We have been working with our son (2 yrs. 3 mos.) on potty-training and after different trials and errors, we finally found that sticking a couple “Trix” cereal pieces in the potty and letting him stand up and “shoot” it, really seems to work and he loves to do it. We’ve only been doing it for about 3 days, so I hope the novelty doesn’t wear off!! My question is, at what point do I introduce the “Big Boy Underwear”? Yesterday he stayed dry pretty much all day and held it until he was able to go to the bathroom, except for maybe 2 or 3 times.
Wearing diapers prevents a child from that icky feeling of being wet or having pee run down their legs so IMO it’s time to introduce the underwear now. He can learn what happens when he doesn’t use the potty. Yes, it makes a mess for you to clean up and you have a lot more laundry, but in the long run it’s a good thing. If you want to you can “fence off” certain areas or make them off limits to keep the mess to a limited area.
Kids grow and mature at different rates, but it sounds like your son is well on his way to no diapers!
Use the big boy pants at home and use pull-ups when you’re out and about…until you can trust him a bit more. I went cold-turkey with my son, and he trained very quickly. Be prepared to spend a lot of time watching and following him around.
We gave our daughter M&M’s when she was potty training. She got one for going #1, and 2 for #2. She spent a lot of time in the bathroom!
And IMHO these worked much better than pull ups because the kids felt wet and yucky: incentive to use the potty. With pullups they dion’t feel much of anything, because it is all wicked away.
MY opinion is based on potty training my kids 34-36 years ago and watching my dd and dil train my dgds.
I agree - if kids don’t feel it, they don’t care. If they don’t care, they’ll keep wearing the pull-ups. I actually let my daughter run around naked. It seems like she only remembered to go when she had nothing on. I’m starting with my son, and I’m getting ready to go into full training mode. I have to say though, in the beginning, I always long for the ease of the diapers - especially when we’re out!
Pull Ups weren’t around, but I’m not sure I’d use them except for when we were out. My DD taught in a preschool for years and said that the kids really didn’t feel any different than when they were in diapers regardless of what the commercials on TV tell you. :teehee:
Pull-ups are a bad word around here! There is no difference between a pull-up and a diaper except the way they go on. I always used the underwear with the characters on them and used the incentive that they didn’t want to get Scooby-doo wet or something like that. Worked very well.
Thank you all very much for your great advice!!
[COLOR=seagreen]Nathalie - M&M’s sound like a good idea. They’d be more for me, though. My son doesn’t like chocolate. I know, he’s weird!!![/COLOR]
[COLOR=red]Jan- Thanks for the link. I will definitely look into those![/COLOR]
[COLOR=darkorange]To all who are against the Pull-Up, thank you, thank you, thank you! I was probably going to go out and buy these this weekend. I will NOT be doing that now!!![/COLOR]
I am an advocate for pull-ups for when you are running errands during the initial stages of potty training. I think you should make sure you are experiencing success at home before you put yourself through messes in a store. Let your child experience some success at home, and if he messes up there, who cares. They are also good for the nighttime. Kids do not want to go back to diapers once they have regular undie-like garments. However, pull-ups are kind of inbetween and will save you a lot of sheet-washing.
That said, I would not use them to train at home. We had thick underwear for our son. But, all it managed to do was catch the poo. However, they were perfect for home. He had a few accidents at church, with the thicker undies on. It was not pretty.
I agree…I’d put him in boys undies right away and maybe let him go out and pick his first pair out…we did this with both of ours and that seemed to help…We would give change… I took a pop bottle and put it up high on a shelf in the bathroom…everytime he went he got either a penny or whatever we had on hand… he would get to put it in the bottle… and he seemed to like that as well… I agree on the pull ups they are to much like a diaper for them…
Hehe, that is clever. I don’t think it will wear off, since it works well on grown men too. :teehee: Alot of restaurants have been doing stuff like that to help limit the mess… I heard there is even a urinal you can get that has a teeny picture of a fly sitting at the bottom… they just can’t resist.
The funniest one I have seen was a sports bar, that put little goalie nets in the urinal. too funny.
I wholeheartedly agree you should NOT go the pull-up route – I took my boys to the store and let them select their own new “big boy” underwear. A weekend is a great time to start, especially if you can keep your outings to a minimum because you could be needing a bathroom close by often. I also used a “reward” chart for my boys. They got a “plus” sign for “going” and not having an accident and a “minus” sign if they had an accident. At the end of the day if there were more “plusses” than “minuses” they got a star. Once they got ten stars they got something special – what that should be is personal – something your kid really likes and doesn’t get often or something they’ve wanted for a while or a trip somewhere “fun” like the zoo or Chuck E Cheese – just a reward for doing so well. By the time they’re at 10 stars you’re well on your way to being “done”!!! Good luck!
[COLOR=red]Nathalie- I think the pull-ups when you’re out and about are a good idea. Definitely don’t want to have a clean-up on aisle 5!!![/COLOR]
[COLOR=green]Dustinac- A bottle for change, huh? This would work great right now because he loves putting his pennies in his piggy bank!![/COLOR]
[COLOR=darkorange]Krystal- A goalie net? Seriously!?!?! That is too funny!![/COLOR]
[COLOR=purple]iwfinley- I have been considering a reward chart. I like the idea of getting something, too, instead of just a star.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=black]I didn’t expect so many great ideas!! Thanks again, girls!! [/COLOR]
I used Cheerios for my son too. It was the only cereal I kept in the house…you know how you always carry baggies of them around with you for the kids to munch on. My son, however, really enjoyed just throwing them in the toilet. :teehee:
I have 3 kids, and potty trained 4. They weren’t interested until they hit close to 3 years old. Developmentally some can’t handle the stress of it all. If you see behaviors popping up that aren’t normal. My suggestion is to back off. My middle one was the exception. He decided 2 days after newborn baby sissy came home (he was 2.5 yrs old), was the time to be interested…I said…NO WAY…but when it was time the second go-round, he was the easiest!!
They’ll fully give you cues when they are ready. And when you wonder, will they be in diapers in Kinder??? you can be sure to say NO!!
I just wanted to give you a and hope it is going well!
My first born is a boy and he was very hard to train! Extremely hard. He didn’t really get until he had a few issues in Junior Kindy… Then we finally had day time dryness.
Night time is a whole other situation.
My second is a girl… and she literally trained herself over 1 hour. She wanted Dora Undies… She was 19 months old.
We know now that it was because she was having constant UTI’s… and so the pain was a huge ‘aide’ as she always knew when she had to go!
But she was dry night and day from the point that she got her undies.
So… I wish you all the best! Its hard, and you’re likely going to fall in the middle of my experiences! Either way… I find that I was the one getting the most worked up about the whole thing and my child really… didn’t care much either way!
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and hope it is going well!