Thread: How on earth do you potty train a boy?

it was the other way round in my house - the one that went to nursery from 8 months old is the fussy eater and the youngest, who was with me all the time, eats everything.
I still have issues now with the eldest, she is 4. She will ask what is for tea, and when I tell her and get "I don't like that" I just change the conversation to something else and she ends up eating it anyway!!

As Nanny to one 3 year old boy, it was me that ended up potty training Jack recently. He'd been on holiday with my son and his partner and made a game of sitting on the toilet like Mummy, but not doing anything. He would wait until his nappy was back on until going.

I had him over a weekend and all of a sudden he was in the hall yelling he wanted his nappy off, so I took it off and he sat on the loo.... nothing, so I put a pair of pants on him. Despite having explained patiently that he needed to tell me when he wanted a wee, we had wet trousers only 10 minutes later, and utter hysterics. He demanded his nappy back on, but I refused and explained he was a big boy and had to use the toilet. It broke my heart, he sobbed for 20 full minutes pleading for a nappy. All of a sudden he stopped crying sat on my lap, and said, 'no more nappy's, jacks a big boy' and from that to this we've only had two accidents day and night.

He was very late at training, mainly due to both parents working full time and the childminder not having the time to concentrate on it. It was a shame because the sobbing was through embarrassment, nothing more nothing less. He was old enough to feel shame at wetting himself.

Do try and get him trained before he gets to that stage, but I would say start off with putting him back in nappies to go out with, the cold makes them go even more. At the age he is, he'll realise soon enough that having pants on inside when you are able to follow him around and take him to the loo every 10 mins is much better than sitting in a wet nappy, and he'll learn to hold it better. Not only that if you get stressed when you go out if he has an accident, it will make him nervous. A calm mother is much more likely to respond better to the odd accident

FPD x

nearly 3 months ago, Little Miss Crafty (aged 2 years 4 months) decided that she was going to use the potty instead of weeing randomly all over the place (she'd been stripping herself naked for weeks previously - I'd taken to dungarees to keep everything on until she learnt to get those off too). This was fine, except that she couldn't get the hang of clothes, if you put pants / trousers on she seemed to think it was a nappy and just wee'd whenever whereever.

My question is this - this situation has been ongoing now for 3 months, perfectly potty trained when naked from the waist down, completely not potty trained when wearing clothes - what do I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

(I realise she'll grow out of it eventually, but I'd like to hurry it along somewhat - if nothing else other than Mr Crafty gets riled when he comes home from work to be greeted by Little Miss's naked bottom at the window again (she spends hours standing on the window ledge - she's always been a climber, alas)

DS is also a naked climber - he loves standing on his bedroom windowsill to watch the cars going past (we live on a busy dual carriageway so perfect for budding petrolheads) and I have to be careful to keep an eye on his clothing situation as he's flashed the world a number of times !

Little Miss Crafty often watches TV from that position, leaning against the pane with her little naked bottom squished against the glass!!
Since she's quiet and still and not 'doing something' I take the oppotunity to do some quick housework and let her get on with it! (I'm a bad mummy!).
Whilst I tend to think it's all just innocent, Mr Crafty gets rather agravated that the whole world (we live at the end of a very small and quiet cul-de-sac) can see his little Princess's bottom!

I would like to try and get her into clothes though as it's making it difficult for her to go out without a nappy (i've taken her out once or twice in a dress with no pants - and once at toddler group when I forgot her spare nappies - she was actually brilliant, zero accidents) which I'm sure must be confusing her.

It does take a little while for girls to get the hang of clothes, I potty trained my eldest over New Year in Germany, it was bloody freezing, so she had to be wrapped up when we went out, but in the house I let her just wear a skirt/dresses with knickers. she soon got the hang of knickers then eventually trousers/tights.

I was a single mum to my first born and have been trying to remember how I potty trained him. From what I can recall (he's 14 now so I'm going back a bit) we went shopping together to buy big boy pants of his choice. we used to have a story while sat on the potty so he got used to sitting still and he was allowed to wander round in his pants and we'd always do the story on the potty before we went out. As for outside the house, I can't remember how we did it but I think it was nappies until he was asking to go to the toilet

He did a wee on the potty! Until he does another one I'm going to treat it as a fluke but its a step in the right direction!

3 wees on the potty now! Have made a massive fuss of him every time and so has DD. He's now celebrating by flashing the road from his windowsill.