Peter says: It's CRUNCH TIME

HGTV House Swap Casting Call

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A new HGTV series is looking for outgoing, opinionated, and adventurous families who want to spend a couple days giving someone else's home a total makeover.
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Please send the following info to: houseswap@propertelevision.com.
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We had two who trained easily (one was the oldest and like your dd, hated being messy). The one who was four when he trained drove me nuts - I feel your pain! Completely agree with others' advice to make her in charge of whether it is easy or hard, and she is old enough to do all the cleanup herself. Cold turkey switch to undies, spend a lot of time outdoors (good timing!), and keep the washer running. We had our son put all the dirty stuff in a bucket in the bathroom. At night he was a super-sound sleeper, so we used cloth dipes for night (prefolds and wraps, could bulk up as much as we needed to). Much better solution for us - because he had a lazy streak a mile wide and would pee int the pullups while listening to the bedtime story!! With cloth he felt it - so was not inclined to be lazy either in the AM or before falling asleep. Good luck! I don't envy you!

It is clearly a control issue. We went through this with our son. He potty trained literally the week before school started.
Know what worked? We let him be in charge. In the morning I would ask him "pull up or underpants?" and I would not try to bribe him. It would eat me up inside, but there was no way i was letting him see it was an issue. We told him "when you are ready, you know where your underpants are. Its up to you.". And he was told if he wanted to go to school in pull ups that was up to him too. As soon as we stopped making an issue out of it, he started choosing underpants. Its ALL ABOUT CONTROL. Especially for 1st borns!!!! If anyone wants further information on what worked for us (and all the tricks we tried!) email me at iway2happi@hotmail.com

yes i have tried that...it works well when i keep to it but they minute i try to let her start telling me it doesnt work...she almost makes it seem like i have to take her and if not she wont go...i have also tried playing the potty dance song when she has gone...worked for a bit...treats work for a bit too...and i have tried stickers...now she seems to think that every time that she goes even if she doesnt do anything she will get at treat...like i said it is frustrating....

If there's one thing potty training takes, it's patience. (I have no patience. Oy.)

Lisa

@Mia, quick question. Do you wait for her to ask to go to the potty? Have you tried taking her at regular intervals (ie: every 20 minutes) so she gets used to the idea of going regularly? Try setting a timer, on your stove or microwave so that when it goes off you both know it's time for your daughter to go to the bathroom. Have her sit on the potty for a couple of minutes to see if she does something. If she doesn't, no big deal, just try again in 20 minutes. If she can't make it the 20 minutes without going, then reduce the time to every 10-15 minutes. Once she gets the hang of every 20 minutes, start increasing the time in between potty trips to 25 min, then 30 min, etc. If she ever asks to go in between, take her, and if she goes, congratulate her for first of all knowing she had to go, and secondly for telling you instead of hiding.
That's what I found worked with my three kids. Good luck! :-)

Our now 6 year old would not have been allowed to go to regular kindergarten because she just refused to stop and go until she was ready... we still have difficulty. We did cold turkey but she did not care if she was wet or dirty. All of the things mentioned, we tried. Night time was never an issue, only daytime. If someone would tell her to go she would but would not take the initiative herself. Good luck. I really do feel for you.

my daughter just turned 3 last month...i have tried cold turkey and it doesnt seem to phase her...she just goes and hides soemwhere and pees or poops....she doesnt mind being dirty until she gets a bad rash and then its constant having to put medicine on her to make it feel better but once its gone its back to the same thing...she knows what she is doing...and she definatly knows how to use the potty because she askes me to go when she wants to...i am so furstrated that i really dont know what to do anymore....

I agree with the cold turkey. The upcoming long weekend is the perfect time to start. Don't even give her the option of a diaper, or pull up, except at bedtime. And, make the switch right to undies, don't stick her in pull ups to try and avoid accidents on the floor, etc., a pull up is just a glorified diaper.
At her age, I would recommend just putting her right on the toilet (esp. since that's what she'll be using at school), but you may want to invest in a portable potty and keep it in the car for when you're on the road.
The main thing is that you need to be ready to make the commitment to work on this at home, and accept that you may have to give up going out for the first little bit while she gets the hang of it. No saying, 'oh we need to go to the store, so we'll just put her in a pull up while we're out', that will just set her back. If you have to go out, put her on the potty before you go, if need be while you're out, and as soon as you get home. Or, better yet, one of you stays home with her and the other goes out.
Best of luck!!

Cold Turkey!! Put panties on her and ONLY use a pull-up at NIGHT!! Make sure you have some mr clean on hand to wipe up puddles. It's kinda like having a puppy in the house :-)

Like the others have said: Cold turkey. We took a long weekend in the summer and just went straight to panties/underwear during the day (of course, at night, you still gotta use pull-ups). Of course, accidents will happen, but hopefully after a few times she just won't like it and will finally go. 3 1/2 it's time to do it. It's a long weekend this coming weekend............
On a side note: my 5 year son still wears pull-ups at night, just because he's such a sound sleeper, he just won't get up. But both he and my 3 year-old, I did the "cold-turkey" at about 2 1/2!
Good luck this weekend!

I only have my girls' experience to go by, but we just went cold-turkey with the panties (giving her a couple of days warning) and then let her work it out. It took 2 days of peed-in panties for Sarah and only half a day for Ashley, who can't stand being wet at all. They were both right around the 3 year old mark and understood what was going on. I was just very matter-of-fact about it and went about it like it was a natural sequence of life events. No bribes, charts, candies - just princess panties. Spring and summer weekends are the ideal time due to light clothing and very little routine happening. Good luck - you need to experience life with less diapers!

my nephew was about Addy's age and needed to get out of diapers. So upon my suggestion my sister took all the diapers away when he wasn't home and said, underwear from now on, there were no more diapers. Cold turkey! and it worked, because he was old enough to be developmentally and physically ready, he just didn't care. just go cold turkey.

