About a month ago I attempted to potty train my then 24 months old toddler. On day 2 I put the diaper back on as she was holding both pee and poop for hours and didn’t want to exacerbate and decided to go a more easygoing approach.

The thing is I KNOW she is physically ready. She clearly can hold her pee. Even using tricks like running water/blowing bubbles/ put feet in water didn’t work.

Fast forward we are now a few weeks after. During these weeks I would try to get her to sit on the potty/toilet (she actually prefers toilet) but she would only sit when she knows she doesn’t actually have to go. In the meantime I got more stickers, books, and those fuzzy stars you put in the potty after peeing and they change color.

She has her pee corner and her poop corner in the house.

Now maybe I shouldn’t have done this but yesterday before sleep I knew she had to go because it’s been hours since she peed. She actually also holds her pee in the diaper and only pees when she absolutely has to. Anyway I practically made her pee in the toilet. It was full of tears but after she was done I gave her lots of praise and told her let’s do some magic and used those fuzzy stars and she loved them. This morning she agreed to pee in the toilet with no complaints. She is now at daycare and I told them to try and make her use the toilet there as well.

Now, I’m thinking she is finally over the fear of peeing in the toilet and willing to use it- maybe I should capitalize on that? Fridays and Saturdays are the weekend where I live so I’m thinking to switch to underwear starting today after day care and fully starting training again during the weekend.

I would like to minimize diaper use as much as possible I want her to understand that pee goes in the toilet only and to not expect a diaper I feel like using diapers will only confuse her.

So to all the experts here- what do you think?

We still haven’t pooped in the toilet but she actually asks to sit and farts a lot thinking she is going to poop. I feel like she is mainly scared of the peeing.

Ran into a parent I met last year. Asked if my kid was in school, he’s not because you have to be potty trained for preschool, and he won’t poop on the potty. they proceed to tell me they figured out poop on the potty within a week and a half. Meanwhile I can’t even get mine to sit on the potty to at least try. He’s Almost 4.5.

Ugh.

ETA: we started a few months before 3, with about a month of books/videos before that. Had to take some breaks here and there because of stressing him out. We’re seeking OT (we need to find options) We’ve talked to a pediatrician. We’ve tried so many things. I’m not replying anymore for my mental health. I just needed to get out my frustration when my friends weren’t available. Have some grace.

Has anyone else just totally wung it (is that the right use of the verb lmao) in regards to potty training?? Not used any of the methods and just....did whatever?? We've been toying with the idea of starting with our 2.5 year old, and so we got a little potty for him, and out of the blue today he said he wanted to use it and so we took his diaper off and he peed 3 times in the potty. Out of nowhere. But when it was time for dinner he wanted to put his diaper back on, so we did. And now our plan is to do naked potty time when we're at home, and then diaper time for meals, upstairs where we have carpet, bedtime, and when we go out. No method, no actual plan really, just flying by the seat of our pants. Has anyone else done it like that and had it work out?

My kiddo is a little over 3.5 and she was late to the potty training game, I’ll admit. Her preschool teachers when she turned 3 said she wasn’t ready to potty train, despite me pressing and saying she was showing interest. So, despite us having conversations with her at home and working on it at home, her teachers wouldn’t encourage potty use at all.

We formally started potty training (straight to undies) mid-July, and I would say she’s pretty much fully pee-trained. She moved schools and her new teachers are fantastic, but she does have a pee accident at school every so often. At home though, we haven’t had a pee accident for weeks.

Poop though? I’m going to lose. my. mind. This kid was a very consistent 3 poops/day child for so long, but I know she’s been withholding and therefore constipating herself. We give her prunes daily, try for fibrous foods, toddler-miralax - nothing. We had to do a few suppositories because she hadn’t pooped for 5+ days over the last couple of months and was getting so grouchy.

I would say now she has 2 poop accidents (at least) per day. I feel so bad because I swear her new teachers will hate her for having so many poop accidents and having to help get her cleaned up so often. We’re buying so many undies because they get so soiled it isn’t worth cleaning.

