The Only Toilette Training Technique That Works

We have a 2 3/4 year old who's diapers we are sick and tired of changing. We've tried sixteen or eighteen million tricks. O.K. maybe less than that. Anyway, did I mention we're sick of diapers? We'd crawl across broken glass if we could speed up this potty training process. Everything we've tried so far sucks. The problem is that he just isn't showing the slightest interest in potty training. He likes getting chocolate as a treat for using the potty but hasn't been connecting it with needing to pee. He's been known to sit on the potty for over an hour. We've had huge crying fits "Where's my pee pee daddy?" "I want a special treat!" So I got this new idea from my friend Jen. We tried it. I HATE this idea. it's a pain in the ass that seems somewhat akin to following your child around with a toddler potty. On the third day our son told us he had to go pee pee in the potty, pulled his own pants down, sat on it, and peed. It's like 5 or 7 days since we've started it, yesterday he used the potty like eight times. Today at least 3 and two of those where from him telling us that he needed to use it. Yesterday he told me in the middle of a bath, held it through the rest of the bath, while I carried him into the living room and dried him off. He then sat on the potty and peed. It's fantastic. Poop may take a while longer but there is hope on the horizon and he gets the idea. How to potty train your child: (by my friend Jen) 1 Put them in "Big Kid" underwear. There is a dual objective to get them excited about the fact that they can take them off and put them on themselves as well as to make them uncomfortable when they're wet. Diapers pull the moisture away from the kid too well. You want them not to enjoy it (don't worry you're not going to torture them or give them a terrible rash, read on.) 2 Get a timer. You don't have to get a real timer but what you do is ever twenty minutes or so, you'll learn your kids timing. You ask them if they need to use the potty. Even if they say no you take them there. If they say yes you put them on it. They learn to pull their own pants down and sit. We actually set a timer this weekend and our kid would go sit on the potty when it went off. Then my pager went off and he sat on the potty. The key here is to find your kids rhythm. The first day was completely uneventful. The second was absolute torture. He'd wet his pants and we'd say something like "Oh you should have told us you needed to use the potty" So he'd insist on sitting on it because he wants a special treat. Then he'd sit there for like 20 minutes or an hour. There where tears "Where's my pee pee daddy?" by the time he'd get off and into a new pair of underwear he would be ready to go again and so he'd wet himself. It's amazing we stuck with this. Half way through day three we found his rhythm. Something around 22 minutes. to a full tank and ready to pee. Now we need to figure out the crap timer. 3 Learn a stupid dance. It may go without saying but you've got to make a big frigging deal out of it every time they go. Bribery is also encouraged. Our kid gets chocolate and I dance like a damned fool. I pick him up and run around the house and jump around in circles. he goes gonzo for it. And he comes back for more. Some variations: We moved his potty into the living room. Instead of taking him into the bathroom every 20 mins we ask him to sit on it. If he doesn't need to use the potty he's allowed to sit on it closed with his clothes on. The potty is always there where he can see it so he's more likely to think of it. Plus when he's sitting on it he's not down the hall around the corner alone in another room. He's with us and that makes him happy. Make them take off the wet clothes. Some folks say that the kid should have to take off the wet pants. They have to do the work instead of you as one of the reasons they aren't potty training is that you do all the work for them. We are kinda both ways on this one. We're not going to let him take off a pair of poopy underwear because well, we don't want shit all over the floor. Additionally it can cause some fights which we worry may push him further from his healthy relationship with the toilette.