Post Punk Kitchen Forum

axel, blasto loves to pee outdoors. he's afraid of public toilets and would prefer peeing where everyone can see him instead of using a public toilet.

we were at the food bank a couple of weeks ago and a woman behind me said, "honey--yo' child has his pants down in the parking lot!"

there he was, adorably peeing on an oil stain.

Thanks for the info ladies. It helps - I was just having a hard time imagining how this will work!

And jewbacca that's hilarious!

we got the seat to put on the toilet and a little step stool, and the coolness factor of stepping up to the potty was totally an incentive for her.

Gus peed on the potty 7 (yes SEVEN!!) times this weekend! Only 3 accidents. Whooooooo! We weren't even planning on potty training this weekend but he didn't want a diaper when I changed him Saturday morning. Anyone have daycare potty training tips?

yay, gus!

we've been having some lapses, largely with pooping in pull ups again. we had progressed to staying dry during the day and working on naps, but when my mom came to visit a couple of months ago, mr. j started putting him in pull ups during his naps again, much to my protesting. he doesn't want to do the extra laundry when blasto wets the bed. uuuugh.

jackson will totally still poop in a diaper if given the chance. but he pees the bed during naps/at night if he isn't wearing one. our solution has been to wait until he falls asleep to put him in the diaper, and then get him out of it as soon as he wakes up. he doesn't poop in it as long as he's asleep.

the thing is, because his bladder is so big now, he often soaks his diaper at night and we end up having to wash the sheets anyway. i would like to work with him on staying dry while asleep but i am not sure how to start. do you wake them up at night to make trips to the potty?

Zola peed in her potty 3 times on Saturday! She wore diapers all day yesterday because we were out, and she wore a diaper this morning, but she just agreed to put underwear on. We'll see how it goes.

Zola's been in underwear since my last post, and she's only had one peepee accident! She even stays dry overnight and while we're out. She still poops in her underwear every time, though. I'm super duper proud of her ability to stay dry and go pee on the potty every time, but the cleaning poop off of underwear bit is getting old.

Yay, Zola! Mission "no pull up during nap" is working out great. In one week, we've had more dry naps than accidents.

Anybody have experience potty training a kid who won't keep a diaper/underwear/training pants on, but also totally will not use the potty? Raygold won't even sit on the potty (or the toilet or the toilet with the special kiddie seat), although I can sometimes get him to stand over it. I've tried talking to him about it and he isn't interested in telling me why he won't use the pot or keep a diaper on or pee on command. I've been chasing him around with the potty in case I can catch anything, but it's not easy.
I could put a diaper and a wrap on him and then trousers because then he can't take them off himself, but I kind of think if he wants his diaper off, maybe it is time to potty train (he's 25 months -- I tried to EC him when he was younger, but he would scream and panic any time I hovered him over a toilet or a potty and wouldn't sit on them).

tzipi i think is starting down this road for reals this time. she pooped in the potty for the first time ever this weekend. then this morning, she was running around with no diaper and pooped in the bathroom, but ALMOST made it on the potty. she's been been in underwear on and off for about a week, but still pees wherever. i'm hoping the feeling of pee running down her leg will clue her into the usefulness of the potty soon.

i just have to ask daycare if they're starting another round of potty training soon, because without them doing it too, it's not that helpful to work too hard on it at home. i was planning to do a hardcore no pants week this summer while i was off, but since i'm now off from now until the baby comes, i guess i could start right away. i am just not really looking forward to three days stuck mostly at home with probably a ton of cleaning up poop and pee. but i really do think that it's going to be that experience that finally clues her in.

Okay, well, Raygold isn't using the potty every time and still pees on the floor or in his training pants more than he uses the potty, but he is starting to take the initiative (instead of me putting him on the potty every time and begging him to pee) and he even pooped a marble-sized poop on the potty yesterday. (He took the potty behind the curtain for some privacy, so I thought something like that was up.)

What seems to work best is giving him a ridiculous amount of praise every time he uses the potty. I also started a sticker chart, which was such a hit, Beetroot wanted one, too. So they get stickers for good behaviour. This is the first way I've been able to motivate Beetroot to reign it in -- he is kind of wild -- the idea of not getting a sticker is sometimes enough to get him to behave (like sit and eat instead of running around the room or letting me brush his teeth instead of fighting me off).

gahhh Dahlia is driving us slightly insane. She's been pottytrained for almost a year now but lately has started wetting her bed more than once a week. I know, this could partially be caused by the distraction of having her new sibling, but last night she wet her bed TWICE! seriously. We have her pee before bed at 9:30 and then Howard goes and carries her to the toilet to pee around midnight, and sometimes she'll come into our room early morning and have me take her to the toilet. Last night, she was already wet at midnight and then soaking wet when she came into our room at 7am.
we try not to be mad but GOD. I just feel like she makes a game out of this, like she is perfectly capable of coming to our room 5 feet away and waking us up when she needs to but sometimes she just doesn't bother? We seriously limit her fluids at night, just a small cup of water at dinner but it seems like there is just no predicting when she'll have an accident. And with the heat lately I feel bad not giving her more to drink.

