Potty training tips and help for toddler girl!!

[Zgreen1]

Like the title says I need help! First child here and are working on potty training. If she can't get it or fights to go sit on the potty should we back off or keep pushing it? Will she let me know when she's ready? She's super smart and advanced for her age(not just me being a proud parent,have had strangers come up to me and tell me they can't believe some of the things she's doing or saying). I mean everything is clicking perfect except potty training. Or am I'm just too concerned about it at the moment? I know every kid is different, but what ages did your kids get it? Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[Reagan40]

My daughter is also intellectually advanced for her age. Potty training was very interesting with her. What we have learned is that some kids who are more advanced, seem to understand what you are trying to do, and decide whether they want to go along with it or not. Other kids, just learn things because they are being taught. In other words, the advanced kid gets it and could be "potty trained" if they wanted to be, but they decide they don't want to mess with that inconvenience right now. My daughter was not the first of the kids that we know of her age to use the toilet, but once she decided to do it, it's like a switch was flipped. One day she wasn't potty trained. The next day she told us she didn't need diapers anymore and hasn't had an accident since. Think about it from a child's perspective. They live to play. Why take a break from playing when they get the urge? Just go in the diaper and worry about it later. Don't be discouraged, just keep working with her. Let her know that there is an expectation. We had to reason with her and help her see the benefits of potty training outweighed using diapers. We also bribed her with M&Ms...

 

[Zgreen1]

See I have a feeling thats how my daughter will be! Once she decides she's ready she will get it instantly. We tried bribing but that didn't work.

 

[308jake]

Boys are much easier to potty train. My son quickly changed from diapers to peeing in the front yard....the back yard....the sidewalk.....pretty much wherever he was at when he needed to go. The hard part was convincing him that the world wasn't his personal toilet.

 

[paintman]

That's how I potty trained my daughter. I let her poo poo at the park and bam. No more diapers. Only took once and she never looked back.

 

[17 squirrel]

My kid didnt fight, throw tantrums and argue with his mother as a small child, he understood early in life it will cause him trouble and the loss of his freedom.
Around 17 or 18 months, one morning after breakfast she saw that face he would make when its log delivery time.
She stripped his bottom half and sat him on his shiny new potty stool, she then told him hes not going anywhere until he delivers a brown trout in the awaiting pan below.
She told me he sat reading his books for a hour or so and when she walked by him, finished business was in the air.
I sorta remember him forgetting once or twice and that was it.
No rewards, no arguing, no screaming child running around the house or out in public. Tell the child what you expect from them, they will rise to the occation.

Im glad she did all that stuff... Remember we are parents first, friends later in life...

 

[Trigger Time]

I think girls are much easier than boys. Daughter was easy. Son ....
well we are still in the process. He's still not 2 yet but he's sharp as a razor.
What worked with my daughter was making a huge deal when she went in the potty. Potty dance song and all lol

 

[mom45]

My daughter wanted no part of potty training until she turned three. As noted above, it was almost done overnight. She went through less than one package of the pull ups and was accident free even at night very quickly.

My son was trained a bit younger but didn't take long once he decided he liked the potty.

 

[HamYankee]

Don't make it a big deal in front of her. Try no diapers at home. Kids decide on their own they don't like pee running down their legs.

 

[1911ly]

What worked with my kids was when one of us when potty the kids went potty too. Kept the chair in the bathroom. They learned by association. It's worked well with 4 kids. Three girls and a boy. Pretty soon they were going by themselves.

 

[st33da]

As mentioned above, each child is different. After a lot of reading online and asking a bunch of friends who had gone through it already what had worked and what didn't my wife and I sat down and laid out a plan from start to finish. With this being our first and only child we had our doubts but decided to just stick with it and not deviate from our initial outline no matter what was to happen in the future. With that said, here is my experience potty training my daughter. Prior to the actual process my wife would make it a point every so often to let my daughter see her using the bathroom just to familiarize her with the process. Now my daughter probably didn't have a clue as to what was actually going on but we feel as though it helped her later since she had seen it so many times prior. Now onto when she let us know she was ready. At around 25 months old or so we tried to encourage her to use her potty chair. She wanted nothing to do with it. In fact she was literally crying when we put her on it. It wasn't until many attempts and a lot of frustration later that we figured out how to get her to actually sit on the potty. The answer, a new potty seat that sits on the actual toilet rather than and potty chair. Once we overcame that hurdle then we would set her on the potty seat every hour and encourage her to go. Every once in a while we would get a small tinkle out of her but it was more luck than her actually trying. None the less we made a big deal out of her successful potty and cheered and clapped and all that jazz. Before we knew it, with positive reinforcement, the tinkles were coming more regularly and we could tell that the connection in her brain was happening.

