It’s Potty Time!
May 31st, 2008 by Kelli Matthews
We bought a potty today for Braxton. He says “potty” a lot. He knows where the potty is. He occasionally tells us when he’s going “pee pee” or “poop.” I honestly don’t know if he’s ready. But if he is, we’ve got the equipment!
In the meantime, enjoy this little ditty from Elmo about pottying. And please leave your best advice in the comments.
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My 3.5 year old is recently day trained (pull-ups at night). We tried the videos. He has Elmo Potty Time and we borrowed Potty Power and the Henry one from the library. He’s had books for ages. Nothing really seemed to work until I decided to just leave him naked during the day. As long as he had nothing on, he’d use the potty. Soon as I put a pull-up on, he’d forget about the potty. This went on for some time. Then he got a rash on his bottom from sitting with his bare butt on the dirty floor and the doctor gave me some cream and said to put cotton underwear on him. That did the trick. He only had a few accidents in his big boy underwear and that was it. So, for us, underwear was the magic key.
Michelle
Kelli -
We didn’t use any videos with my daughter and I’m starting to think it might have been a good idea, so this is perfect to have on hand when I dig into the potty training job with my son. I hate to even offer advice because I don’t see myself as an expert (I almost went insane when doing this with my daughter!), but the things that worked (I think) were
Thanks so much for the adorable Elmo video, I’m going to show it to my kiddos
1) being REALLY patient and understanding that accidents happen - a LOT
2) Picking a certain date (when you’re all ready) after trying the potty for awhile and having some success to just say “no more diapers” (pull-ups at naps/bedtimes, of course!).
3) Potty treats worked great for us, although this is a controversial tactic
4) We used all-in-one cloth training pants with a vinyl cover for a while and they worked great because M. could feel that she was wet, therefore knew that she’d peed, but we didn’t have to deal with the puddle on the floor or wet clothes.
For now, having the potty is a great move in the right direction and now that you have the Elmo video, your son will probably figure it out in no time
2-3 days of nudity is the fastest potty-trainer. none of that pants-wetting, bedwetting mess. Just a straightforward mopping up of accidents 20 times a day and suddenly it all makes sense.. Have fun.
Lady wth 6 daughterss last blog post..I’m firing the Tooth fairy
Good luck. We’ve been potty-training my son for a full year. Ug. We have given up and re-started the process at least five times. He will go in the potty - he just doesn’t care if he goes in his pants. So….best of luck, and have lots of patience!
Congrats and good luck! We had the potty and Elmo DVD in our house for quite some time starting around the time she was about 18 months, just to get our daughter used to the idea. we didn’t ask her to use the potty - would just occasionally bring it up. We just wanted her to start getting used to seeing it in there and using the “lingo”. When she started regularly letting us know when she needed a diaper change, we knew she was getting close. This past Christmas we gently forced the issue. She was just under 2 1/2 at the time, and given that my husband and I were planning on being home, and keeping her home, over the holiday for about 2 1/2 weeks we decided to take advantage of the time to do some in depth potty usage. On Christmas eve, “Santa” came and left a bunch of brand new elmo and cinderella underpants in her stocking that “Mrs Claus” had made herself by hand, special for her. He also left her a stack of new books for reading in the potty. Her daytime diapers also “miraculously” disappeared from her diaper cubby on Christmas eve, as did her changing pad (by this time we had been using it on the floor). “Santa” left a note in her stocking with the underpants explaining how proud he was that she knows when she needs to pee and poo now, and that he and Mrs. Claus decided they would give her these special new underpants to recognize what a big girl she is, and he also explained in the letter that he took all of her diapers with him so he could give them to little baby girls and boys who still use them. He talked about the new books he left and how she could enjoy reading them with Mommy in the bathroom while she was going potty. She was so proud of the letter and underpants. The first 3 days she was in underpants she had several accidents and I spent a LOT of time in the bathroom sitting on the floor reading the new books over and over and over and over again. I have the Berenstein Bear’s “Bear’s Vacation” memorized still
but we cleaned up each accident and told her we were so proud she was trying out her new underpants. By the 4th day she was staying dry throughout the day. By the time she went back to school after the holidays, she didn’t even need pullups at naptime. Today she still wears pullups at night “just in case” but wakes up dry almost every morning (of course, she’s waking me up at least once or twice a night to go potty, despite the fact she’s in pullups, so I’m not getting as much sleep as I used to, but in the grand scheme of things, the fact that she’s waking at night to potty is a good thing ;-)). Santa and the Easter Bunny have both come in handy when it’s come time for her to move onto a new phase of life (giving up the bottle, using the potty, etc).
Heather, thanks for the great story! I’ll have to give that a shot. I teach at the Univ of Oregon and so I get big breaks of time - 4 months of summer, a month of winter break - maybe winter break will be the perfect time to give it a shot.