Raygold has been pretty dry at night! Our biggest problem with him at the moment is pooping on the floor (sometimes, he goes on the pot, but usually, he sneaks away and poops on the floor). Otherwise, he usually pees on the potty (we still need to remind him most of the time) and has maybe one or two accidents in his pants a day. I put all the cloth diapers away and am just using the training pants, regular undies, and disposables for travel (because the bus ride anywhere is an hour and at least half the time, it is followed by a 30 minute train ride) and at night sometimes when he has had a bit to drink before bed (we sleep on a japanese futon and I don't want to get pee on it). It's pretty amazing how far he's come in just a few weeks.

Audrey, I bet you it has everything to do with having a new sister. Henry had been pooping on the potty for a year when his sister was born, and when she was a few weeks old he suddenly had several days of poopy diapers/poopy underpants. We just kept our reaction really low key and it seemed like the novelty wore off quickly. He's had a few other episodes of trying out "baby" stuff (pacifier, rolling around on the floor, babbling, theatrical crying) since she was born. He's just trying to deal with big feelings. With pee stuff I always freak out about UTI's but if she's fine during the day and not complaining, she's probably just working through something emotional. Hope it doesn't last too long!

Ezra has been doing really well with potty training lately. We got through the weekend with only one wet dipe! We were travelling a lot this weekend, and he was up for peeing on the toilet in public bathrooms and everything - it was great.
And then I got the underwear, and it all went downhill.
He absolutely hates them. He stomped and cried and had a complete meltdown when I put a pair on him. I thought he'd calm down in a minute or two and forget that he had them on, but no. He also had two accidents while wearing them. So I think it's back to diapers for now, since he's happy to use the potty when he has those on and he's comfortable. Think I just got too excited at the idea of being diaper free! Little steps!

Okay, I'm joining this thread. Pretty sure poopiebaby is ready, and Lard knows I'm ready to be done with washing nappies. We just ordered a potty chair, but I know NOTHING about potty learning so... yeah. I stay at home with him, so should we do the naked thing for a few days and see if he gets it? Do I need to buy pull-ups? When should I expect him to stay dry at night, too? Help! I'm trying to be chill about this because I don't want him to pick up any anxiety, but I really don't know what I'm doing here.

Oh yeah, poopiebaby is 25 months old, if that matters.

Poopie,
I tried potty training a few different ways (and it works differently with every kid). With Beet, I eventually settled with the, "let him do it in his own time and then lie and tell everybody he potty trained at 1"-way (except everybody knew he didn't potty train at 1, but whatever) and it kind of evolved, but eventually, at just after 3-1/2, he was totally potty trained (before that, he was fine at home, as long as he was naked from the waist down).
Raygold very suddenly once day decided he didn't ever want to wear a diaper again, so I tried my SIL's way of doing it (kind of) -- just let them run around bottomless or in underwear and put them on the potty every 20-30 minutes no matter what and try to do a "catch" when you see them at it. At some point, they will accidentally go in the potty instead of the floor/their pants and then shower them with praise like crazy. Eventually, they will figure it out. It took maybe 2 days for Raygold to pee in the toilet by accident and 3 before he tried to do it on purpose. He still has some accidents and will just take a shiitake on the floor if I don't remind him to use the potty (I usually forget -- he doesn't poop on a schedule, so it's tougher than scheduled poopers) and if I don't remind him, about half the time, he is too lazy to use the potty and pees on the floor (usually because he doesn't want to stop whatever he is doing). But I still consider him pretty much potty trained and even cleaning pee off the floor every day is nothing on all the cloth diapered laundry I was doing and it's cheaper than the night time disposables. Raygold is usually dry at night, but that is unusual and I have him in training pants at night and when we go out (we have no car, so we can't bring a potty with us like some potty trainers do and we can't always find a loo (sometimes the ones on the long train ride to Glasgow are out of order, etc.).

I really liked the Raygold way better and think I just gave up with Beet too soon (when he was younger -- but Raygold was a noob when Beet was 2, so that was kind of why). Also, IMO, pull-ups seemed pretty useless at helping potty train. Raygold wouldn't use them because he became militantly anti-diaper one day and Beet just treated them like a regular diaper. Also, in both cases, putting them in underwear and letting them pee their pants, for Beet especially, really helped things click.

My SIL potty trained all her kids the same way (closer to the Raygold way) when they were about 2 and they were all good at being dry during the day, but the oldest was in diapers at night until he was 4 and the other two are still in nighttime diapers (they are 2 and 3).

Thank you! That helps me SO MUCH. You are awesome <3

Kudos CC! I still can't get my mind around having a kidlet shiitake on your floor or smear it around stuff, but like everything in childrearing, I know I'll be fine with it once we get there, no matter how bad it sounds (OMG IT SOUNDS SO GROSS!).