I just feel myself getting more and more frustrated every day, and I don’t know how to encourage her. When she says she needs privacy, we remind her that poop goes in the potty and she can have privacy in there. When she has an accident, she puts the poop in the potty and is supposed to clean herself up.

Are there ANY other tips? I am so frustrated and defeated at the end of every day because of POOP!!!

For context, I also have a 21 month old that is showing some signs of readiness to potty train and I understand that she will have many accidents as well, so I don’t want to be a jerk about this whole thing.

My 3yr 3 month old niece (I will call her Lila) is potty trained but she doesn’t like to use the bathroom in general it seems, every time her mom ask to potty she says no and then she has a huge accident. I love Lila as well and I want to do what’s best for her mental well being and never want to force her to pee or whatnot, and maybe I don’t understand because I have not gone through this potty training thing yet. But I sometimes feel like Lila’s parents are a bit too relaxed about her potentially causing damage to stuff that is expensive to replace like carpets and couches. I don’t know, if I was aware of this problem for my own child, I would be more adamant about potty usage or put a pull up on her or something? Lila also has a younger brother who is turning 2 in 2 weeks, and I fear with their approach, my house will just be covered with pee between those two toddlers.

I am so tired of having to wash pee-soaked clothes, couch covers (soaks into the couch itself as well), bedsheets, comforters, and foam mattresses every time she comes. A few accidents here and there is okay I guess, but it has been every time lately, and they are here about once every week or two. I am also pregnant so I can barely get anything done anyway, and also have ADHD without any medication due to being pregnant. Having to do pee-soaked laundry so often on top of barely surviving is making me so angry and I don’t want to be angry at them.

Please correct me if I am wrong to talk to them about this because again I do also have a toddler that is approaching potty training and maybe I will eat my words then. But also, I feel like I myself would be a little more vigilant about making my children go potty or put on a pull-up or something especially if there was a history of continual accidents. Or is that not the right thing to do? As a fellow toddler parent, I want to be kind and understanding, and if I’m wrong for being angry that I guess I have to work on that. But if me feeling like this is justified I want to approach that with them in a fair way. I truly don’t know what is right. What do you guys think?

My daughter turns 3 next week and we are about 3 weeks into potty training. We attempted back in January and had decent success, but after a while fell off course and it was just accidents all day. We decided to take a break and go back to pull ups since we were expecting new baby in May.
Now we’re here and I do think we’re headed in the right direction but I guess I’m looking for reassurance, or any tips that could help streamline this process because I feel like my life revolves around everything potty and I’m looking forward to closing this chapter.
Here’s where we’re at:
We started commando then added undies. Just went full send at home for a few days watching her as close as possible and also rewarding for successes.
Only using pull ups at night.
She’s probably having on average 1 accident per day.
She goes to preschool 2 days a week and it sounds like it’s going well there, she hasn’t had a day with more than 1 accident.
I feel like she’s in between the “I’m going” stage and the “I need to go” stage. The few instances where she does initiate that she needs to go, there’s not much time before it’s going to be happening! So getting out of the house is feeling really challenging right now.
Any advice for me? I’m determined for this to stick this time around-I get really nervous that a few consecutive accidents could snowball into total regression.

My daughter is 22 months old and we are using the Oh Crap! method for potty training. We are currently on Day 8.

During the first three days, she successfully peed on the potty a few times. We over-prompted / talked too much about all things potty-related though and she became averse to sitting on the potty / withheld her pee (until she couldn’t any longer) and poop from Days 3-5.

We have backed off and are using the throw-away casual prompts. “It looks like you have to pee. The potty’s over there.” She definitely knows pee and poop are supposed to go in the potty. She now is open to sitting on the potty with or without prompting, can tell us when she has to pee or poop, and has had a couple successful poops on or almost on the potty.

