What method(s) did you use? Did you have any false starts? Funny stories to share? Did anything surprise you about the process? How old was your LO and how long did each stage take you?
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We started at 2.5 and it was mostly painless--he was in underwear all day after the first day, and he was poop trained by day 3. he has never had a poop accident since then, and he rarely had full pee accidents. HOWEVER. I wouldn't say he was "truly" potty trained until recently when he turned 3. Between 2.5 and 3, he was potty trained, but getting him to use the potty was a bit of a power struggle, and he would often wait too long to go, meaning that he would have a few drips in his undies. Since he turned 3/started school in Sept, he is going to the bathroom independently when he has go to, and is much more cooperative when we suggest that he use the potty. But all in all, it was really not bad at all. I was so nervous about the poop part, but that was the easiest TBH.
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I feel a little guilty about saying this, but it was a total breeze and very quick. I credit that in very, very large part to the fact that we waited until LO was 3 years old to potty train. I think we definitely could have done it before then, but I suspect it would have taken a lot longer. There is/was a big difference in her physically between 2 and 3, and even 2.5 and 3. There were no fights about using the potty, etc. She just “got it” in a way I don’t think she would have when she was younger.
Our only “false start” was trying pull-ups. They were too similar to a diaper for LO to really get it. As soon as we switched to undies – game change. She had like a billion accidents the first day, half that amount the second day and then 1 or 0 for the week following. Since then, really no accidents. It took maybe 2 weeks for her to get poops down 100%.
We waited about 6 weeks to get rid of the overnight diaper. I waited a full 30 days of dry mornings before getting rid of that.
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@yoursilverlining: glad to read this because i am planning to potty train in 2 weeks and LO will be 3 years and almost 2 months old! I have been putting it off forever, but hoping that it will go smoothly as a result
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LO was almost 3 and it was surprisingly easy. I would've trained her earlier but I wasn't mentally ready. I used the Oh Crap! method and would highly recommend it. Don't use Pull-ups, it will only confuse them. Best of luck!!!
ETA: We night-trained the same time as day training and she's almost there too. We still have to wake her up to pee in the middle of the night but she hasn't had any nighttime accidents in weeks. It's a pain for a few months but its worth it!!
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We did the "Oh crap potty training" method (if you want to call it that), and in some aspects it was so much easier than I expected, but in other aspects it was harder.
My LO will be 2.5 next month. She had been showing some signs, but my main motivation for going ahead with potty training was that in January, she'll start commuting back to daycare with me full time, which means we will be in the car 2 hours a day, and thinking about potty training and my commute scared me.
Basically we just did bottomless for 3 days, and still 3 weeks later are doing commando. She's done great and is now fully day trained.
Things I wasn't expecting: I thought night training would come way later, but she's started waking up during naps and night telling us she needs to potty. So boo for the sleep disturbance but yay for the sleep training herself part, I guess. The hard part was paying attention to her cues and getting her to a potty ASAP when I also had a 4 month old infant who I was nursing and who needs a lot of help to go sleep. Juggling those two things all by myself for a week was....hard. Harder than I expected. There were several times I was nursing an extremely hungry baby and the second she got latched on, the toddler had to pee and I had to figure out who I was going to upset.
LO1 has actually never had an accident in the car or stroller yet (knock on wood), so I'm not sure why I was so stressed about that in retrospect.
Funny story: Once LO pooped in the potty and screamed, "Look mama! It's a J!" And she was right. haha.
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My Lo's school potty trained her. I think seeing all of the other kids going constantly made her get it. She was casually pottying but still wearing a pull up to school and then her teacher sent a note home saying that if we were ready, she thought DD was ready to go to school in undies since she wouldn't wet her pull up all day. So we took the plunge and it took about a week for her to quit doing #2 in her underpants. She was even night-trained right away, but the #2 was slower. Then all of a sudden, she came in one day and announced that she had pooped on the potty and wanted to show me, and ever since then, she's been 100% potty trained. So we didn't use a method, per se. Her school just did it and they told us they take each child every 45 minutes or so until they start asking (they have a restroom in each classroom.)
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We potty trained right before 2.5 (like the weekend before). We basically followed "Oh Crap!" method. We only did it when we did because Xander was more than ready. He decided after Gymnastics that he didn't want to wear a diaper, so we were all "Okay! Guess we're potty training!" Went bottomless all morning, but before his nap he got multiple pees and a poop in the potty, so after his nap, we just went commando. We had very few accidents and he was in underwear at daycare on Monday. He had a number of accidents that first week at daycare, but has done really well ever since.
He recently has started to slightly regress though - he'll hold it as long as he can and resists going potty until he can't hold it anymore. Then he'll start to go, get his underwear and pants wet, run to the potty and finish up, but need a change of clothes. I think we need to be better at pausing whatever we're doing and getting him to use the potty sooner, rather than letting him self-initiate.
Also, we still haven't gone potty out in public. He freaks out in public restrooms and will hold it until we get home! He's only gone at home, at daycare, and at SIL's house.
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@Adira: I'm like, the worst mother so I took LO for Santa pictures at the mall on only her 4th day. She went commando in a skirt, and I put on tights right before she sat on Santa. She had to pee twice and I took her into a department store bathroom to pee and she was fine, but I was sweating bullets. Bullets! I was so sure she would pee on Santa's lap or something. Or pee right on the floor of the mall. But I didn't want to go back to diapers, so we just took the risk and she was totally fine.
