Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Mission: Impossible

You'd think that after potty training 3 boys, I'd know all the secrets. I am just pulling my hair out trying to train my little Scotty. He is 3 1/2 and is absolutely against this. I NEED HELP!!!
Any ideas or suggestions?
I've tried having the treats, the celebrations, the all day drink-a-thons, the brothers and daddy showing him how, and even bought a doll that wets so that Scotty could "teach" the doll how to use the potty. These all worked for a tiny while, but then the magic wore off and it's all a pain in the you know what again. How ironic.
HELP !!!

8 comments:

Budenieks Family said...

Maybe you could give the other boys treats for going in the big boy potty. Im sure that would intice scotty into using it. Right?

Jourdan said...

Next time around I am just going to keep the bottom half of Elliot naked for a full six-months. Summer or not. And if it is summer, he'll spend at least three of those months OUTSIDE...all day...so I don't have to clean up a darn thing.

Erika said...

No clue... sorry. Good luck!

Suzie said...

I'm not sure about potty training anymore. I let Keats go naked for 6 days straight in the back yard and he figured it out. (but it was summer) The girls just wanted pretty undies and didn't want to mess on Ariel and that's what worked for them.

Scotty is smart enough. One day he'll just decide. Maybe he has to decide it's his decision. You know, one of THOSE children. I've got one of those.

But do you know how to get a teenager to date other boys besides their "soulmate" I'm clueless about that one. I think I'd rather have the poo & pee.

Laurie Meredith said...

Two words: cold shower. I know it sounds mean, but Ben was trained instantly and he's never looked back. He's so happy about going in the potty. He just needed a true motivation to do it. No pain, just a short amount of discomfort.

Amy said...

Stick him in underwear. Let him pee his pants. Then wrap his lower body in a garbage bag for a few hours--while still in his wet pants. It might stink for a while and he will be pretty uncomfortable...but it might clue him in that there's this whole toilet concept for a reason.

Anonymous said...

These are great ideas. Where were you 30 years ago. ; ) Karen Church

Maxine Parrish said...

Couldn't help but put in my two cents. As a teacher of 2-5 year olds for 4 years, I've done a lot of potty training in my time. Mostly, we would just wait until they started showing signs of readiness (dry diapers, interest in toilet, uncomfortable when soiled, etc.), then we would just make the switch to undies cold turkey - no turning back (except for nighttime diapers).

Then there were the outliers (sounds like Scotty) who never showed any interest whatsoever. Sometimes all it took was a little push, meaning we would switch them to underwear and just let them figure it out. Each time they would wet their underwear, they would have to change themselves out of their clothes and still sit on the toilet to finish. They usually caught on pretty quickly. It does mean doing a lot more laundry, though.

I'd warn against switching back and forth, though, as that sends mixed signals and can be confusing to him. This is of course all from the teacher's perspective, which means I only dealt with it 40 hours a week. I'm sure it is very different being with them 24 hours a day, so good luck!!