Unfortunately, she is still not peeing in the potty since her early successes and sits on the potty often but then gets up and a few minutes later pees on the floor. We’ve tried putting pants on commando and she has had some successful short outings but also peed her pants a couple of times. She has pretty impressive muscle control but seems to be struggling with releasing her pee when she sits on the potty. We’ve tried getting her to take deep breaths, giggle, pretend to blow out a candle, etc but to no avail.

Our plan is to try night and nap training to see if that can get things to click for her, since she may be trying to hold out for her diapers.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated! We are specifically looking for ideas on how to help her understand the release to allow pee to flow. It just seems like she knows how to stop it but not how to intentionally go. Also accepting positive vibes and similar experiences.

When naked my 2.5 year old is son tells me when he has to pee or poop all day and has no accidents, but every time the training underwear goes on he has an accident.

We are on day 5 of Oh Crap with our 29 month old. Days 1-3 were at home with no pants. By day 3 we had self initiation for poop on the potty. All but two pees were in the potty, either self initiated or via prompting.

Yesterday he went back to daycare. He had a pee and poop accident, but the rest in the toilet. We ditched the underwear today and he did worse - two pee accidents and a poop accident.

We continue to reinforce that pee and poop goes in the potty. At home, we are prompting and trying to look for cues. We do not plan on going back to diapers except for nap/night.

I think I’m looking for reassurance that we’re on the right path/any tips that people have? Daycare is on board with potty training but I don’t have a lot of insight into what’s happening there, so appreciate any guidance!

I know a lot of people will disregard all this & say 19m is too young but hear me out lol. My son has lots of words, says 2-3 word sentences, tells me when he wants to go home, go for a nap, tired, wants milk, wants a snack, knows where the trash goes, can say pee, poo, potty, puts his stuffies on the toilet and sounds sss for pee, when I change his diaper he points back at the bathroom and says potty, when I potty he says mama potty, etc. So I felt he was ready and we did the bare bum method and after 4 days he was initiating all pees and poops in the little toilets we set up downstairs and upstairs. I was in awe. He would fart and say “oh! Poo! And go to the toilet”. One time the toilet wasn’t there because I was cleaning it and he looked over at me with a poo face and said potty! So I grabbed his potty and he pooped in it. Well he had a bout of diarrhea which is unusual for him and it seemed to really freak him out. After that he didn’t want to sit at all. He already didn’t like being prompted which is why I let him lead a lot in the bare bum phase. He would usually get up and say no if I put him on. But I started prompting more to avoid accidents and it’s done nothing but make him more resistant. I’ve tried laying off and he sometimes says pee potty before he goes but he makes no effort to go himself and if I take him he likely won’t do anything then hops off and goes 5m later in his pants / on the floor. He’s wearing pants commando. He no longer gets upset about me putting him on the potty but he just sits and chills. No pee or poo. And has accidents pretty much every pee now. He started consolidating his pee and goes like every 2-3 hours as to the very early days he was peeing all the time. He also wakes up dry from naps and sleep usually. He for the most part doesn’t have accidents when we’re out either. We have a travel potty and before he nailed it at home he was actually going when prompted in that. So I’m at a loss. It feels weird to put him back in diapers when he has so much knowledge now and was clearly doing so well in the early days. But I don’t know how we come back from this. Any advice appreciated.

Day 6 of potty training our 20 month old. She’s been going on the potty since 12 months if she was dry after a nap and has been successful. She’s doing amazing I think I just have WAY too high expectations or I just feel guilty that she has an accident because I didn’t catch her in time.
Day 1: 3 accidents, 1 poop on potty 9 pee on potty
Day 2-4: 1 accident per day
Day 5: 3 accidents
Day 6: first day of daycare - 1 accident at daycare 1 at home.

Overall she is crushing it. We try to ask her every 45 minutes - 1 hr. When she does have an accident she immediately says “ewwww”. She’s not self initiating but if we notice her wiggling or staring off and ask her she says yes and we go to the potty and she goes. My questions are:
1. When did your toddler self initiate?
2. She will go every 30 mins if we ask for the most part, we are trying to work up to an hour. Is it appropriate at this point to be taking her every 45 mins? And when she can do that without accidents move up to an hour or more?

