Need help to potty train a 3 year old?

Question

Hello. I have a 3 year old daughter who is still not potty trained. I keep hearing everyone say either "why isnt she potty trained" or "she'll come around". Well I am 11 weeks pregnant with my 2nd child and I dont want both of them in diapers. Any advice on how to get her to want to use it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

Answer 1

Truthfully, they do it when they are ready. you cannot force it. I just recently pottytrained my 3-1/2 year old son this way:

Every morning when he woke up, I had him pee in the toilet. I gave him a little prize for doing it -like a sticker or a jolly rancher.

Then, I put underwear on him and asked him every 15 minutes if he had to pee or poop and took him in the bathroom every 15 minutes to "try." If he tried, I gave him a litte prize.

If he did pee or poop, then I would not ask him again for an hour if he had to go. After a while, I was only asking him every hour and he was going almost every hour.

You have to keep it up no matter where you are - grocery shopping, doctor office, etc. Get used to asking where the public restroom is! :)

Keep underwear and wipes in your purse, as well as big ziplock bags for accidents. Never punish accidents unless they are blatantly intentional (my son used to get up off the toilet and then go spray the hallway for "fun.")

I hope I have been of help. You just have to be VERY consistent every day with the training, asking every 15 minutes, and rewarding them for even trying. It WILL happen. I thought it never would, but once I really cracked down, it only took 2 weeks.

He wears pull-ups at night still.

Answer 2

Been here done this. I had introduce my daughter to the potty here and there but nothing consistant. About three weeks after the new baby was born I sat my daughter down and had a little talk to her about her borther needing to have her diapers that she was a big sister and needed to give him her diapers. NO I can't say that she totally understood all that I was telling her but the next morning (like I had told her) she got up and we took the diaper off of her and that was that no more diapers. She hates them and will not even wear one to bed. Yes, the first few days we crazy!! But she has been potty trained for about a month now and all is great. She has had a few accidents when we were out at the store or at a friends house but I just stuck to my guns and told her that she was a big girl. And when she does use the potty make a big fuss about it to show her that you are proud of her. When my daughter goes to the bathroom now if we are out she lets the whole world know. Kids her age love to be praised and they will respond to positive feed back better then they will be in trouble. I hope this helps.

Answer 3

First of all, I completely understand how you feel..my daughter didn't get potty trained until she was 3 1/2! I realized that you can't push them into, because then it just makes them back track and not want to do it at all. Be a little more patient with him, but you can definitely try some things like only having him wear underwear vs. diapers and make him at least sit on the toilet once every hour, and make sure you do it every hour. you could also try getting one of the little potty's and have him sit on it for hours at a time, watching his fav movies. My girlfriend said that this worked for her daughter and she never wore diapers again. She used the potty like a chair, and whenever her daughter tried to stand up or whatever, it felt weird to her so she would just sit back down and eventually she pee'd in the potty and got excited! you could also try putting cheerios in the toilet and helping him learn how to aim for the hole's...I've heard this one is always kind of fun! But one thing for sure...you have to reward him when he does go and DON'T get mad when he has an accident....but just give it some more time, he'll get there. good luck! :o)

Answer 4

I say you just encourage her but do not force her. She will go when she is ready. When we were training our daughter she went by herslef the first time (she was 3) we were so excited we made a big deal about it and "forced" potty training on her. It backfired and she refused to go on the potty and we ended up putting her back in diapers. Of course our parents were not happy about this but we figured it was doing more harm than good to make her. We left the topic alone and then she started going on her own and in about a week she was fully potty trained. In the end it seemed the less we focused on it the better she did.

Answer 5

It all depends on when she is ready. My sister told me my son should have been potty trained when he was 2, so I tried to force it. It was torture! I let him decide when to do it, and a month after he turned 3 he made the decision and hasn't had many accidents. Now, my daughter decided a month after her 2nd birthday to go potty on the potty chair, on Thanksgiving Day, which made it rough, but I supported her. Oh, and, my sister that gave me a hard time about my son...her youngest is 5 weeks older than my daughter and STILL isn't potty trained. It all depends on the child and when they are ready, not when the parent is ready.

