PTing: When do they tell you?

[KrystalS]

So DS has been potty training for the last 2 weeks. He is doing great for the most part, definitely have our bad days. As long as I stay on him and watch for signs no accidents. But I feel like my day revolves around going to the potty! He never tells me he has to go. He does really well when we leave the house, I guess he knows he doesn't want to have an accident in public! I'm just wondering at what point will he go to the potty on his own, or at least tell me?

And how in the world do I get him to poop in the potty?! Bribing is not working. For now I'm letting him use a pullup when he needs to go because I don't want him to get constipated and I don't want to clean it out of his underwear. Is there a trick to this or do I just give it time?

[TxCat]

My DD is the same age as your son. We started PTing in April - 3 Day Potty Training. Using that method, it's all about reminding the kid to tell you that they need to go potty - they have to be the ones to indicate when they need to go, you never just take them regularly or anything. For the most part, that has worked very well for us - the first 5-6 days, I was telling DD every 5-10 minutes "remember to tell mommy or daddy when you need to go potty." She had a couple of bigger accidents the first two weeks, but since then has been pretty dry during daylight hours, and improving every week. She always tells us now when she needs to go, but sometimes, if it's been a while, I'll drop a few of the "tell mommy" reminders. I try to always phrase it as "tell mommy" instead of "do you need to go?" so that it's about her recognizing her body cues. That being said, we do have some potty "rules" - have to use the potty before going out of the house, before nap, and before bedtime, and also first thing when getting up from nap or bed.

Poop is a totally different story. DD pooped on the potty once the first PTing weekend, and that's it. Otherwise it's always in the undies or the pull-ups during nap/nighttime. Talking to a lot of people IRL and here, it sounds like that is pretty normal - it can take months for pooping on the potty to click. We've also tried every bribe imaginable and it's not working. We have also started to use Miralax semi-regularly because I was worried about withholding, then constipation, then wet accidents becoming more frequent. I'm hoping that with the Miralax, there will be more opportunities to practice pooping on the potty as well.

[Kymberley]

It took nearly a year for DS to tell me he had to poop. He doesn't even tell me now, he just goes on his own and if I'm lucky I find out before he pulls his pants up. He'll be 4 at the end of July.

[BabbyO]

I know this sounds crazy - but we read the book Everyone Poops almost every day for a month (once we read it once DS wanted to read it every night). It worked....he started pooping pretty regularly on the potty shortly after we got the book and we never looked back.

http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Poops-My-Body-Science/dp/192913214X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

[KrystalS]

I know this sounds crazy - but we read the book Everyone Poops almost every day for a month (once we read it once DS wanted to read it every night). It worked....he started pooping pretty regularly on the potty shortly after we got the book and we never looked back.

http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Poops-My-Body-Science/dp/192913214X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

Thanks! I'm going to try it! Right now the only time he is having pee accidents is when he needs to poop. He was asking for a pull up but the last few days he has been going in his underwear which is really gross!