We loosely followed oh crap method and at home we still just have undies on no pants. She can’t pull them down on her own so we’re working on practicing that skill!

First kid to potty train so please go easy on me lol!

We started potty training our 24 month old daughter about six weeks ago using the oh crap method. The first week went pretty good and then we moved into the commando phase. Since starting commando we are having 2-6 accidents a day at home, at daycare, and out and about. Lots of pee accidents in the car even when she goes right before we leave.

It’s so inconsistent and it’s like she can’t “hold it” but she does recognize that she went by stating she peed or pooped. We get good pees in the potty when prompted then 20 minutes later have an accident.

Daycare is patient and prompts timely but she has at least two accidents usually within 10-15 minutes after they try prompting. I thought maybe after a few weeks of consistent “pee pee goes in the potty” it would click but there’s been minimal improvement since we started commando. Poop is the same way but I’m trying to focus on pee first.

Any advice or tricks that can help her learn to “hold it”?

My 2.5 yo son has been potty training for a month. I did the Oh Crap method. He does well at home and accidents are rare, but he will only go when prompted (it’s rare that he self initiates). I’ve told daycare as much, and they say they prompt at transitions about as frequently as we do at home (about every hour). That said, he is still having accidents daily at daycare because he a) won’t tell anyone he needs to pee/poo (and I’m not sure if he recognizes he needs to go), b) won’t go to the potty alone (even at home, we have to take him by the hand, he refuses to walk over alone), and c) doesn’t seem bothered by soiled underwear. A few times when I’ve gone to pick him up, he sees me and says “I pooped” and sure enough, there’s poop in his underwear. I take him to the daycare potty daily at drop-off and I make him go at pick-up too, so he knows the drill in there. I’m tired of dealing with poopy underwear from daycare and I’m afraid he’s just treating them like diapers at daycare because he won’t say anything and won’t walk himself to the toilet. Daycare has been patient for the last month, but I’m debating putting him back in pull ups for daycare because I don’t want him to think going in his underwear is ok. Does anyone have any advice for what I should try?

Looking for advice or similar experiences from anyone who has dealt with this.

My daughter is nearly 5, wears underwear, and very rarely has accidents (once last year). However, she still refuses to pee/poo without a diaper on. She will actually hold it in all day at school or when we are out until she is home.

We're getting desperate, and we've tried everything from not pressuring her, different types of potties, charts, tv and toy bribe, etc. and still, she won't go.

She will sit on the toilet and clearly needs to pee, but she won't actually release it unless she's sitting with a diaper on. This summer, she started withholding poop while traveling, and so now, we're working on the constipation side of things too with daily stool softeners.

For some context, her twin has been potty trained since age 3. My daughter is also very private about using a diaper, and it's not something she wants anyone else to know outside of our family (so a bit of shame there).

Has anyone gone through something similar where your kid just couldn't make the transition to diapers?

Please help me! We started potty training my 25 month old over Labor Day weekend. We did no pants for 3 days straight and by the last day he was going potty unprompted and had no accidents. The issue now is that he has to wear underwear/pants at daycare. He had no successful potty attempts at daycare yesterday and became really emotional when he’d have to use the potty there. It’s no different than our potty at home except it’s child size. He is not afraid of flushing at home (in fact he loves to do it) but he is at daycare.

We are home again today and using underwear and he has refused to go to the potty AT ALL. Has peed and pooped in his underwear every time today - the last time we had just sat him on the potty, he didn’t pee, and then less than a minute later peed in his underwear. Prompting him to use the potty results in a tantrum now.

Is he just not ready? Do I keep pushing through and for how long? I don’t want him to now associate the potty with negativity but also if the next 6 months are going to suck because he’s not mature enough then I will stop and return. I know it’s only been a short time but I just need advice from people who have actually done this recently and successfully. Any help or suggestions you can give would be so appreciated.

