Wednesday, July 23, 2008

POTTYING WOES.....HELP!!!



Braden is 3 now and it is time (for us) to start pushing pottying in the potty!!! Many feel it should have started before now...but I was told by many moms of boys that it will just happen when they're ready - not to push it...so I didn't. Then when I was pregnant with Brailey I was told not to do it because he might regress when she came and had diapers on - he would want diapers on too! So - I didn't even try for those 9 months! Now school is starting back next week and Braden will not be moving up with the other 3 yr. olds because he is not potty-trained. I'm fine with that for the fact that I don't want to push - but I feel he is old enough to start trying! Monday we had a good day - he went 2 times on the potty and the rest on the floor!!! I was so excited when he went in the potty and he was too - when he was done he was mad and said he wanted to do more. I explained he would have to wait until he had more pee! Well the next day he wouldn't go on the potty at all. I would have him sitting there for nearly 20 min. and then I would finally let him off only to find him pee on the floor in the next 5 minutes! I was so mad! I'm sure I didn't react properly many of the times and had to later go and talk to him that it was ok and he would get it! I was just upset because I had asked him many times if he had to go and he said "no" and then went on the floor!! Today he upset and saying he does not WANT to pee in the potty. As I'm writing this he called me in to show me he had peed a little in the potty. We were both so excited!!! We shall see how the rest of the day goes. ANY advice would be helpful! I've NEVER potty-trained before - so POOR BRADEN...and poor me!!!

3 comments:

Our Wonderful Life said...

I started out just having them go potty in the morning & night (before bath). When Elijah was two I put him in underwear & for about 2 days cleaned up messes. It took about a week for him to get the hang of going stinky. But he was by far the easiest of my two boys to potty train! Jonah is a bit of a struggle to potty train. He is 3 1/2 years old & doesn't not like to stop. I am just determined to get him out of diapers as I have a 10 month old. I understand the frustration with cleaning up the messes! I just read a book that has really helped me with Jonah. Its called "Beyond Time Out from choas to calm." There is a section that helped me with what I think I was doing wrong with Jonah. It has really helped me calm down about it. I still do not like cleaning up the messes, but he will get it. I so enjoy reading your blog. Your kids are so cute!

Mary Ellen said...

I read your blog on the HSBC alumni website regularly. My husbands aunt and uncle have ten children (only one set of twins, all theirs, none adopted) so I figured she had to be an expert on potty training! When it was time for me to potty train Michael I asked her what she did and she told me about a very small book (more like a booklet) that was called "How to Potty Train Your Child in One Day."

I bought it on Amazon.com for something like $4 and read it and used what they said and Michael was potty trained before two and a half and it only took one day - but that is all you do for that one day.

Sadly my other three I did not use it and the last one is still in diapers at 3 - the other two they were older when I potty trained them and because of that it happened pretty quickly because of their age (both were almost 4).

After Michael our next two were exactly two years apart so I was just trying to keep up with life with a newborn, 2 and 5 year old - needless to say although I was sick of having two in diapers I never took the time to stop and spend one whole day doing nothing else or it probably would have worked for them too.

I think the key is just to keep plugging away at it, unless you know a child is being deliberaely naughty I wouldn't make it a battle or something to stress out or fight over. Just keep trying and then all of a sudden it seems to all "click" and then you are done.

I also didn't stress about the night time part, my daughter was such a deep sleeper she just did NOT wake up so we used night time pull ups until she grew out of it somewhere close to age 6. Michael (age 10) and Ethan (age 5) were much better about night time and Ethan was the best. Some of it has to do with personalities too.

Some kids potty train themselves, some kids are very hard and some kids are easy - there is so much variety out there and a lot of information about what works or what doesn't but so much depends on the child.

Sounds like you've got a very good head start and it's probably coming together better than you realize. Just don't stress and treat it all very matter of factly and he is apt to follow your lead. "-)

Your have two cutie pies!

Tonya said...

Thank you for your help! I did totally jump into to it this week - that's all we've done! So it's like Potty Training in one day! We are on day 3 and he's doing great! I'm not even sure how to start the night time - just do it and see what happens? Right now he's wearing a diaper for nap and bedtime. Anyway - hasn't been as hard as I thought! Tonya