to use... her theory was great for us! my dd really did well with it and for the most part she's fully potty trained. day & night.

my ds has poop accidents most days... but for me its still somehow better than diapers. and that's what I deal with...

what I was going to say is that is that is your question about not being fully trained after 3 months a question that your coworkers kids aren't fully trained?? or that you attemped PTing 3 months ago?

the 3 day potty training I did was a full on work out for me for 3 days... you HAVE to catch them in the act every single time... and plan on doing nothing else but potty training. It was a great jump start for us. I recommend trying it... you don't know how your children will really react until you try. what do you have to lose? for trying it for at least 3 to 4 days... I bet you'll see some great progress by day 3. you could try to start 1 at a time to make it less intimidating for you, but then you'll have to be training for 6 days... the method we did calls for underwear from day 1. some methods recommend naked, and I would not recommend pull-ups.

I attempted PTing a couple of months before I tried the 3 day thing... and at one point my dd really started catching on when I started doing naked training and gave them access to the potties... my ds regressed at that point but my dd basically trained herself on what to do... but not when to do it... the 3 day method really helped solidify the "when" part for my dd.

good luck figuring out what's right for your family.

I love not having to wash our cloth diapers and love love not having to spend $50-100 on diapers a month...