3 1/2 & still not interested in PT! Any ideas?

[proudsahmof3]

My 3 1/2 year old son still has absolutely no interest in potty training. He seems to have the physical ability, completely dry upon waking in the morning and after nap, but is anti-potty. He does have speech apraxia and our ped has said that he would probably be around 3 1/2 or 4 before he might be ready, but preschool starts this fall and he has to be potty trained to go! I'm just trying to come up with some ways of gently pushing him in that direction. We've tried letting him pick out underwear and the potty, having special toys and books to use in the bathroom, and even (at my sister-in-law's suggestion) m&m's (egads! I know.). The grandparents of course are not helping, thinking that children should be PT by 2 years. Anyone have some good techniques, or at least a child with a speech disorder that was a late learner so that I can be reassured? Thanks!

[deannanb]

maybe start with a star chart when he wakes up with a dry diaper
or a prize box (or the m&ms) - then move to a prize or something when he tries to go in the toilet. have you tried pee-pee targets?

good luck

[nfowife]

My DD does not have a speech issue and she turned 3 last month. She is not AT ALL interested in PT. She doesn't even want to sit on the potty (unless she thinks it will postpone bedtime, then she will sit forever but not go). You're so not alone!

[JBaxter]

At the time Nathan potty trained at 2 1/2 he was at a 30-40% speech delay. Speaking had little to do with his potty training he could say pee pee ( or somethign close) I didnt give him a choice we picked a day and started the week of potty boot camp so to speak.
I took his diapers away and kept him bottomless except for nights and naps. We went to the potty every hour and a half to sit he got a chocolate chip if he went he got another choice of a treat ( actually strawberries were a hit) if he didnt go then every half hour we went back. I had 3 or 4 potties in the house and used the peter potty urinal which was a big help. 3 or 4 days we had it down well enough to make short trips out a week we were 90+% done. Nights took a little longer but he never was back in a day time diaper after day one. nathan was my oldest to potty train and by 2 1/2 I was done changing daily diapers.

[SnuggleBuggles]

You have lots of time! My ds was not ready till 1 month shy of his 4th b-day (the goal his ped recommended for boys, btw). The pt'ing thing actually was a determining factor in choosing a preschool for us. I took severl child dev. courses in college and the one was taught by the university's child care's director. She said that we should look for schools that don't have set deadlines like that because they may not be as developmentally appropriate/ individual needs' based as others. That said, I know my friend sends her kids to a school with a hard core 3yo pt'ing deadline and she started pt'ing her ds a few weeks before the start of the school year. She used preschool as a motivator for him. She also decided that she could always send him in underwear and if he had an accident then he had an accident.

I think because you still have time you should just relax for a few months. Make a potty accessible and casually mention it here and there or offer it but don't push it if he is digging in his heels. There are no winners in a battle of wills over this issue, imo.

For ds it was totally a self motivating thing. We planted some seeds b/c his friend pt'ed, we watched the movie "Potty Power," and he stumbled across my box of "potty presents" that I had bought. I could see the little wheels in his head turning for a few weeks before, one day, he just decided he was ready. he pt'ed in a day completely (day/ night, pee/ poop). It was so much easier than I could have imagined. It made up for the 3.5 month debacle we had where he held his pee for 24 hours and refused all attempts. No bribes worked. Ugh.

The switch could flip any day. Don't give up! But, don't pressure if you find that it is really stressing him out.

Beth

[1964pandora]

Hi! My DS is 3 years, 8 months and it's like a switch flipped and he's been wearing underwear exclusively (round the clock) and obviously using the toilet for 72 hours now.

He has a speech delay, and the switch for his speech flipped on at 3 years, 6 months like magic. He really did just started speaking in sentences and his vocabulary grows every, single day.

I was really too lazy to ever think of "training" him to use the potty. Anytime I brought the topic up, he was very, very resistant to the idea so I didn't want to have a battle with him. I was very, very skeptical about how and when he would just decide to use the potty on his own. I was concerned that if I didn't decide to do SOMETHING that he wouldn't just decide to do it on his own. Still, I didn't want to do some kind of training involving stickers and rewards, etc. That just isn't me. I just can't see a doing a sticker rewards system chart with him. Well, he DID decide to just start wearing underwear and going to the potty on his own. I think that it was triggered by seeing his cousin using the restroom when we were at the library one day. When my son then decided to use the potty and wear underpants, we praised him and made a big fuss about it, of course. I also gave him some Thomas trains as a treat and said that we were so proud of him for wearing underpants and using the potty. He then decided that the underpants were more comfortable than the diapers. We use Hanna Andersson training underwear which are super, super comfortable. Honestly, we didn't even need training underwear at this age, because I really don't think they have a lot of accidents at this age. Regular underwear would be fine.

The main reason I am writing is just to let you know that it CAN happen-- they can just decide to do it on their own without going through any systematic training. We did, of course, provide all of the information about what to do. We had potties out for a long time, he watched Elmo potty time many times, and we read him potty training books.

Good luck and keep the faith!

ETA: Sorry that I have to edit this to report that after a full 72 hours straight of wearing underpants we are back to diapers. We didn't leave the house for those 72 hours, and when we did go to my sister-in-law's house, he didn't want to use the potty there, so he urinated in his underpants. He was very sad and it was difficult to see. I can tell that even though I didn't think I was putting any pressure on him, that he wanted to please us and he felt bad for having an accident. Anyway, thought I shouldn't leave this post with the impression that we had potty trained for good! We'll try again when he's up to it.

Susan
mom to DS 09/29/04

[rl42382]

actually they have books with a system to train kids with delays and some times they say autistic and downs are easier to train with these stricht systems so i would look that up you could try that