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  1. #1
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    Default Potty Training advice for working mother

    Hi all,
    I have been reading all the postings on potty training but most seem to apply to stay-at-home parents. I am a working mother and need some advice. Our brief story - We have a 2 1/2 y.o. boy who we started potty training about 7 months ago. He is in daycare 4 days a week. Our daycare provider does not believe in the "getting wet" method so we use pull ups with him. He pees most of the time that she puts him on the potty but he is by no means dry in his pull up (in fact sometimes his pull up is very wet when I pick him up). At home we see less results. I have tried putting him in underwear at home and it's just a big mess. He doesnt tell us that he is wet. I have refrained from doing stickers but we do give him books to read while on the potty.

    We are just moving too slow here. I am thinking of putting him in cloth training pants (instead of the character undies) at home. What have other working parents tried? Should we be doing prizes/stickers now? Any advice or stories of what has worked will be welcomed!

  2. #2
    hbridge is offline Emerald level (3000+ posts)
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    Hi, First off "hugs", potty training can be so difficult. My DC are not in daycare or school full time, but I will say your child is somewhat young IMO. I'd say just let him take the lead at this point and see where it goes. Training pants are great for small "leaks", but don't work nearly as well as diapers. Maybe let him decide if he wants Pullups, training pants, or undies. If he understands he has to keep the undies dry that may help. We also found that a sticker chart worked great. We never gave prizes for so many stickers, just the chart itself. DC would track their progress and count how many stickerst they got each day.

    Take your time on this. As the parent of DC who trained later, just give him time, he will get there!

  3. #3
    amandabea is offline Platinum level (1000+ posts)
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    I'm a WOHM (some days WAHM) and my DD is in daycare FT. She potty trained much easier than I expected. However, I will state that I think that is because she wanted to and her daycare supported my sending her in panties. They were willing to deal with accidents and take her potty frequently -- without that support, even with her willingness, I don't think we would have had much success.

    I think your first challenge is getting daycare on board with your plan and then you can focus on what will motivate your DS. From what I understand from other moms, 2 1/2 is still young, esp for a boy.

    Good luck!
    mommy to DD 1/07

  4. #4
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    Thank you both for your advice. I am always torn by whether 2-1/2 years is too young or getting too old. I think about my own mother who trained us all (we were 4) at around 18-20 months each but I know it’s not fair to compare. So here is the follow up story. I spoke to the daycare provider about my concerns that this process was going too slow, basically acknowledging that I do not expect him to be fully trained by 7 months of work but at least to see some progress (like him telling us when he wants to pee). Anyway, the very next day after I spoke with her, he pooped in the potty at daycare! The daycare provider basically kicked things up a notch. When she saw that he was starting to hide in a corner to poop, she very enthusiastically got him to try to sit on the potty and read some favorite book then promised another book when he was done and he did it! So the next day at home, when I sensed that he was about to poop, I too enthusiastically encouraged him to the potty by promising to read a favorite book there. He sat there and…nothing. We read some more…nothing. Then I promised that if he pooped, I would let him watch Caillou. Within 2 seconds of my promise, he pooped! Go figure, the kid knows how to do it! So now we are working on prizes for going to the potty. Let’s see how this goes!

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