Answer 6

Just put her in "big girl" underware. Have her help you with little jobs around the house and tell her how "big" she is...constantly. Maybe she will catch on that she gets to help you and be "big", when she wears her underware. Also, try taking her to the potty every hour. Tell her it's time for a story if she'll sit on the toilet, then read her a book. Try a sticker chart, where she gets a sticker for going on the toilet. When the chart is filled (10 stickers or so), take her out for ice cream or another favorite treat. Good luck. Every child is different, so don't worry. Be patient...it will come to her!

Answer 7

Been there! I tried to get daughter #1 out of diapers before her baby sister was born.

Here's what I found out: They do it when they're ready. Sad, but true. My daughter is really bright and I knew she knwo HOW and WHEN to go. She just had to decide that the time was right.

Unfortunately for me, the time was only right about 4 months after the baby was born. But she hasn't had an accident since! And the baby is a year now.

Good luck-try to be patient!

Answer 8

I have heard a lot of people recommend the book "Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day". I bought the book and reading it now. I am planning to try to tackle this hurdle this weekend... hopefully it will be the end of diapers for my son!

Answer 9

They will train when they are ready. My oldest trained when she was about 2-1/2. I took her in the bathroom and changed her diapers and set her on the potty once she was walking really good. We did a bunch of traveling when she was about 18 months old and every time we stopped at a reststop, I took her and put her on the potty, sometimes she peed, sometimes she didn't. Once she started staying dry through the night, and would pee in the potty when I got her up in the morning, I started taking her to go potty when I would go. Then I started having her go on her own every couple of hours. If she used the potty,she got a sticker. She mastered getting to the potty to pee several months before she mastered getting to the potty to poop, but she was fully potty trained by her 3rd birthday.
My twins just potty trained a few months ago at 3-1/2. I tried to train my twins when they were 2, before I had my last baby and it didn't fly. We let them run no-pants when the weather was hot, sometimes they went, sometimes they didn't. Tried taking them, that was a drag literally. I had extreme fatigue due to the pregnancy and meds I had to take for blood pressure so I wasn't able to be as consistent as I needed to be either. They'd make some progress for awhile, but something would happen such as a visit from family or a long trip and they would regress. They regressed when I had the baby, they regressed again when we had to move 6 month later. One fought tooth and nail if I told her to go, I'd drag her to the bathroom and she'd run off. The other one made progress for quite awhile, but regressed, I think because my husband would yell at her and spank her for still pooping in her underwear. I took a break from forcing the issue and just bought big girl panties and told them they had to stay dry for a week before they could wear them. Well, one of them snatched the pack of panties from the drawer and tried wearing them but kept having accidents. One day the one that was fighting potty training the most decided she was going to go to the potty, she went without a word and came and found me and told me she went, did it several times that day, and she kept going everytime after that. I let her wear the big girl panties and the other one had a tantrum that she couldn't wear them, too. Finally about couple weeks later that one got a pair of big girl panties to wear to bed and I told her that she could only wear them if she stayed dry, that she'd have to go back into pullups of she peed in them. She stayed dry all night, went straight to the potty the next morning and stayed dry till the very end of the day, and the rest is history. They stayed good for a couple of months, but now that it is summer, they get wrapped up in what they are doing and don't go to the bathroom and we end up with wet bottoms. That went on for about 2 weeks, but I think they are settling back down now.
Good luck.

Answer 10

Have her walk around in "big girl" pants all day. She will of course have many accidents but each time she does take her to the potty and have her sit there. Hopefully she will not like the feeling of wet pants and want to go.
Also when she finally does go you basically need to go crazy with the praise. She will still have accidents but she needs to feel good about herself. Don't reprimand her for having an accident. Tell her its OK.
Good luck!!