Hellobee Boards

I mostly followed the Oh Crap book- 3 day (ish), starting with no bottoms- no underwear or pants or pull up. It was super easy with my older, not so easy but not terrible with my younger. It makes sense to me that kids understand better when bottomless than with underwear that feels to similar to
A diaper.

we are in the middle of it with my son. we did a day where he was naked and we paid close focused attention so every time he started to go we'd put him on the potty (we brought it with us from room to room). We set timers and had him try every 10-15 minutes. Day 2 I put him in training underwear (its just got extra padding so that pee doesn't go EVERYWHERE- he still gets wet). We gave him m&ms and made a big deal about every success.
By day 3 he was sick of us asking if he needed to go so I just said "let me know if you need to use the potty." By the 4th day he self initiated all of his pees on the potty.

Poop has been more challenging for him- he's had a few successes but he hasn't made the connection in the same way he did for pee.
We have been out of diapers for 2 weeks now. If we are home and playing indoors he gets himself to the potty every time for pee. 50/50 for poop (usually he starts to poop in his undies and then goes to the potty- sometimes he can finish and sometimes he can't). If he's playing outside i have to bring the potty out and remind him or he forgets.
He hasn't had any success out of the house yet. We've been to the library, but just for an hour and he went before. We've been to 2 playdates and he had several accidents at both. I just bring changes of clothes, don't freak out but say "poop and pee go in the potty, let me know when you need to go again."
He has been dry for naps and sleeping in undies for naps. We put a diaper on him at bedtime.

My older daughter basically potty trained herself with very little intervention. We just put her on it at regular times throughout the day. My son is a different kid, obviously. He caught on very quickly with pee, and we are just kind of pushing through and hoping poop follows soon. Its messy- I rinse the poop off in the toilet and then do a load of wash every night. I'm not going back to diapers, so we're just waiting it out. He needed to be potty trained by the fall, so we've had to enforce a bit of an external schedule that I wasn't thrilled about.
Our pediatrician said the most important part is to NOT stress them out about it or it will make it much harder. When I noticed my son getting stressed/anxious about us constantly prompting him to go I backed off and it definitely helped.

Its hard to learn a new skill, and we've been emphasizing that he's trying so hard/working so hard to learn how to do this, etc. etc. We really celebrate successes in a big way- dancing, calling dad at work, etc.

@erinbaderin: you can definitely do it at 3! That’s when we trained my son. I didn’t have a method really but with perseverance I think it will click for him. Pull-ups only for sleeping times until he gets the feeling. I will also add, if he has any constipation that can interfere with the feeling of needing to go. Probably not the issue but mentioning just in case.

We also did the Oh Crap method and my daughter caught on very quickly. She was so easy to potty train, though, and we may not be so lucky with the next kid.

@erinbaderin: yay!!! Because it’s the only way I’ve done it, I can’t imagine doing it any other way.

Potty training has by far been the most frustrating phase of parenting (coming in very close second is meals). In hindsight it was obvious that potty training methods work differently for every child. My oldest is the type to please and rewards worked really well. She was trained in 4 days. So naturally I tried the same method with my second and it went horribly. Full out crying when trying to sit her on the potty. She is very strong willed so putting the idea in her head she chose when she wanted to do it. It took longer but she did it. You are on the right track and your child will get the hang of it. It seems like they never will then suddenly it clicks.