Also worth mentioning that we did not use pull ups or any training diapers. We went straight from diapers to panties. The logic here was A) Make her more aware when she had an accident, and B) Make it as uncomfortable as possible for her when she had an accident to hopefully make her want to go to the toilet. Now admittedly there was a lot of cleaning to go along with just panties but it seemed to work much faster than we thought it would. Also it was heartbreaking to see her cry when she had an accident. Again, positive reinforcement was key here. We would console her and let her know that it was ok that she had an accident but we were proud of her for understanding what had happened.

Now back on track to the actual process. After she was tinkling semi-regularly when we put her on the potty we added more incentive for her to go. In addition to the cheering and clapping and high fives, we found a potty chart online (here) and taped it to the bathroom door. every time she had even the slightest success we gave her a sticker to put on the potty chart. This did two things, gave her even more incentive and allowed us to track her progress. Granted there were good days and bad days but just sticking to the program and having persistence really paid off. Before we knew it she had 5+ stickers every day and we decided that it was time to up the rewards but by doing so we asked a little more of her. We went to the toy store and let her pick out 10 toys. Starting cheap and working up to one big nice toy that she really wanted. We took the toys and lined them up on a book shelf in the living room so that every day she would see them and hopefully be incentivized to work her way up to the big toy. We still did the stickers in addition to the toys so to keep her from getting discouraged even if she didn't meet the requirements for a new toy.

First the small toy, we told her that she needed to go 3 days without a accident. If she had an accident we would start the counting over. It only took a little over a week for her to get her first toy. The second toy we told her 5 days without an accident. She knocked this one out on the first try. The third toy we really stepped it up and stopped taking her to the bathroom every hour, but rather we took her every 2 hours. Again the stipulation was for her not have an accident for 5 days. It took her a little under 2 weeks. The fourth toy we stepped up the time again to every 3 hours. Again no accident for 5 days, she did this the first week also. On the fifth toy we told her that we was no longer going to take her to the potty and that she needed to tell us when she had to go. This was the hardest one for her. We set the bar low at only 3 days without an accident but it took her nearly 3 weeks to get her toy. The fifth toy was for her to learn how to wipe. She sorta understood this but we noticed that she was going through the motions but wouldn't actually touch the toilet paper to herself. After asking a few questions we changed to a softer toilet paper and she did great. We ended up giving her the toy after a week or so. It's worth mentioning, that even to this day, we wipe her when she goes poop. She understands how to wipe and all but she just doesn't get it very clean so in the interest of hygiene we give it a wipe or two after she does.

The sixth toy was flushing the toilet on her own. She seemed to think this was fun so there was no real challenge for her and after only a few days she had her toy. The seventh toy was for her to move her step stool to the potty, get her pants and panties down on her own and go without aid. Depending on her pants really determined her success, in fact this is still an issue today, but for the most part it went pretty easy and she had her toy in very little time. The eighth toy was the same as the last but for putting her panties on and pants after she was done. This went very quick and she had the toy in no time. The ninth toy we really challenged her as we had her do more than one new thing. We had her open the door on her own and then move her step stool under the light switch and turn on the light when she entered. This wasn't that bad but at first she did have trouble turning on the light because of her height but we knew she was trying so we helped her until she was tall enough to get it on her own.

Finally for her last toy we had her move her step stool to the sink when she was done and wash her hands, then we had her mover her step stool under the light switch again and turn the light off. Lastly we had her shut the door behind her. Pretty much making herself fully capable of doing the entire process on her own. To get her last toy we asked her to do this for an entire month. For the most part she did great however there were still small random issues here and there. We were still very proud of her and gave her her toy anyway. She was fully potty trained by the age of 2 years and 7 months old. It wasn't easy and it wasn't fast but we have not had an issue since. She is now 4 and I can't even remember the last time she had an accident.

