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connorsmom · 11-05-2007, 07:43 AM

Okay Connor will be 3 in a month and refuses to sit on the potty at all. I am lucky if I can get him to sit on it twice a week. We have the potty for the floor and one for on the toilet and he won't sit on either. If I force the issue he just screams. Should I not bother trying right now or is there something I can do to get this process started. I am okay with the fact that he isn't toilet trained yet but I would like to at least be working towards it some way.

chky0925 · 11-05-2007, 08:26 AM

Malcolm turned 3, one month ago. We ask him every day. Up until last week his answer was always no. We force the issue and he starts screaming and crying. So we stopped trying to force him long ago. We talk about it a lot. He kept saying soon Mommy, soon, but not today. Last week we were talking about school, and I told him that he wouldn't be able to go if he didn't start using the potty. It was an "Oprah light bulb" moment for him!!! He stood up and said I have to pee on the potty. He didn't, just sat there, but for him it was huge. So since last week, he has asked to sit on the potty, refused to sit on the potty, and never once actually done anything in the potty, but it is a huge step forward for us. At least he no longer screams about it. Apparently he was afraid of falling in. The first time he sat on the toilet with his little seat, the look of wonder on his face was priceless "I didn't fall in" he said!! So that is my little tale. I wouldn't push the issue, he'll be ready when he is ready. Just my opinion!!! Good Luck!

amyunicorn · 11-05-2007, 08:43 AM

Forcing them and them being at the point where they're screaming isn't going to help. My dd was trying to be coerced at her first daycare (a family relative!) and she screamed. We switched dcp and I told her dd was screaming regarding the potty and we both decided to just let it go. She trained quickly, on her own.

barbi_rdh · 11-05-2007, 08:51 AM

I started training Jack in middle of august. Right now he is pretty much pee trained, but refuses to poop on the toilet.
Here is how I started with Jack: every hour on the hour I told him it was time to go pee (I don't ask him if he needs or wants to or he just says no). If he sat on the toilet I let him have a sticker in his sticker book or sticker chart ( http://childavenue.com/pages/family_...rintables.html )
If he actually peed, then he got 2 stickers. Once he started going whenever he sat down, then stickers were just for when he went pee.
Now that he goes everytime, he gets a sticker when he tells me that he has to go pee.
Jack hates sitting on the toilet so once he got the hang of how to pee, I let him stand up. He likes to pee like daddy, and he likes to pee with daddy too.
Good luck, oh and OMG your boys are sooooo adorable! I think Nathan looks a lot like Connor at that age.

scrappymom · 11-05-2007, 09:02 AM

Don't stress!!! Both my girls didn't train till the month before their 3rd bdays. And it was a war before then! They just weren't ready! We tried potties, toilet seats, no little seat, etc!! We tried stickers, little chocolates, etc....
They will not go until they're ready, and if you force them it will only take longer!
I am a big advocate for letting them run around with just underwear on(obviously stay home), it only takes a couple accidents for them to realize that it's yucky and they don't like that!
Good luck!

mum_of_four · 11-05-2007, 09:12 AM

I didn't have time to read all the replies, so sorry if I repeat something. My DS would scream and yell and carry on if I tried to get him on the potty and in the end I just shut up about it. Occasionally I would suggest it and he would freak out, and I figured it wasn't worth the aggro. I ended up having to do a very slow build up to it (in 6 months we're not going to use diapers anymore..........In 5 more weeks the diapers will be gone). Once we finally got to the cut off point he sat with no problem, and was actually toilet trained instantly (we have never had a single accident since that day, and it was the first day he ever did anything on the potty other than scream and cry). Everything else I tried didn't work at all- bribes, begging, ignoring - he did it when he was ready.

Good luck! There's nothing quite so frustrating as toilet training IMO!!

Liisa · 11-05-2007, 09:27 AM

I'm in the same boat with my Connor. He absolutely hates the potty. I am always putting him in underwear when we are staying home, and he is consantly peeing himself. I have to say it's a good thing we have a carpet cleaner!

He pooped in it once, and man, what a mess! I have tried the "don't ask but tell him it's time to sit on the potty" routine, but he just screams at me. I have also warned him many times he can't go to school until he uses it, but since he's in pre-school now I don't think he believes me...to him that is 'real' school.