I was dreading transitional poop and it hasn't been a big deal at all. So floorshit should be a breeze. Right?

Thank you Crabby. I am really intimidated by this whole area of parenting, but I know we have to start thinking about it soon because Walter has started telling me when he is pooping ("Poo?" Grunt, grunt. "Poo!") so I know he is aware. I hope I don't have to forfeit any rugs, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

i meant to come and post here before but i forgot.

so, i claimed victory over toilet training like over a month ago, but it turns out that might have been a biiiiiit premature. tzipi is in pull-ups mostly right now, and after a really hit and miss couple of weeks, we are finally getting somewhere i think. the last three days have been one pull-up days, with no resisting the potty, really long stretches in between pees, and overall just routine, easy, pottying.

we started off with the 3 day naked weekend during which she peed a bunch on the floor, sat for hours on the potty, was bribed with tv, movies, candy and so on to go, but by day 4 or 5 we had gotten down to one accident a day. i was anti-pull up too, so i sent her to daycare in underwear. things were chugging along ok, but not really improving as fast as i imagined they would. she was still really unpredictable. one day she'd be taking herself pee and poop and the next she'd be resisting the potty tooth and nail and then peeing on the sofa 5 minutes later.

i, frankly, was getting sick of there being pee and poop all over my house (some of you may remember that my cat also had a uti and i'm 7 months pregnant... not exactly in the most stable frame of mind). i was getting really frustrated with her about it... like, i KNEW she could do it, because she'd had days and days of perfect toileting, so why was she insisting on ruining my life by pooping in her pants on the bus? anyway, i knew i was being irrational and unfair about it, so the week we went to my mom's house, i put her in pull-ups the whole time, basically, except if she was running around outside. and then we came back and she went to daycare in pull-ups too, and it was like she'd never been potty-trained at all. she'd do a pee or two in the potty, and then the rest was like regular diapering. but omg, it was a break i think we both needed. i didn't care if she missed, cause i wasn't having to clean it up, and we were still talking a lot about it but not really focused on it.

and then, just this week, we started getting into a really good routine with the pull-up. i don't think i'm ready for full-time underwear yet, but i am using them on and off.

i still don't think a direct transition to pull-ups work. they are way too close to diapers, and i think most kids are going to have a hard time figuring it out. i am still a fan of the "naked-butt, peeing on your legs for a few days" method! but there is definitely a transition stage for some kids, where they are recognizing they have to go, are accepting of the idea that pee and poop go in the potty, but they're just not reliable enough to deal with no back-up at all (especially if it goes on for weeks!).

Thankfully, we never had any smearing incidents. At first, there were no announcements and we'd catch him at it (and one time I found a turd by the shoes). Then he'd start telling us he pooped. Now when Raygold poops on the floor, he usually goes and gets a rag and spray and tries to clean it up!!! ("what are you going, Raygold?" "I need a rag and spray!" Cute, but not helpful.) And Beetroot will scream, "poo!!!! poop!!!!!" while running around it and jumping over it (he is crazy and loves to jump over it like some kind of daredevil).

Floor shiitake is not bad at all as long as it is solid. God, it really stinks sometimes, though. And one or two floor turds a day is fine, but one time Raygold shat 10 times and by the end, I just wanted to sob. I don't know what was up, it wasn't like he had the shiitakes or anything, but, man, it was getting really frustrating.

Well, we got the potty seat delivered yesterday, but I didn't bring it out until this evening because Wednesdays are always crazy during the day. Anyway, aside from some casual talk about pee and poo going in the potty, I haven't really done much to prepare poopiebaby for the potty. I set it out and acted excited about it, took his nappy off and had him sit on it. He was sitting watching TV and I went into the kitchen to do something and came back to him standing next to the potty seat, peeing on the floor *facepalm*

I quickly moved him to the potty (even though he was done) and chirped "pee in the potty, not on the floor!" a few times while I cleaned up the mess. He started playing with his toys on the other side of the room and I went back to the kitchen. About ten minutes later I hear him excitedly call "PEE!" and see that he is on the potty and has indeed peed in it! My husband confirmed that he stopped playing with his toys and went and sat down just moments before. We of course got VERY EXCITED and clapped and made a big deal, and he got to call Nana and tell her that he peed in the potty. He then proceeded to pee about a tablespoon at a time, 11 times over the next two hours. Man, I think it's AWESOME that he seems to get it (at least so far), but it is hard to maintain the same level of excitement every few minutes!

We shall see how he does tomorrow, but he seems to get that pee goes in the potty (we haven't had a poop experience yet, but we've talked about it). My question is: how do you keep them from pulling the potty insert out and spilling the pee everywhere? It's still new to him and he wants to play with it, which is not so great when he's peeing in it every 10 minutes :/

Great job, PoopieBaby! For the record, our potty gets dumped a lot. I am kind of immune to pee on the floor now, unless I step in it.