Potty Training a Boy...help me please!!!

[soMnUS]

Yup, I'm trying to get my 2 1/2 year old to go on the potty but he's NOT interested and I'm getting irritated. I'm not expecting him to instantly be trained but at least show some interest in the potty kid!!! Those of you who have trained boys, could you give me some quick ideas as to what worked for you or what didn't. I'm stuck and without him trained I have 2 kids in diapers which is expensive and tiring...

[mamabear]

I've got two kids, a boy and a girl, both were potty trained by the time they were two. Here's how I did it.

1. I took my son to the store with me, I let him pick oout his own potty, whatever he wanted. I also let him pick out a bunch of stickers to put on it, his own underpants and his favorite candy/cookies.

2. When we got home, I put the potty in hte living room and let him decorate it and play with it, sit on it while he watched TV and get used to the idea.

3. After a few days, I took him out of his diapers and put him into his underpants and I explained to him what he was should do. He wet his pants a few times, and I explained what "wet" was. When I put new underpants on I asked him if he was more comfortable in dry pants, he said yes.

4. I asked him about every ten minutes if he needed to use the potty. When he tinkled in it, I made a very big deal, I clapped, cheered and jumped up and down. I also rewarded him with a cookie. He got the idea very quickly.

As a tip, don't use pull-ups, they feel too much like diaper. This method worked on both of my kids and they were trained in one day, but they still wore diapers at night for a while.

Don't get stressed about it though, they won't be walking down the wedding aisle in diapers.

[soMnUS]

My other problem is that he loves water and pee qualifies as water so we can't let him in the bathroom or he plays in the toilet all the time. He went pee once in his potty and he stood up and played with it. Have any suggestions for that???

[mamabear]

Have you tried getting one of those child safety locks for the lids of toilets ? Maybe you could have a bowl of clean water for him when he's finished using the toilet, you could destract him with it while you clean the potty.

[Clementine]

you could let him help you dump his pee into the toilet?

[soMnUS]

*hee hee* Once I get him remotely interested in his potty I'll try some of these suggestions. Leaving his potty out for him to sit on didn't work though so we're still working on the interest....

[bear]

that's a hard one and you may not like my advice. i learned from my first child NOT to act SO interested with the second child. my first child had issues because we talked about it so much she ended up holding it in and then it ended up hurting and it was a vicious cycle to get her out of.

so with my son, we encouraged him regularly but primarily acted less interested. i had the potty in the bathroom early on. i let him in watch me, etc. i only initially asked if he had to go at bath time and he did several times but not regularly. when he was almost 3 i bought him some underwear and just sort of showed it to him and told him when he was ready he could wear it. he would wear it occasionally over his diaper. then one day, just like that, he decided he was ready. he put it on and never looked back. took maybe a week tops with several accidents which i didn't fret or show any emotion over. he wouldn't even do pull ups at night and has only wet the bed maybe 3 times. he has been completely trained for about 4 months.

it is HARD to not tie emotion to it but i think it makes it smoother. of course encouragement is good but more of a "you must be proud of yourself" sort of thing rather than a "I am so proud of you".

it was a much more pleasant experience the second time around since i really let him drive it.
good luck. :)