How to toilet train children

[Little M]

I didn’t let them get off the diapers at night till they could stayed dry for a period of time (I remember it was like about 2 weeks). At that time the kids were about 4yrs old. But do expect accidents to happen, sometimes they just forget that they r not wearing diapers anymore.


Don’t attempt to get off diapers when they r not ready, or else prepare to have to sun your mattress almost daily.

[Busymom]

DD was probably 3+ when we put her off diapers at night. Absolutely agree that age should not be the factor. We did so only because she had stayed dry through the night for quite some time. In our case, it was definitely more than 2 weeks. We were very kiasi… didn’t want to soil our mattress! Still, there were some accidents thereafter. Sometimes, she had too much to drink before bedtime, sometimes we forgot to remind her to go to the toilet before sleeping…

[yogibabe]

i’m also one of those lucky ones. dh has been showing ds how a boy can pee so whenever it’s bath time since he was about 18 months, we’ll carry the boy and let him pee into the toilet bowl. we kept reinforcing the idea of letting us know when he wants to pee so we can take him to the toilet but nothing changed for a while. then when he was about 28 months, he started telling us when he needed to pee. we managed to get him to toilet on time a few times before he wet his diapers. one fine day, dh decided to try letting him go off diapers in the house. so he ran around bottomless. there were accidents (didn’t get to toilet on time and ended up peeing somewhere near) and some hilarious moments (breakfast time, sitting in the kitchen. he climbed onto my chair to pee, then climbed back onto his own chair while i was getting breakfast ready). it took about a week when there was finally no accidents (as in major leak. he was sometimes too engrossed in playing and waited till last minute before going to the toilet and there would be wet patches on his underpants). then we noticed he didn’t wet his diapers at night and when we were discussing it, ds caught on. that was about 2 weeks after his bare bottom days. he decided he didn’t want his diaper at night but we told him if he can keep his diaper dry for 3 consecutive nights, we will let him go off diaper. 1st night dry. 2nd night, he refused to put on his diaper (he just tore it off) so we let him be. and we never had a wet bed at night at all up till today (he’s 5 this year). he could even wake up at night as ask to go pee, which is not very often. he still has a habit of drinking milk before bed time (usually about 1/2 hr before he sleeps) and doesn’t go pee if he doesn’t have the urge but will pee first thing in the morning when he gets up.


as for poop, we’ve always held him on to the toilet (he has signals and we can always catch it on time if we are at home).

oh and he refused to sit on the potty. he just wants to use the toilet like us so the potty that we had was never used.

oops… very long post…

[anastashia]

My girl is 24 months. She has started toilet training since she could sit. haha… she can control her poop very well though she’d still call her intention to go big business as "wee wee". So she’d tell us that she’d want to go wee wee when she wants to do her poop biz.


But till now she’s still not able to warn us in advance when she want to pee. Most of the time she’ll tell us wee wee ah, when she has accident already. Esp when she’s engrossed playing. But when she’s going to sleep, she’ll tell us that she wants to wee. haiz.

So far, she’s able to hold her bladder during her afternoon nap. So she can sleep w/o her diaper during noon time. but at night she gets angry when we wake her up for wee wee.

Do u think it’s because she’s still not able to control her bladder muscle well yet since different child control their bladder at diff time?

[firsttimemummy]

MIne jus turned 6 weeks old.Whenever he is abt to pee or poop he makes this squimish noises in his sleep.sometimes he cries b4 he is abt to pee or poop.is this normal?or is there something wrong?im thinking mayb he finds it painful while peeing or pooping .if thats the case then i would have to bring him to the doctor.but i dont want to rush to the doctor for every single problem or doubt i have!Have Any other parents faced such incidents?pls share ur experiences. :?

[waynemum]

My 3yo son got a funny habit. I’m not sure if he’s consider toilet trained.


He wears underwear at home and sometimes even for shopping. He will tell me f he want to urinate but one bad habit is if he wants to poo, he must be in his diaper else he refused to poo. I give in as i do not want him to end up being contispated.

Whenever he is in his underwear and want to poo, he will ask me to change to diaper for him and he if he has his diaper on with his short, he must remove his short!

There are few occassion when we are out shopping and he wanna poo, he wants to take off his shorts no matter how i persuade him not to. I have no choice but to give him as i am afraid he will suffer from contispation before he is willing to poo. . A real stuborn boy here.

Can anyone advise how can i get him to sit on the toilet bowl to do his business or to ask him to keep his pants on if he insist on wearing his diaper to poo?

[Keroppi30]

Hi waynemum,


my younger gal who is 2.5yo has the same problem she can usually tell us when she wants to pee however when she wants to poo she’ll tell us she wants to wear diaper. When we ask her if she wants to poo she’ll tell us no defiantly but she will do her business in her diaper shortly. I’ve check with her pd and he says its not a problem she probably feels more comfortable doing her business in the diaper.

[MLR]

I would suggest that after he pooed, bring him to the toilet and empty the diaper into the toilet bowl and explained to him that poo goes into the toilet bowl, so next time he should poo into the bowl. Its troublesome, but I did that for a week with DS (who is now 3) and now he would only want to poo in the toilet bowl.


Another reinforcement I did with him was to remind him that he is now a big boy and we would be proud of him when he poo in the toilet. I said this to him everyday when I drop him off at his childcare. His teachers and caregivers were also very supportive and reinforced this during his hours with them. So that was really very quickly resolved.

There were a few accidents when he was too engrossed with his play or tv times, but he was apologetic and he knew he did wrong.

Being consistant and get everyone to repeat the same to him whenever he wants to poo in his diaper. But must stress that cannot shame him or use a scolding voice when you talk to him, or it would actually make things worse, as I had experienced when i started toilet training DS. I had to stop for a 6 months period b4 trying and succeeded.

[waynemum]

Thank you for all your advice.


I think he feel better and comfortable to poo in his diaper as i felt that it might be too boring for him to sit thru the whole process as he likes to play with his toy while pooing.

Everytime after he poo, i will throw the poo into the toilet bowl and flush it away and each time he will tell me he will poo in the toilet bowl the next time but it nvr happen!

He’s 3 now and i getting abit impatience but i know some things can’t be rush else it will backfire.

[tinkerbell]

hi ...

agree..we shd not rush them.
My DD didn't get to be free fm diapers in the day till 4yrs.
Tho the teachers hv been training her but somehow she juz wasn't ready.
She will say \"no\" everytime i bring her to the toilet.
Then out of the blue...she said she wanted to pee in the toilet !

I guess when they are ready, they will inform you :lol:

As for the pooh part...well it juz happens naturally after 2 weeks.

Everything will juz fall in place somehow...