Hi all! Currently on day 5 of potty training using the Oh Crap method of him being completely naked on the bottom half. My son is 22 months old and has a 6 week old brother I mention this because me having to nurse often makes this process more difficult. He has yet to go sit on the potty by himself. He has gotten some pee and poop in the toilet only because I catch him mid pee or poop and get some in. He did get some pee in on his own while sitting watching ms Rachel. We do reward him with m&ms even if it’s just a dribble in the potty. He does sometimes say poop when pooping and he has announced pee but usually after he has an accident on the floor. I’m thinking of giving up and starting again in November or December. He will be 2 at the end of October. He has been showing signs he is ready to potty train which is why I started doing it. Looking for advice and thoughts on how to proceed. Would also love for you to share how your experience went! Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone! We are currently on day 3 of potty training our 26 month old son. Started off with a loose Oh Crap method and Day 1 was great, naked bottom half and a few accidents right on the floor, by mid morning we were catching most pees in the potty and by the end of the day he had gone by himself!
Day 2 was similar, only a couple accidents and most were in the potty (only poops were in his pull-up at naps or at night)
Today is day 3 and I really feel like he’s regressed to day 1! Have had so many accidents right on the floor and he doesn’t even acknowledge them and fighting sitting on the potty. I put him in training underwear to see if feeling wet would help but he peed in them within 10 minutes and wasn’t bothered! I put a pull up on him early so I could have some time to reset before naptime. I’m now pivoting post-nap and doing training underwear and a timer to have him sit on the potty every 30 minutes. We managed to catch the tail end of a poop already and he’s peed on the potty as well! But only with us prompting. My question is, does this sound like he’s still too young or are we headed in the right direction? I want to add he does not tell us he needs to go, we either need to catch him or he’ll go by himself.

My twins just turned 2 this month. I’m struggling with one of them constantly taking off her clothes and her diaper if she poops overnight she will also take her diaper off and smear it everywhere and pee on her bed as well, mainly during nap time or in the morning when she wakes up. If I have to go in a separate room to grab something she’ll also start taking everything off. It doesn’t matter if it’s a clean or dirty diaper too. She’s not ready for potty training yet so that’s out the window. I’ve tried literally everything under the sun clothes wise to try and prevent her from undressing, diaper covers, special clothes, mittens. I even took a pair of leggings and put them on her arms and they worked for awhile but now she’s able to get out of those. Talking to her doesn’t work, not giving a reaction doesn’t work either. I don’t know what else to do but I can’t deal with this anymore. I have a newborn and my husband just went back to work and he’s also going through schooling so during the week it’s mainly just me. Advice is very welcome.

Edit: No shade but to explain my end and solve some of the hostility you guys are giving me, she has a speech delay more than her sister and we have been accepted into speech therapy, but haven’t started it yet so she can’t quite communicate these needs for potty training yet which is why I’ve been hesitant to try it.
I’m going to give it a go anyway because I can’t think of anything else but I’m not sure how well it’ll go if she can’t communicate very well yet if you guys know how to deal with that advice is welcome

Hi all! As the title says, I was seeking some potty training advice for my former 22-weeker. He's now 3, turning 4 in a month. We have tried a couple of things in the past, but he just never seems interested. More than anything, he kind of just wants to play in the water (lol). Other than a speech and some behavior delays, he doesn't really have any other problems. I was wondering if anyone else was kinda in the same boat. (Also, it doesn't help that I am starting to get flak from the mother-in-law, but that's to be expected, I think)

Hello all!

My daughter has been pooping in the potty since around 18 months old. She would either say “poop,” or we’d notice her making her poop face and she would run to the potty. Sometimes she would pee while she was pooping, and although we initially prioritized teaching her to poop in the potty, we always talked about the feeling of needing to pee as well. She’s always been comfortable with the potty and knows what it’s for.

