We have a nice slow period coming up in December, and are thinking about potty training DS1.. He'll be 28 months.
What method did you use and at what age? How did it go?
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We did the 3 day method. We waited until after DS2 was born since I didn't want to deal with regressions. That made DS1 a few months shy of 3. To be honest, it was super easy for us and we didn't have many accidents after the first day. I think waiting until he was older/ready was the key there.
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We used the Oh Crap! book at 20 months. We were successful and have no regrets.
The only way we deviated from the book is that the author recommends night training at the same time as day training, and we started out that way, but we gave up because LO is still in a crib, so she can't hop out of bed to use the potty at night. I don't know if she's developed enough she could actually do that even if she slept in a toddler bed, and I don't want to mess with her sleep. When we tried to wake her for a nightly pee like the book suggests, she freaked out because she didn't understand what we were doing. We'll probably try nap/night training her when she's around 2.5.I have a file here I made notes on so I'd remember how it went. I love details like this, but you can skip if it bores you.
It took six days before she stopped having accidents now and then. She didn't poop on the potty willingly until Day 10. We've been pretty much accident-free since then and it's been two months.
Sad faces mean accidents, happy faces mean success.
Day 1
10 pee, 2 poop
2 halfway pees, 1 halfway poop (that's my term for her going on the floor and being dragged to the potty to finish)No true successes on Day 1. I remember it being one of the worst parenting days of my life and worrying that we'd made a huge mistake. Luckily, the book warned about this and we pushed on.
2
4 pee
1 pee, 1 halfway pee3
3 pee, 1 poop
2 pee, 1 halfway pee4
3 pee, 1 poop
4 pee5
2 pee, 3 poop
3 pee, 1 halfway peeUp until now we'd been trying to go diaperless for naps and at night, but we decided to ditch that. We're not counting pees or poops in her diaper as accidents in the following days, whereas previously we counted her accidents in bed (she'd stay dry about half the time).
6
None!
6 pee7
None!
6 pee8
None!
6 pee9
None!
6 peeShe's been holding her poop for nap/night.
10
1 pee (I think we put too much trust in her ability to self-initiate)
3 pee, 2 poopThis was the first day she pooped in the potty by herself. It just clicked one day for no apparent reason.
It was smooth sailing after that. She self-initiates about 80% of the time.
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We read Oh Crap! Potty Training and basically followed that for Blocks 1-3 (I guess technically we're still on Block 3 since he hasn't used a public potty yet). He was just shy of 30 months and self-initiated it.
One Saturday morning he just didn't want to wear a diaper, so we let him run around naked and kept giving him apple juice. Before his morning nap, he had peed and pooped on the potty, so that afternoon, we put him back in clothes, just commando, and he did great. Monday he went to daycare with undies. He had multiple accidents at daycare that first week, but has been doing great ever since.
ETA: Xander's still in a crib, so we haven't night trained him. We still put him in a diaper for naps too, but he usually wakes up dry.
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We didn't really use a method. We 1st started when DS was 2 1/2. Big fat fail! He hated the potty and would flip out when we tried to get him to use it. Same thing at daycare. Finally at 3, he would try at daycare, but nothing at home. Just last week at 3 years 2 months, he got it. I casually put underwear on him. When he protested I didn't make a big deal out of it and asked him to wear it 5 minutes. He forgot he had them on. He had one accident that he helped me clean up. And no accidents since then! He literally potty trained in a morning - no treats, no bribes, no stickers, no toys. And he had woken up dry for naps and bedtime. Physically he was ready a long time ago. But mentally it took him longer.
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I have a girl but we did Oh Crap at 23 months and I thought it was great.
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@Oxana: this makes me hopeful to potty train my DD over Christmas break when she's 22 months! Thanks for this awesome chart!
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We didn't use a method. We had been introducing the potty to him for months previous by putting him on the toilet before his bath, and he had been pretty good about peeing in it at that time.
So, at 28 months, we bit the bullet and put him in undies and the first day took him to pee every 15 mins and each time he peed, we'd give him an m&m. Each day we lengthened the time by 10 mins and within 3-4 days, he was pretty much accident free.