One thing we do which I'm hoping will help is I sit him on the potty when I am changing him after an accident. I tell him I need him to sit there while I clean up, put the dirty clothes in the laundry. I am hoping this will help him get used to sitting on it at least. I also have it in the family room so it's close by and he can watch his tv show while he goes. I also have his potty book next to it (tho so far he doesn't want to look at it).

I guess I am having a hard time being patient with him since my first was a breeze to train. I thought this time would be easy b/c he'd want to emulate his brother.

All I can hope for is that persistence will pay off. And, I was thinking that I will start putting him in underwear when we go out, too. Someone posted in another potty-training forum here that they put a pull-up over the underwear, so if it fits, I may try that (we only have the 'thick' training underwear).

Please let me know if you have any success.

amyunicorn · 11-05-2007, 09:32 AM

Liisa, I suggest getting him to help clean up his messes. That's what I had to do with my ds to get him to stop pooping in his undies; he had to help clean up. Who wants to clean up that mess? Not me! Not him! I would then tell him if he went in the toilet, there'd be no mess to clean up.

Jodie · 11-05-2007, 09:24 PM

We had the same problem with Julian. What worked for us was to put sitting on the potty into his routine. When he woke up, after snacks and meals, and before we left the house. When he sat without screaming, we would read a story and he would get a smartie. Sometimes he refused and we wouldn't push it. Eventually when he peed he got gum (he had never had gum before this). The gum worked great! Within a week he was pretty much day trained.
Good luck Kim! I know how frustrating it can be, but if you can just be patient (I know - easier said than done) he will learn to sit on the potty. I would also recommend the book "The No Cry Potty Training Solution", we didn't follow it completely but it definitely helped us to keep on track when we were ready to quit.

Spots · 11-06-2007, 07:14 AM

My guy didn't want to even sit on it too. I set myself a date I was going to try more drastic measures, but in the mean time we talked about it, but I never asked him to sit on it or anything. One day I asked him to sit on it, and he did and he peed. It was super easy.

He was very resistant to peeing when asked. I felt like I was nagging so I stopped asking. I didn't want to create a power struggle. We only had a few accidents and he realized he had to tell me when it was time.

You have to know your child and do what you think will work best for him.

connorsmom · 11-06-2007, 12:55 PM

Well things have improved. Connor sat on the potty about 7 times yesterday. He never peed but he didn't scream about it either. Today he has only sat on it once because he had preschool and is now napping. I think it is going to be a slow process but if I can at least have him sit on it it will make things easier.

Liisa · 11-06-2007, 01:26 PM

That's where I'm at too, Kim. I just want him to sit on it without a fuss. I guess the rest will come in time. Sigh...

2xmom · 11-06-2007, 02:23 PM

That's great progress ladies! We're still at the cry and scream stage... sigh. DS will be 3 at the end of January and wants nothing to do with the potty.

L&AMOM · 11-06-2007, 11:50 PM

Liam will pee on the toilet when he sits on it.... but getting him there is another story. He did the screaming and yelling a few months ago, but graduated from the potty to the toilet transtioner thing. We've done the sticker thing, and now trying the candy route - not my choice - but the kid loves Tootsie Roll midgies.
Now Alex wants to sit on the potty and INSISTED on sitting on the toilet tonight. He freaked when I took him off. Hes likely to be trained months before his brother will be. sigh.
Liam will tell us when hes gone #2 in his diaper most of the time - after the fact. But like you Kim, Barb and others... this age 3 thing and NOT potty trained is getting very frustrating.

I dont even want to try underwear at this point because Im afraid it will be futile and with carpet in most of the house... argh.....

I will be watching and reading... LOL.

connorsmom · 11-07-2007, 07:35 AM

I'm waiting on the underwear until I have him at least sitting on the potty cosistently and peeing occassionally and then we will move to underwear. Right now there is no point we are just trying to get him to sit on it consistently and then we will go from there. He sat on it 3 times yesterday which wasn't too bad considering he was at preschool all morning and napped all afternoon (first nap in about a month by the way.)