Potty training help
We are trying to help potty train our 3.5 year old boy.
Bit of background He’s had a Montessori room since he was a year old so when he wakes up he plays in his room with his toys. He shares a room with his little sister but the room is divided but he can’t get to her as we have a room divider but they can interact and play together.
He was starting to do pretty well with being dry in the night but in the morning he will do a wee and a poo so we have nappies on him otherwise he will remove the nappie and put it in his sisters side of the room or smear poo ! We had put a potty in the room with him and sometimes he would do it himself but then he would smear in on the wall or wouldn’t know how to wipe. I never get angry or upset with him when this happens.
He has 2 naps in the day when we are home so that his schedule and his sisters is the same ! Which means that he’s wearing a nappie during nap time.
So now we’ve gone back to wearing nappies.
I’m not really sure if he understands fully prize chart but I may be wrong. But when he does it in the potty we are very encouraging and he asks for a biscuit as a prize. In the day we have him without a nappie and he’s able to be pretty dry during the day but struggles to tell us he needs to pee. He only tells us after the fact once he’s wet !
Any and all advice welcome
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We aren’t dry overnight - it’s hit and miss but apparently that’s due to a hormone and will come eventually so he still has nappies at night.
During the day he’s been nappy free for over a year I think.
We did a sticker chart and just put him on the potty every hour initially and asked if he needed a wee. We found if we asked if he needed the potty he’d often say no but actually did!
Eventually he got used to knowing when he needed to go but for a while we had to prompt him.
Our childminder said to not put him in nappies in the day when we had taken them off, to make the decision to stop as he’d be confused. We would make him wee before a nap.
If we were on long journeys we could put a nappy over his pants/clothes because he’d understand the wet feeling of that makes sense :)
I know you said you don’t get angry or upset when he smears poo but at 3.5 years old he should know it’s wrong to do if you’re telling him no.
If he’s dry all night and only ‘smears’ in morning when he’s awake and playing can you not wake up at the same time as him to support him with that initial first wee/poo?
I would say remove the nappy all together. I’m potty training my LO currently, she’s mostly dry all day including the odd nap she has. She’s also dry over night, I’m going to take nappy off soon but even in the morning an hour after she’s awake we’ll take nappy off and it’s dry and she’ll do her big morning wee. So they don’t even need to do it immediately.
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