We did not night-train him at the same time.
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@Oxana: Thank you for this! We are almost finished with Day 3 (not the Oh Crap but the 3 day potty training, I hadn't heard of Oh Crap until now) and she's peeing much less (drinking less) and we've only had one or two successes today. I was about ready to give up - but your list makes me think we should wait it out longer. Day 1 she would tell us she needed to go, sit on the potty for awhile and then have an accident minutes later. Now she yells "no potty" unless we can think of a bribe. If its a good enough bribe, she will go. This is happening much slower than the 3 day method promises. She's 25 months. Any other advice?
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@Oxana: You've convinced me to buy the book. I have a little over a week off at Christmas and I think we'll try it then. oh my.
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We did OCPT at 34 months. He did great! He had about an accident every other day at daycare for the first 1-2 weeks, and that was it. We did stopped diapers at nap/night about two weeks later. He had 2-3 nighttime bedwetting episodes in a row and we were losing our resolve, but then he stopped. He's been fully in underwear for about 4 months now and it's WONDERFUL. We didn't do bribes and now we basically just trust him to tell us when he has to go, and he does.
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@Kelley_lovelikecrazy: I'm glad you asked, because there was something we came up with on our own that really worked for us that I forgot to mention.
There were times when she knew she had to go, we knew she had to go, she was sitting on the potty and nothing was happening. And then she would get bored or frustrated and pop back up off the potty, only to have an accident a few minutes later. The book mentioned that kids are having to learn two big things all at once--how to HOLD their pee and poop, and how to RELEASE their pee and poop. So to help them release, the book suggested encouraging your toddler with words like, "Let it go," or having them blow air out of their mouth. I think those are good ideas, but our LO was too young to understand "Let the pee go," and blowing didn't make much an impact.
Out of desperation, we took one of those rubber nasal snot suckers (aspirators? not sure of the real name) and sucked up some warm water we'd put in a cup. Then we squirted the warm water all over her genitals and let it trickle down like pee. And BAM. The floodgates opened. There was basically no way for her to hold the pee in when we did that. Which isn't surprising, I guess, because if I had to pee and someone did it to me, it'd be hard to hold it in...kind of like the old summer camp trick of putting someone's hand in warm water while they sleep to get them to wet themselves.
We relied on this trick pretty heavily, because we felt like it was self-reinforcing. She would quickly pee (no frustration or boredom), we would heavily praise (reward), and she was learning that pee goes in the potty in a Pavlovian way. We also made sure to take some hot water in an insulated thermos in the car when we went for out for errands in the early days because when we sat her on the potty in the trunk area of our car, we didn't want to be standing there for eons waiting for her to pee, only to have her pee in her carseat (which hasn't happened yet, thank goodness). We'd sit her on the potty in the car, squirt the water, and she'd almost immediately pee.
We don't use the water much anymore, two months in. I guess we used it for about a month? I still pull out that trick when she hasn't peed in two hours and it's nap time and I don't want her to completely soak her diaper.
I'm afraid I don't have much advice about the rewards part of your question. The Oh Crap! book warns against rewards because of that scenario, so we never used them. Maybe someone else can chime in about how to come back from that...there might be something in the book about it, but I probably skipped over it since we weren't doing that from the start. I'll try to find the book and look for you.
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@Oxana: I'm going to try that!! Thank you! She says she doesn't want to wear diaper, but yeah leanring to hold and release is hard on her. And she gets frustrated with herself when she isnt succeeding instantly. We'll keep trying!
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27 months a loose version of the 3 day method, he had pees down by the third day, poop a week later. He night trained himself a few months after a couple of weeks of random night accidents.
The only way we deviated from the book is that the author recommends night training at the same time as day training, and we started out that way, but we gave up because LO is still in a crib, so she can't hop out of bed to use the potty at night. I don't know if she's developed enough she could actually do that even if she slept in a toddler bed, and I don't want to mess with her sleep. When we tried to wake her for a nightly pee like the book suggests, she freaked out because she didn't understand what we were doing. We'll probably try nap/night training her when she's around 2.5.
10 pee, 2 poopReply
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