I hope my experience have given you some good ideas and possibly makes your potty training a little easier.

 

[Reagan40]

We did hear from a friend once that their child would use the toilet during the day, but just would not get up to go to the toilet at night. They go to the point where the child was getting a bit old for pull ups, but they did not want to have to change the sheets every morning. They decided to put the kid to bed with underwear first, then a pull-up. No mess in the sheets, but the kid felt the wetness. The kid decided it was worth getting up in the middle of the night to avoid the wet feeling.

 

[Gluemanz28]

I say don't train her at all. That will end a date pretty quickly when she starts dating. "Boys Bad"!!!!

OK just kidding..... Sort of

We had an M&M jar and when they went potty they received an M&M and lost of praise. You have lots of trips to the bathroom (like every two minutes it seems like) when they are learning, so be prepared to get up during the football game when your team is on the one yard line getting ready to score.

Start on a Friday evening and go the whole weekend with no diaper and no pull-ups. Put big girl panties on her and when she pee's she won't like it.

I'm betting by Monday morning she will be potty trained.

We limit the drinks at night and have them all empty their bladders before going to bed when they stay over.

My oldest Grandson received a Poker Chip from a Harley Dealership for going a whole week dry. He now has a Harley Davidson Display case hanging in his room with Chips from all over the United States. He is now seven and very proud of it. I continue to add to it since it has become a bond between us.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I know you don't want to keep messing with poop, believe me, I know. Just relax and encourage, let it happen, they're all different. It'll be done before you know it. Putting stress and guilt on it is counterproductive. My son had a problem with bed wetting for some time after he was potty trained, but it was because the pee imperative wouldn't wake him up. For that we used pullups; I wired them to a little pocket pager alarm that was enough to wake him if he peed (no, I didn't wire up his meat & two veg). After a couple of months the connection was made in his brain and no problem. Once again, no stress or guilt, just "hey guy, let's see if we can fix this".

 

[17 squirrel]

Just for giggles I sent my sons mother one of the posts from above and ,

She just called me and first she laughed and said, there's more negotiations there than in the Paris Peace Treaty, and I wonder what is traded to make the child eat there veggies...

I guess whatever works to get the job done. Be careful with negotiations, before long you will be buying a car just to get homework done and the trash taken out.

 

[trucker777]

Its almost comical to think about now, but my kid was terrified of the sound a toilet makes when flushing. She would not sit or even try to sit on the stool until she was almost 4. She was totally horrified by it. We have no idea why, and it was very frustrating. Now, its like no big deal to her at all. Just keep trying though and be consistent with your child. Everyday work with them and if you feel you're getting frustrated then it's time to just back off some. Like someone already said... when that switch goes on it in their little brain this will be a non-issue and you'll be ready to move onto other things.

 

[Gluemanz28]

Its almost comical to think about now, but my kid was terrified of the sound a toilet makes when flushing. She would not sit or even try to sit on the stool until she was almost 4. She was totally horrified by it. We have no idea why, and it was very frustrating. Now, its like no big deal to her at all. Just keep trying though and be consistent with your child. Everyday work with them and if you feel you're getting frustrated then it's time to just back off some. Like someone already said... when that switch goes on it in their little brain this will be a non-issue and you'll be ready to move onto other things.

Great advice trucker. Leading will alway go a lot further than dragging or pushing. I have seen way too many parents force a child to do something just to prove they can, not because it's the best thing for the child.

The same goes for marriage. That's why some people can't stay married.

 

[Bigtanker]

Boys are much easier to potty train. My son quickly changed from diapers to peeing in the front yard....the back yard....the sidewalk.....pretty much wherever he was at when he needed to go. The hard part was convincing him that the world wasn't his personal toilet.

I wish that was true. Our daughter was trained by the age of 3. My boy is 5 and still has a bit of trouble. He knows what to do but he just doesn't want to do it.

Each kid is different. My niece has identical twin girls. One is doing great, the other wants nothing to do with it.

Good luck OP. It will happen when they're ready.

 

[Zgreen1]

Thanks for all the advice! Sounds like I'm right on track just hasn't happened yet. I attribute all of her smartness to how momma took care of her self and the baby before and during her pregnancy. She did everything the doctor said to a t.

 

[Birds Away]

It's a female. Just tell her she can't. Pretty easy.