I've been there.

Twice!

You have to go cold turkey with the diapers and put them in underwear.

I sent them to daycare with a huge bag full of clothes and they came home all gross and disgusting every day. It took about 1-2 weeks and that was it. They were day trained.

It was truly the only way mine were ever going to be trained.

It looks like we need to just put her in underwear (btw, I've bought her many adorable pairs...she could care less) and clean up her messes. If there's one thing about Addy, she HATES being dirty. (She gets upset if she gets ketchup on her hands when she's eating fries.) So maybe this is the only option?

Keep the ideas coming!
Lisa

We were really lucky when it came to toilet training my eldest daughter (now 5). The saturday morning of the long weekend in May (she turned 2 in January of that year), I woke up, and "decided" that there would be no more diapers. Not during the day, and not during nap. The saturday, we couldn't leave the house, because I refused to put pants on her. I put her in those god-awful-leaves-your-bum-wet-and-cold waffle panties. By the end of the weekend, the deed was done. She didn't wet during the day, and she has had only 1 accident at night since then! Clearly she was ready :)

My son was 3 and was ready so it was accomplished in a couple of weeks. My daughter was about 18 months when her daycare wanted to train her. I didn't think she was ready but I didn't object. They did it in two months but did not use pull ups and advised us not to use them at home except for sleep. I think that may be your best bet. She likely won't enjoy wet pants. Good luck!

that is gross and annoying, I really feel for you. What worked for us is just taking away the diapers and putting them in underwear cold turkey, but not making a big fuss out of it. ie "we're out of diapers today, so here's some underwear you can wear". Accidents feel much more uncomfortable without diapers, so they learned pretty quickly to use the toilet. Be prepared to be patient and do a lot of laundry, but it's like ripping a bandaid off - fast and painful, instead of dragging it out. good luck!

My eldest trained at 3 and a half. She literally went from refusing to go on the potty to using the toilet all the time. My youngest who's 2 and a half is showing her sister's stubborness. She'll get it in time. If you want to be radical, take away the pull ups or diapers...just use some underwear and maybe a plastic over to contain the messes. Otherwise, you're pitting yourself for a battle of wills. Your daughter appears to want control over her toiletting...so give her some.

One more thought - my girls have a check mark list for things they need to do. One of those for my youngest is going to the washroom. They get check marks when they do something on the list...at the end of the week, they get 10 cents for each check mark...

My son was 19 months and my daughter was just shy of 2 years old when we had them potty trained. I also run a dayhome and have helped to potty train numerous other kids. Best method I've found is to just eliminate diapers. No pullups either, as they are pretty much just a glorified diaper. My method is just to buy about 100000 or so pairs of underwear, put the kid in them, and take them to sit on the potty once an hour, 20 minutes after anything they drink, or at the first sign of hiding or weird pee/poop faces. Give them something to do on the potty (or toilet) such as read a book, play a game on your phone, etc. and just let them sit- sometimes even 15 minutes on the toilet playing or reading! You WILL go through a LOT of underwear in the beginning, but it should work. Don't "change" them if they wet themselves. Have them remove the wet/dirty underwear and help show them how to put the new ones on themselves after washing up. You can actually buy disposable liners made for cloth diapers (Kushies makes the ones I've seen here) that will fit nicely in the underwear making it easy to just pull the liner out and flush it if the accident happens to be poop... GOOD LUCK!

We took away the diapers. We provided our daughter with a basket of clean underwear and wipes. Showed her how to clean up after herself. We made her responsible for her actions at 4. She felt like she was in control and cleaning up after herself made it her choice. There was no choice about going to the bathroom but there sure was about whether it was easy or hard. It went very quick after that. She is a well adjusted 18 yr old now. She was also very stubborn but when the responsibility became hers and not ours she quickly committed.

I agree. Both my kids were annoyingly 3 and a half when they trained. My daughter just refused and cried every time we put her on the toilet. So we let her pick out some nice new underwear and a potty seat that she liked and we just put her in underwear. It will be a lot of washing but you just have to do it... She will get the hang of it. My daughter hated to be wet and figured it out in 2 days. My son took a bit longer.
Good luck!!

that is gross and annoying, I really feel for you. What worked for us is just taking away the diapers and putting them in underwear cold turkey, but not making a big fuss out of it. ie "we're out of diapers today, so here's some underwear you can wear". Accidents feel much more uncomfortable without diapers, so they learned pretty quickly to use the toilet. Be prepared to be patient and do a lot of laundry, but it's like ripping a bandaid off - fast and painful, instead of dragging it out. good luck!

I hear you! I cringed at kindergarten registration when my eldest son wasn't potty trained and I pretty much held my breath the first few weeks of school.

I'd suggest ignoring the issue for a month. Don't talk about potty training, diapers, underwear, etc. Give her a total break from all that stuff.

Then you need to decide how radical you want to be! You could pick a week where you don't have to be anywhere or do anything and just don't put diapers on her. If she doesn't want to wear undies, that's fine, but no diapers and no pull-ups. Be prepared to clean up some messes. She's really unlikely to be happy with pee running down her legs, so I can't imagine she'd hang on to her stubbornness for too long. Then again, there are lots of things I can't imagine my kids doing that they've done, so take anything I say with a grain of salt!

Good luck!