Nothing is working !!!

[little rascals]

I really agree with you dayhome mamma. This is the way I feel about it too. I don't think she is ready. She doesn't even tell me she needs to pee anymore. I don't really agree with rewards for potty training but they use a chart at home so I figured I would try to do what they are doing at home. It's just frustrating. I'm trying my best to help them out but I guess I will be when she is ready. Thanks everyone for opinions. It a hard task to deal with sometimes.

[Inspired by Reggio]

Ya - I am another one that 'pushing' toilet training with a child WILL back fire everytime!

There are only so many things in their life children actually get 'control' over ... what goes into their bodies and what comes out of their bodies being the two biggest ... and ironically they are the ones that cause parents the MOST issues because when children feel CONTROLLED in those areas they PUSH back to exert control and battles begin because kids KNOW we cannot truly make them eat or make them poop and so forth!

IMO once a child is about 18 months - our job is to role model what goes on in the bathroom on a regular basis so they can see how it is done and to offer and encourage them to practice as THEY show interest and are self motivated - children want to be 'like their parents' or 'like siblings' so if they see THEM going they will want to emulate this naturally .... and than with that regular role modeling and access to a potty or toilet it is the child's job to choose WHEN to master it .... in my program it is usually at about 18 months they start wanting to 'look in' on the other kids to see what is going in the bathroom so this is when I 'introduce' the potty to them - offer 'would you like to sit on it' and than as they start willing sit on it I change it from would you like to to 'its time to try the potty' before routine times to try to get more success ... .and when the child is having success on going on potty, is staying dry for 2 hours at a time, has the communication skills to let me know they need the potty THEN we make the transition to underwear with a containment unit over it .... this occurs at different times depending on the child!

I have had kids trained at 22 months completely in underwear except for nap time and others who took right until the last week of August heading off to JK at 4 years of age to finally be able to go two weeks with an accident and be able to be considered 'trained' and have no containment unit over their underwear! On average they are trained by 3 though and with minimal accidents or stress because with no 'pressure' from me or parents - what I call self trained with some adult support systems in place.

Honestly - been in this field for 20 years and can count the number of kids I have seen head off to school not fully trained on one hand and even if they DO go to school in a pull up the first week the PEER PRESSURE from the others of 'pooping' at school has them trained within a week or two anyway ... so why STRESS AND FIGHT to get this done cleaning up 100's of accident pants and being angry and so forth cause the plan fact is that more you push the more they 'rebel' .... step back take a deep breath cause honestly unless there is a true 'developmental delay' preventing training in the first place when we do not PUSH them to do it but rather just let them find their motivation they do get motivated on their own if not before school the minute they 'arrive' at it!

[sunnydays]

I agree that letting them lead is key. With the little guy I have in care who is trained at home, but not with me, I pushed him too much in the beginning as I was feeling pressured by his parents. It was disastrous! He ended up holding it for an entire day and writhing in pain! At that point I told parents we had to stop training at my house as I didn't want him to be in pain and it was obviously not working at all. Now it has been months and there is no progress at all although he is doing well at home. Now all I can do is wait and hope that sooner or later he feels comfortable trying at my house.

[Momof4]

Putting a child on the potty every 30 minutes sounds like kind of a bad idea to me, but also how do you have time to do that? I don't bother trying to potty train at daycare until the parents tell me the child is doing great at home and interested then I try really hard too but I also insist on pullups or containment. I'm way too busy to clean up accidents here.

[Inspired by Reggio]

Putting a child on the potty every 30 minutes sounds like kind of a bad idea to me, but also how do you have time to do that?....

Ya no kidding ...

Kinda like I have always wanted to learn how to speak French and someone said 'sure I'll teach ya' but than kept coming and interrupting me every 30 minutes and said 'hey stop what your doing - come here with me we are going to spend 5 minutes learning a French word ... ok go back to your scrapbooking ... oh nope been 30 minutes I am back again stop what your doing come over here here is a new word' .... would not be long before I was saying 'umm ya screw you - I do not want to learn French anymore it is a PITA'

I know back in the 'day' it was common practice to do the 30 minute thing - this was how we trained 'toddlers' in daycare centre ... and it SUCKED cause you basically spent all day sitting on the potty, cleaning up from potty and so forth but they had to be 'trained' in order to go into the preschool room back then ... that was not potty trained that was just LUCK .... if you sit on the potty that often you are bound to have 'success' in peeing on the potty just out of sheer statistics and yes you only have 'rare accident's' but it does not mean you are TRAINED in that you know when you need to pee before hand to go to the bathroom unassisted to meet that need independently ... it means if an adult forgets to TELL you to go to the potty every 30 minutes you PEE YOUR PANTS ... and I have a four year old boy in care who is just like this - he wears underwear but if you do not SEND him to the bathroom every hour and MAKE him go pee - he pees his pants cause he has no clue how to read his 'signs before hand' that he is going to go cause this is how he was trained at home - the parent put him on the potty so much he showed 'success' so they got rid of the diapers ... but he is not 'trained' yet and same with his poop - he poops around 4pm daily and if you do not TELL him to go sit on the toilet he will poop in his pants and not tell anyone or notice?

[little rascals]

I guess the 30 minute thing was just another way of saying that I have tried everything with this child! I think I am going to start from fresh this week and not put so much pressure on the poor girl. I will ask her if she needs to go and we will continue with the chart but will not time the potty time. Thanks ladies.

[playfelt]

I have a 3 1/2 year old boy that has been training since last summer when he turned 3. Parents were told the method was to just put him in underwear and expect him to use the toilet and yes he was to be put on every 30-45 minutes. We had tons of accidents and he just did not care. Finally I said enough and he was not allowed back into daycare without a pull up on. I would continue to potty train but I was not doing any more wet clothes - this was because he sat on my couch and peed it 20 minutes after he had peed in the potty. He never ever said anything about being wet as if he had no concept about what he was doing or the ramifications of it.

What I found was once he went back into a pullup that he did better with potty training because I was able to change my whole approach and give ownership of the task back to him. We still went on the potty at regular intervals but they were 1 1/2 - 2 hours as in before snack before circletime, etc. In between he was expected to ask. Once we stopped harping at him to go pee, asking him if he needed to go pee as in constantly keeping the thought of pee in his mind he started holding it longer and having much more productive pees when he did go. The pressure to not wet his pants was gone. He relaxed, we relaxed and while he is still in a pullup because he won't poop in the toilet he is completely pee trained.