my son is almost 22months old and i am starting potty training! i am a first time mom so and input is welcome?
Hi. I’m potty training my daughter - she just turned 2 last week. She is my 2nd child. My first potty trained late and I felt like such a failure. Later I found out that he has a learning disability, so perhaps I wasn’t doing so bad afterall. My daughter started going on the potty at 18 months, and we are still at it. She has only had one bowell on the potty months ago. She will urinate on the potty, but I think she is saving some for her diaper too. Right now I know I’m doing some stuff wrong. Specifically I’m not consistent enough. But I’ll share what I know, and there is a good chance you already know all that I do. A good potty video helps, because kids like to imitate one another. We have “Once Upon a Potty” and “Elmo’s Potty.” Some pros say it is best to wait til your child is waking up dry because that means the child has better control over their bladder. But, I’ve read that in many other countries parents learn to listen to their baby’s potty cues and the child becomes completely potty trained by age 2 :blink: . Anyway so put him on the potty right after he wakes up especially if he is dry. If he is successful, get very excited, clap, call gramdma with the good news, etc. Try again 20 minutes after each meal. If you go to try and he has already eliminated then adjust the time so it seems to fit his elimination schedule. If he is comfortable with the potty, then you can start just trying every hour in addition to waking and after eating. Some people are very successful giving their child treats like 1 jelly bean for urination and 2 jelly beans for bowell movements. I’m not doing that because then my daughter will spend lots of time just crying for extra candy all day. I use pull ups and diapers but many people say it goes quicker if you go straight to underwear so the children gets soaked and uncomfortable every time they have an accident. I don’t want to clean up accidents all day, and it would destroy the carpet, but perhaps you have more forgiving flooring. I think I feel more motivated myself now. Honestly I don’t enjoy potty training probably because my last experience with my son was so frustrating. Also I think there is even a potty watch that beeps when it is time to go potty. Although the kitchen timer works well too.
Good Luck, Lori
Hi my daughter is 12 months old and we are not potty training as yet although I will sit her on the potty when I go to the toilet so that she is comfortable with it and learns what it is about.
My mum told me that when she was toilet training me and my siblings (there are 5 of us) she started at around 12 months by getting us used to the potty and sitting down long enough to do something as I’m sure you know what toddlers are like 
always on the move.
As we got older she would give us our meals and then put us on the potty with a drink. If we did something in the potty she would show us that we had done something in there and tell us what it was.
All of my siblings and I were toilet trained completely, day and night, by 2 years of age.
Some people said that my mum did it all wrong and it was too early but it worked, people say that it is wrong to be teaching my child to read this early but I dont believe it is.
I will do as my mum did as I know that it works. I also have heard that it can take a little bit longer for boys to be toilet trained. The best thing is to not force it, just let it happen naturally so that the child doesnt get scared of going to the toilet/potty.
Best of luck.
hi there.
sa’ad is turning 2 next monday. about a month ago i bought him a potty time book. we then went to choose a potty. the potty came with a reward chart which i hadnt shown him yet.
he would go on about the potty and he would sit down when i asked him if he wanted 2. whenever i tell him that he is a big boy he tells me " i go potty!!" he never did anything though then one day he sat on it i turned around to wash my hands and he got up and ran away like usual. then i see a liquid in his potty. great i missed his first wee in the potty!
i jump up and down in excitement.
i make him drop it in the toilet and flush and wash his hands.
i call every one i know.
i give him his first star on the poo chart.
and that was that.
it hasnt happened again.
im glad he likes his potty and he knows that its not a chair or a funny hat or a place to grow plants in.
so now im just going to be patient and i am going to wait for him to make the first move. we go potty at least twice a day. he wont be in nappys forever so im just trying to be relaxed about it
I’m currently working on training my 2 year old son as well. He’s doing pretty well, but we’ve still got a long way to go. One thing I found that he enjoys is we have a special game we play only when he’s using the potty. We just throw a certain toy back and forth, but he loves it.
We did a kind of low key elimination communication method, which worked around 8-10 months, but then he got an independent streak and stopped cooperating.
Whenever we sat him down on the potty, we made the sign for potty and made a ch-ch watery sound. If he was successful, much praise. If he peed in the bath (pretty much every time) we made the same sound and sign, but no praise. Since he started peeing on the side of the tub when he put his hands under the tap when we started filling his bath, we put a urinal there made out of a milk jug, and he soon got the idea.
But he wasn’t completely dry during the day until he was almost 2 and a half, but it was much more about not wanting to follow directions than not being able to control his function.
We bribed him a lot with books. 90% of his education probably took place on the potty.
In fact, when he learned to stand, one of the first things he did was to stand up off the potty, unleash the little hose on me, and laugh uproariously.
thankyou for the advise !
Oh, the joys of potty training. My recomendation would be to enjoy it!
When we teach our little ones to read, we try to make it fun. Learning is supposed to be fun with lots of smiles, hugs, kisses, and such. I think the same would be good for potty training. Now, I say I think it would be good because, all though I’ve trained my 4 and am training my 5th, I don’t always remember to make it fun.
There are books on training in one day, and I think they have great ideas, but I haven’t accomplished training in one day. Just getting used to pushing the pants down and then pulling them up again seems to take them a while. :laugh:
For boys, the other great thing is that they can stand and go potty. It is so nice and quick. Make sure there is a steady stool so he can stand (and they are so nice and short, that as long as they are facing the toilet, they can’t miss 
), pull down his pants, do his business, pull up his pants and be off (oh, and flush and wash). It is so much easier then trying to balance while you sit … and mine would never sit well unless their pants were all the way off. Standing is great! lol
Boys are longer to teach than girls (at least in my house). A potty on the floor helps and lots of trips to the potty even if they do nothing. You can read them books while they sit. Sometimes running water helps. Give them lots of fluids during the day, they will be more likely to “accidentally” go at which point you can make a big deal about it.