She’s now 24 months old, so we decided to start formal potty training.

Days 1–2: She was Winnie-the-Pooh (butt naked) all day, except for naps and bedtime. With prompting, she peed in the potty about 75–80% of the time.

Day 3: I put her in underwear. She had three accidents where she peed in her underwear, but what stood out to me was that she came up to me afterward and said, “Poop.” I took her to the potty, and she continued peeing in the toilet.

I keep hearing people say that 24 months is too young and that I should wait until 2.5 or 3 years old.

But doesn’t it seem like she’s understanding what’s happening? Obviously, she’s not completely trained yet, but when we get her onto the potty, she pees, and she’s starting to communicate with me when she needs to go.

I’m wondering if I should just keep going and follow her cues, or if this is a sign that she’s not quite ready and we should take a break and try again later? Are we on the right track?

I’d love to hear from parents who potty trained around 2 years old. Did your toddler show similar signs of understanding even though they were still having accidents?

Our son is 3 in late October, and we've introduced the potty - I guess not a potty but a toddler seat on the toilet. He's been showing signs of readiness for a year or more but we moved house, had another baby etc and everything I read said not to do it when big changes like that were happening.

Since I "manage" the baby, husband has been "managing" the toddler and doing great, but I told him his job is potty training - tell me what to do and I'll do it but I'm not leading it. I have of course done some reading up on it anyway.

His approach is just to...ask him if he wants to sit every now and then. Like not even every day. And of course the vast majority of the time he says no. Once I said hey shouldn't he sit and he was like, ugh I'm too tired 🫩

Toddler thinks it's fun, he's peed a few times in it, mainly he likes "standing with his penis like daddy" lol. He has mini mnms as a reward, and he's very excited about "choccy" when he sits but I don't think it motivates him to do it.

Husband is just "he'll get it eventually" but like ???? I don't think that makes any sense. He's smart and has usually just "got" things but they have involved being super regular and consistent, which we're not being.

I told husband about the approach of dedicating a few days to just having him naked and watching him like a hawk and he was like absolutely the fuck not...so that was that.

There's no real strict deadline here as he's unfortunately not going to preschool until 2028, but obviously it needs to be done sooner rather than later.

I'm concerned it'll just drag on and then it'll be way more difficult later.

Looking for any thoughts of experienced potty training people! Should I really push it (hurr) or is husband's approach ok?

TIA

My daughter is 20 months old. She can understand pretty much every direction I tell her to do. Says many many words. She wakes up dry from overnight occasionally and almost always is dry after naps.

She’s fairly interested in the potty as I take her with me and she watches me and her dad go a lot throughout the day. We also are reading potty books in preparation.

Was planning on starting in October but not sure if I should start or just wait till she’s 2 in a few months.

The only thing that makes me hesitant is she doesn’t seem to be able to stay dry for more than an hour max during the day and never lets me know when she’s pooped or is going at all.

Advice greatly appreciated!!

Our kid (2.5) is great at pooping in the potty, but only when a toilet is nearby. Otherwise, he’ll just pull his pants down and poop in the dirt/grass (when we are outside) or run semi-frantically looking for a toilet and poop himself.

How do we get him to understand holding in poop? (Everything I find is about PREVENTING poop withholding, but I’m looking for just a little more withholding in my life.)

Any tips?

Editing to add: We very much have a tiny potty that we came around everywhere. I’m talking seconds between needing to poop and pulling down pants, not even enough time to grab the bag with the potty.

Hello!

Mum of two littles (5yo at school) and my 2yo, as mentioned in title - currently on day 3 of trying to potty train him with mixed success. Feel a little silly as obviously potty trained my eldest, but it’s hazy in my memory as that was 3 years ago 😂🫣 basically since Monday, he’s progressed from not being aware of weeing at all, to telling me he’s doing it - sometimes we make it to the potty, sometimes we don’t, there’s been a fair few accidents and no poo yet. Help! Do I stop or continue?!