To potty or not to potty train... Need some opinions please!

Our son will be 3 in August and has every potty training readiness sign possible.. We were making some nice progress with sitting on the potty and even had a few successes. Then all of the sudden he decided no way was he going to sit on the potty anymore. I'm wondering if I pushed him too fast. So... I backed off and now I just ask at every diaper change.. Which is so funny bc he hates to have dirty diapers/pull ups.


So.. Here's the issue... I'm pregnant and due in June with #4 and really dont want to put undue stress on him amidst a big life change, but now he's showing interest again and im wondering if we should just go forward with one of the full blown. diapers off during the day trainings. I'm a stay at home mom and next week we have no commitments so we can put all energy into it. There are 11 weeks until our due date and I really do not want to deal with half hearted potty training or have to decide to go full blown potty training after #4 is born. If possible, I would like to do it now. Would you do it?

 

First - let me say I admire you that you can do it with the twins and your son and you are pregnant. Considering how much you have going on - do what you think is easier for all of you. I think your twins are girls, so let me tell you my experience with training a girl vs training a boy.
 
With my son, potty training was much easier than my daughter, he got it right away. I decided to give it a try over Thanksgiving weekend in 2012 - when my kids were 2 and 3 months. We started Friday and we kept them in underwear every day that weekend, we used diapers at nap time and at night. We made him pee in the toilet standing - and he got it and he was happy about it. I read this trick in the potty training sticky - I just put a paper towel that had a butterfly drawing in the toilet - and I would say - pee on the butterfly and he would do it. During those 3 days he had only 2-3 pee accidents - Vanessa had only 3 successes - so we gave up with her and we focused on him. In the beginning he was waiting to go #2 in his diaper at night - then we made him sit on the potty and read a book - then in about 2-3 weeks he got it with that also- but during that time he mostly went in his diaper at night or naptime so no horrible messes. He had the tendency to hold it in and he was a bit constipated because of it - but we made sure he got prune juice or prune baby puree and that helped him go. He was so good about potty training that a month later we took his nap time diaper off and in March - so 4 months later we took his night time diaper off - and that was after about months of dry diapers at night. I don't think he ever had a nighttime accident since then.
 
With Vanessa we tried again in March 2013 so she was 2 and a half and she got it much faster that time. She was more aware than the first trial and it wasn't too bad with her either - but she had more accidents than Max. I think with him - peeing standing made it fun and he was happy to do it. After about a week we gave up the paper towel trick, he was going without issues. We just made him go about every 2 hours and before nap time or bed time - and he would go. We made him hold on to the raised toilet seat - this way - he was bent over the toilet and there was no aiming issue or he won't wiggle while going. In the beginning we used a small stepping stool and then the scale, but your son may be tall enough to reach by now. We didn't ask if he needed to go - we just brought him to the toilet every 2 hours, pulled his pants down - and he would go. I think he started to say when he needed to go a few months later.
 
Knowing my kids, and after reading all the pages from the potty training sticky - my conclusion was that if we waited too long, it may become a power struggle so that's why I gave it a try so early. I also think it's a matter of whether or not the kid is ready - so my daughter was not ready when we tried the first time, but my son was. She was funny - she was cheering on him with us for his success and she would help him flush, but she didn't have any interest to try it herself.
 
I would say with your son- try it for 4-5 days - and he may get it - if not, you can get back to diapers. I think if he gets it he may have some accidents when the baby comes in June, but it will be a phase. I think you have a good window of opportunity here -you can try and see how it goes.
 
Good luck with everything.
 
ETA: I forgot to mention we had the Potty Power DVD that they were watching and also a good book called "Potty" and we were reading that a lot and they were watching the DVD every day also. The DVD has a girl in it, not sure if that helped him or not. We read them the "Potty" book with other books, so not only while on the potty, but during regular book reading time on the couch. It's been over a year and I still know that book by heart .
 
Another thing - we never did a reward or stickers - just a "high five- you're a big boy/big girl" and that was it.

 

It doesn't hurt to try it. You can try just having him just sit, even fully clothed and give him a sticker just for sitting there for a short time. Work your way up to sitting there every so often and he can earn a sticker or whatever else you want to use. You can start a little chart too and tell him that after all the spaces are full then he gets a reward of some kind, like a new toy or a special outing. One of the rewards for our girls was to be able to watch "The Potty Dance" music video that Pull-Ups has. i thnk you can still get it free.  Let him have accidents in his underwear (plastic pants over them). They feel the wetness and it doesn't. A pullup is kind of a glorified diaper, it feels wet and then it is absorbed.  If it becomes a battle, leave it for a little while, then try it again in a couple weeks. I was kind of surprised how quickly my last girl took to potty train.  She was 26 months. She is very stubborn. I ordered her favourite character underwear and then told her that when they get here she was going to wear those instead of diapers and she actually did it. It is so different for each child. Good luck!

 

You received very good advice. I would put him in just underpants and a t-shirt at home for the fist couple of days.  It just makes it easier when they need to go.  I did not use a reward system besides lots of praise.  I also made a big thing of the underwear and how big they were etc. Maybe buy character underpants to encourage him.
 
I am sure he will suprise you!

 

I would say there is no harm in trying now.  My friend did this with her son before her daughter was born and it worked.  He did backslide a little after the baby was born but he got out of it really quick.
 
My son was harder to train then my daughter.  He too, showed signs of readiness and backed off.  We did the 3 day potty training plan which is basically devoting three days to nothing but potty training-toss all diapers/pull ups, load him up with drinks and look for the signs that he has to go and take him to the potty.  My son was not fully trained by the end of 3 days but I can tell you he went from kid who refused to potty train to exclusively using the potty when he was awake (he still was not dry at nap time or overnight...that came within a month or so later). During this time, I used chux pads around the house and in his bed for accidents.  Good luck!

 

My son has been showing signs since he was about 16 months my daughter about 2 years. I was trying and really pushing it and they were doing good but then suddenly they both just started going pee in their pull-ups again. Now while their 3rd birthday was approaching on May 1st I wanted them potty trained before it. I stopped putting pull-ups on them and would just let them run around the house in a shirt and nothing else. They had close to no accidents the first few days so then I put underpants on them and only put pullups on at night and when we went somewhere. That worked well for a few days so my next step was when they went outside to play I kept underpants on them and just let them know if they had to go potty they had to tell me or else their cool new underpants would get ruined. That worked perfectly, they literally took themselves inside and went potty. Now we are going on about 2 weeks of no accidents. The only time they wear pull-ups is at night. We've gone out to eat, shopping, etc with no accidents. I still carry a spare outfit in case though

 

Also I took the kids with me and let them pick out their own underpants and I did reward them with stickers after they pottied. I now have a wall with all their potty stickers on it. They are proud to show everyone who comes over their stickers and how they got them. And we have the Potty Power DVD too, they love it.

 

I say go for it!
 
With my two, I really just had to go all-or-nothing. I told them we were running out of diapers and devoted 2 weekends (going to daycare during the week in pull-ups) to cleaning up the resulting mess. We had tried several times before but were never in the correct mindset and would tend to give up if it wasn't going well right away. Rewards never worked for us, they just needed to know that there was no fall-back to diapers. If you have the time available now, do it and don't give up! It takes a few weeks/months for the occasional accidents to taper off and that's not something you want to deal with after baby arrives.