At my wits end: AKA potty training hell!

[Lady Fury]

Alright all you parents with boys, please tell me how you managed to get your boy potty trained. My son is driving me nuts! Don't read the next part if you have weak stomach. I just spent the last hour cleaning up the most disgusting mess that started from his room (which is carpeted) through my kitchen, dining room, living room, master bedroom and to my master bathroom. And of course he had to touch everything in between as well. While he was soaking in the tub (my oldest supervising him) I spent a good hour shampooing and steaming floors. Singularity is at school working on a project. Anyways my son will go pee in the potty half of the time but will run and hide to take a poo. He must have ate something that didn't agree with him. :grey:

He won't sit on the toilet like the girls did. I'll put him on and he'll cry. I have a potty chair as well but he just laughs at it. I have an insert for the toilet seat so he doesn't fall in but he just says no to that too. Rewards don't work for him because he doesn't quite understand them. He's just learned how to communicate with words. He's about 6 months behind due to being a preemie and because of his genetic condition. But the doctor said that he should be ready for the potty now. I love him to death but I don't understand how he's thinking.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Dawnstar]

My advice is not to push him. With Owen we fought with him and fought with him to get him potty trained. We tried bribing, rewards, taking things away, you name it. And nothing worked. So we backed off. And when we did that all of a sudden something clicked. I hate to say that it took until right after his 4th birthday to get him to potty train. My daughter was potty trained right about 3 but Owen would not do it.

Good Luck.

[Lady Fury]

Thanks DS. That makes me feel a little better. My daughters weren't all that easy either. The only that potty trained by 3 was my youngest daughter. I guess they all got my stubborn streak. My mom cursed me as well because I didn't potty train until 4 either. :o

[Kyle Voltti]

buy him a litter box :D

[Schizm]

Thanks DS. That makes me feel a little better. My daughters weren't all that easy either. The only that potty trained by 3 was my youngest daughter. I guess they all got my stubborn streak. My mom cursed me as well because I didn't potty train until 4 either. :o

my daughter didn't until she was almost five. Don't push it, and the switch will click in his head later. really.

[Name Lips]

From what I've seen, kids figure it out when they're good and ready. And parents attribute whatever clever method of potty training they happen to be using at that time as the miracle that did the trick.

My little boy will pee and poop in the potty perfectly fine, assuming he's not wearing pants. If he's wearing anything on his bottom half, he forgets his potty training entirely.

In general, too, boys take longer than girls.

But rest assured that he will not do this forever.

[Lady Fury]

I can't even get the cat to use the litter box sometimes. I have a feeling I wouldn't be much better at getting my son to use one either.:tongue:

It's reassuring knowing that others have been through this and I guess I needed to hear that pushing him won't make it happen faster. Thanks guys!

[Limper]

We spun our boy around so he could face the back... better placing for feet and books that way and it worked on his cousins as well.

[Droid101]

Just make him an outdoor pet until he's trained. Worked on my cat.

[Lady Fury]

We spun our boy around so he could face the back... better placing for feet and books that way and it worked on his cousins as well.

I tried that and all he wanted to do was flush the toilet over and over until it flooded. The boy is driving me nuts. I have no clue how people can handle more then one little boy.

Just make him an outdoor pet until he's trained. Worked on my cat.


Problem with that is that he tends to run away to the park which is right across the alley from our back yard. The neighbors frown upon a half naked kid running around the neighborhood.

[Varaj]

Problem with that is that he tends to run away to the park which is right across the alley from our back yard. The neighbors frown upon a half naked kid running around the neighborhood.

Invisible fence. Use the shock setting for large sized dogs. He won't leave the yard.

[The Theocrat of Poon-Tang]

You can really mentally scar a kid for life if you scream at them about this. It's very, very frustrating. We had to clean up more than a few "accidents", and I was ready to pull my hair out.

Just keep at it, try to keep rewarding him when he gets it right. He will come around eventually.

[Harry]

You can really mentally scar a kid for life if you scream at them about this. It's very, very frustrating. We had to clean up more than a few "accidents", and I was ready to pull my hair out.

Just keep at it, try to keep rewarding him when he gets it right. He will come around eventually.

My mom yelled and screamed at me during potty training, and threw in random beatings for good measure. And look at me. I turned out fine.

Typical liberal claptrap - handing out special "rewards" for barely fulfilling basic expectations. Does you mommy still give you cookies for tying your shoelaces?

[Name Lips]

I can't decide to laugh at you saying you "turned out fine" or at you calling out Stannis on his "liberal claptrap." :lol:

[Lady_Acoma]

I agree with him though that to many people hand out treats for doing crap that should just happen. Saying good job and stuff is cool, and letting the kid figure it out within their own time (though there can be extremes I don't at all think this is the case right now) is cool, but come on.

Appreciating someone or something that they do is one thing. I thank people around me all the time for stuff that others just do not. To me that is important. But I won't reward someone for wiping their ass.

For example my ex has told her youngest (who got all D's on his last report card) that he will get an X Box or something similar if he gets A's on the next one. The kid knows he is just supposed to work anyway and admitted it to me when I had him over the weekend. He was bragging about getting the X Box (cause he knows he is perfectly capable of getting A's) but then remembered it was me and became sheepish when I made him explain to everyone Why he was promised that.

[The Theocrat of Poon-Tang]

I was not active here for a while last year and the beginning of this year. Did Harry Joy have a car accident and resultant brain injury during that time? Not the "drooling vegetable" type of injury, more the frontal lobe damage/social inhibitions are removed type.

I guess we'd know if Harry hit on a cousin at the family reunion, but something tells me that he probably would have done that anyway.

[Ergeheilalt]

Peer pressure worked for my little brother.