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We didn't use any method in particular. DS1 showed physical signs of being ready for a LONG time but mentally he wasn't there. Every time we tried he had a meltdown. Finally he started trying at school (after wearing pull ups for months). Then one weekend when the weather was crappy and we were staying home, I decided to put undies on him. He protested for five minutes but then forgot about it. He had one accident that morning and that was it. He was potty trained. He's had two poop accidents because he was too busy playing but other than that he did great. He even wakes up dry overnight. He was 3 years 2 months old when we did it. For future kids, I'm not forcing it. They will do it when they are ready.
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@californiadreams: DS1 was that age. It was easy by then!
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We had two false starts before potty training stuck.
I tried first around 26 months and she showed a lot of signs but would hold her pee for hours and refuse to go in the potty or a diaper. She would finally just erupt and then start screaming. It was terrible, she was afraid to have an accident but then couldn't release when the time came.
The second false start was going well until I solo parented one night and had a difficult time putting the baby to bed. I tried to get DD to go beforehand, but she refused. I warned her I didn't want her to get pee on her toys then went back to the screaming baby. When I came back down stairs she had emptied her bladder into a you box of stuffed animals. It was so gross. I gave up for a while because I couldn't touch pee things for a while after that.
The third, successful attempt came after we returned from vacation, would be home for a while, and was during a heatwave. I kept her naked for a week. She had one pee accident on the third day and that was it. She pooped on her own the second day and we've never had a poop accident. Overall it ended up being far easier than I expected but difficult because I was terrified of taking my eyes off her lest she pee on the couch or something.
She had a mild regression when she started preschool but has had fewer than ten pee accidents since July (she was 30 months when we trained.) -
UGH. We did the Oh Crap Potty Training method when LO was 26 months this past July. She took to pooping in the potty immediately and has had 2-3 accidents in the 6 months since then. She has also had 2-3 pee accidents PER DAY in the 6 months since then. DH is absolutely refusing to "go backwards" and put her in pull-ups, so for now I just do a shit ton of pee laundry
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@JoJoGirl: huh. that's crazy! And is she refusing to go when you take her on a schedule? Have you tried going back to commando for a week or so? Just random troubleshooting....
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@JoJoGirl: we did OCPT and have good weeks and bad weeks, LO completely understands that he's wetting his pants but doesn't care, so we are not going backwards. It's behavioral and we are treating it like that. One major thing we're frustrated by is that he's the only kiddo in his class consistently pottying. In the beginning, he had a friend who was potty training at the same time and they would both go whenever one had to and it was more fun/novel/exciting or whatever. That friend regressed and the parent chose to go back to diapers and LO will ask for diapers too, because friend gets them. My thoughts are that if he has the much understanding and awareness of the process, he is capable of (and has proven that he's capable of!) using the potty. I hope when he gets to the next room, more kids are potty trained. I feel for him, he's the only one who has to leave his toys and go to the bathroom, etc.
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@oliviaoblivia: yeah, I guess the hardest part to me was regulating my own responses and my expectations (I suck at that). The book I read has so much good advice in that area, and I read it and agreed with it, but I found it SO HARD to implement it. Like the author says not to shame a kid when they have an accident, and not to show frustration or that you are upset, but to just matter of factly state "You had an accident. That's okay, you're still learning. Pee goes in the potty", or whatever.
Sounds so good in theory, but just like your experience...when you ask if the toddler has to go and she says no, and then you are nursing your baby and go to lay her down and return to find an accident on the floor--it's SO HARD not to just explode. I had to literally just put myself in a time out one day to avoid saying something that would shame LO when she had an accident.
That was hard. Luckily that only lasted the first few days for us. But I didn't anticipate balancing the needs of my two kiddos being so difficult (I mean, with me not losing my mind in the process).
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@Anagram: No, she goes most of the time, fights us other times. I think the issue is that her bladder muscles just aren't strong enough because she never empties her bladder in her pants, she just "leaks". We'll see a wet spot at her crotch and run her to the potty and she will pee. I just don't think she feels she has to go, can't really hold it, and doesn't notice when her pants are wet. We started going commando at home after pre school but it hasn't helped - she still just leaks everywhere!
@Applesandbananas: Since our LO is FANTASTIC at pooping in the potty we think it's really just her bladder muscles, not behavioral. I think she can "feel" the pressure of the poop much more strongly than that of the pee. I have no other explanation!
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@JoJoGirl: our LO is also REALLY good about poops, I never considered that it could be a bladder muscle thing because he did SO well for awhile. Have you tried taking her on a schedule? It almost sounds like she might be trying to wait until the last possible second (LO does this at school a lot because he doesn't want to leave an activity). I think I'd feel a lot differently if LO hadn't had his successful streak.
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At 28 months I put dd in underwear the Friday morning of a long weekend. The first time she peed she peed right through them onto the ground and was really surprised. I cleaned her up, new undies and took her to the potty every 15ish minutes and the first time she peed in there it just clicked. She pooped in the potty the same day and we never went back. I did give her an m&m everytine she used the potty for the first couple days then gradually she forgot about them. She's only had a few accidents since then and that was a year ago.
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@Applesandbananas: Yeah, in general we take her every 90 mins or so if she hasn't already gone. I'm not sure how often they take her at school. She had a few days in a row last week with no accidents at school, but then had a couple in the evenings. I think she does worse when she's tired.
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