When do you call them "potty -trained"?

[♥ms.pacman♥]

A week with no accidents? What's the metric? This is a new area for me. (What is this, strange strange land people speak of without diapers??) LOL.

For past 4 days DS has gone to school in underwear, and he stayed dry the whole day (he actually came home with same underwear he wore to school...so from 8am to about 530pm). He also stayed dry in the evenings too..he only wore a diaper at nighttime for gonig to sleep. He had worn underwear to school before, but the issue was with pooping..he refused to poop in the potty, so he would often just do it in his underwear or demand a diaper. Well a few days ago he finally pooped on the potty after school. THen he did it the next day. He only had one accident yesterday where he had to go to swim class straight form school, and then we went out to eat right after, so it was 7pm and he hadn't gotten a chance to poop, and so he ended up pooping in his underwear. I think the thing was, he was afraid to poop in a public restroom (the only place he's ever pooped in is a bjorn potty at home..he wont' sit on a toilet, not even with an insert).

any tips on the first weekend with a tot wearing underwear, would love to hear. we are going out for an Easter /meet the easter bunny breakfast tomorrow. I would carry around a portable potty in the van, but DH says no, he doesn't want him to be dependent on it and he has to learn to use public restrooms. though i can't see ds using them, at least for now..it was hard enough to get him to poop on a Bjorn potty! the kid is deathly afraid of public restrooms.

[mikala]

any tips on the first weekend with a tot wearing underwear, would love to hear. we are going out for an Easter /meet the easter bunny breakfast tomorrow. I would carry around a portable potty in the van, but DH says no, he doesn't want him to be dependent on it and he has to learn to use public restrooms. though i can't see ds using them, at least for now..it was hard enough to get him to poop on a Bjorn potty! the kid is deathly afraid of public restrooms.

Yay for dry undies!

Personally I used the trained term when we got to the point where DS was self initiating regularly and accidents were pretty rare. Before then I just said he was training.

Re your DH's concern, why would DH expect your son to use a public potty before he felt comfortable on your regular potty at home? Start there and trust your kid will eventually go through the toilet tourist stage. Whenever you do brave public toilets I recommend carrying some post it notes to put over the automatic flusher.

Re: this weekend, I'd carry the potty and a change of clothes or more in the car. Always tell him where he can find the nearest potty and watch him carefully for his potty signs . I'd also build in routine easy catch times to use the potty like right after waking up and right after eating.

Good luck!

[twowhat?]

I'd say once he poops regularly at home in the potty for a week? It sounds to me like he's essentially potty-trained. My 4.5yo DD2 still needs a pull-up at night.

I'd keep a portable potty in the car for emergencies, and then just visit the restroom - a LOT. The "going out" part was the hardest part of a newly PT'ed child, as they learn the limits of their bladder and bowels. We have a rule that they must pee at home before we go anywhere, even if they don't have to. We would visit the restroom whenever it was convenient. If we went out to eat, we'd visit the restroom at home, and then again after eating at the restaurant before heading home. Just make sure you know where the public potties are at all times It takes a while for them to figure out how long they can actually hold it and also to get to the point where they are completely independent about deciding when they need to go before the urge gets too bad...lots of reminders/opportunities are key!

Hooray for the pooping at home - that's a big deal! Mine were afraid of public bathrooms too and for a while we'd actually try to avoid going anywhere when we knew they'd need to poop. But that was only temporary. Now they will poop in public potties, even though they don't like to and often choose to wait until we get home.

[citymama]

Yay for dry undies! Nice work and a huge step forward.

My DD2 has been in this situation since early Feb and I still can't call her PTed. She has 5 days of no accidents and then little accidents for the next 2. Or one big one. She self initiates at home and daycare but not outside the house. I couldn't leave her at my gym childcare where they require kids to be PTed bc she could easily have an accident. when we're past the accident stage (i.e no more than one a week reliably) I'll consider her PTed!

[TwinFoxes]

Yay for dry undies!

Personally I used the trained term when we got to the point where DS was self initiating regularly and accidents were pretty rare. Before then I just said he was training.

Re your DH's concern, why would DH expect your son to use a public potty before he felt comfortable on your regular potty at home? Start there and trust your kid will eventually go through the toilet tourist stage. Whenever you do brave public toilets I recommend carrying some post it notes to put over the automatic flusher.

Re: this weekend, I'd carry the potty and a change of clothes or more in the car. Always tell him where he can find the nearest potty and watch him carefully for his potty signs . I'd also build in routine easy catch times to use the potty like right after waking up and right after eating.

Good luck!

I think a couple of visits to the potty initiated by you is the way to go. When my girls first trained they wanted to go in every bathroom in sight, I bet your DS hits that stage soon. It's not particularly fun.

I hated the little potty chair because I hated cleaning it. I would put TP inside it beforehand if they told me they were going to poop. It made cleanup easier. When they turned three I told them they were done with the potty chair because it was only made for two year olds. They were fine with the insert (still using it in fact).

[crl]

I would definitely bring the little potty with you. More success is better. And IME pushing the public toilet thing doesn't work. (My oldest had some noise issues and we ended up having to buy him noise blocking headphones before he would use a public bathroom).

As far as when I call them potty trained, I guess it depends a little on context. I would say down to one accident a week is good enough for starting a preschool that requires kids to be potty trained. But I would put swim diapers on a kid way past that benchmark because I would so hate to shut down a pool over a poop accident. As a general matter, I am kind of on the no accidents anymore side of things for really saying a kid is potty trained. So less than one accident per month. And going of their own volition most of the time. I mean if you are still carrying little potties everywhere and doing extra laundry and asking them do you need to go potty every hour, that's not really potty trained, IMO. It's progress, but not done.

Dd seems to be stuck half way. I'm still cleaning up one or two pee accidents a week, plus she seems to pee on the seat half the time and she needs me to follow her in and make her flush and wash her hands. Frankly, it's more of a pain than changing diapers and I kind of regret starting potty training. She's made way too much progress and is way too happy with her undies to go back though.

Catherine

[♥ms.pacman♥]

thanks everyone! we had ds use the potty before we left...we got to the restaurant, ate breakfast, saw the easter bunny, then i took ds to the family restroom where they had really short toilets (we were at a mall). he was happy to sit on those because they were just like the ones at school. these had automatic flush though, which freaked him out so i hastily draped toilet paper over the sensor (i will have to remember to keep post-its in my purse for next time!!). luckily that worked, and HE actually PEED in it! Woo!! This is the first time EVER he's gone in a public toilet. anyway after that we went shopping at Hanna, played in the play area, and then drove 20 mins home. No accidents at all..when we got home he even told us he had to use the potty w/o us having to remind him!! He peed a teensy bit in his training underwear before he told us, but it was not much at all. He is almost 3y3mo, so i think he's gotten the bladder control thing down very well already (if he pees a tiny bit in his underwear, he immediately holds it until he can get to the potty)...what had been holding him back from not wearing diapers was the pooping issue.