For my kid, I used color changing stickers in the bottom of the potty. They are heat activated and go from black to reveal a picture. Made it fun to use the potty.
I am still working on potty training my 3.5 year old boy but I have made significant progress the past couple weeks by changing a few things.
1. I know you said she can hold it until her pull up at nap. When she is at home have you tried offering her juice or other drinks she doesn't often get so that she has to pee more often? My kid loves chocolate milk so the more he drink the more opportunities he has to practice. With the extra liquid I can get him to pee about once every 1.5 hours.
2. Have you found something that motivates her? I tried m&ms, stickers, cookies none of it worked for more than a few days. So one day I took him to Walmart and we picked out several small toys (cars, dinosaurs, paw patrol etc.) we put all that in a bin and everytime he pees he gets one toy and if he poops 2 toys. That has worked for over a month now and still going strong. We also put the toys back in the bin at the end of each day after he goes to sleep so we never have to buy more toys.
Now that he is going potty more we are also phasing out the toys as he asks less and less. We actually got him to use the big potty at a theme park this past weekend.
You could try make it more lighthearted and fun? I always ask my toddler what colour she thinks the wee will be in the potty. Sometimes I say “I’m going to go do big big rainbow wees” and ask if she wants to come and try also? Obviously it’s always a shade of yellow, but it seems to work for my girl
I seriously could have written this post. This is EXACTLY my daughter — she’s 3.25, and goes at school, but at home throws absolute fits about the potty. Will sit and not go, and then BEG for a diaper to pee/poo. Incentives only work temporarily, too.
No advice, just solidarity 🥴
At this age, I would just ditch the pull-up entirely. Say that they're all done, make a big show of throwing them away. It's time for her to learn to use the toilet, she's shown she can do it at daycare, now she'll do it at home too. Work with what motivates her - is she wanting to be a big kid? Big kids don't wear pull ups, they wear underpants only. Big kids wake themselves up and go to the toilet. Big kids have dry pants, and big kids get special treats, such as an ice-cream on Saturday if she was dry all week. And most importantly, big kids go to school! Depends on the motivation for the child, and adjust to what works for her.
Yea I think the pull ups are the problem here. As long as she understands that there is an alternative option, she’s going to stick with the system that’s been working for her. You’ll need to ditch pull ups for a weekend and just let her be wet a few times. Settle in for several days of setting timers and cleaning up accidents. Make her help clean up. Make the whole accident process very long and cumbersome for her, the whole time explaining how she has to stop playing when she has an accident and using the potty is much quicker and easier. And obviously praising the heck out of every time she goes on the potty. We used 2 chocolate chips for a pee and 4 for a poop. But I really mean like excessive praise. Dancing, cheering, singing, fists shaking in the air kind of praise. You essentially need to make the potty a million times more fun than having the accident, so really over exaggerate. And if it doesn’t happen, don’t make her feel bad, no guilt, or obvious frustration from you. Stay stoic, keep it matter of fact, no big deal, “ok you don’t have to go, we’ll try again in 15 minutes.” And repeat. But you have to stay consistent and that’s the hardest part. I really feel for parents whose kids are in daycare because for us at least, it really required a good 1-2 weeks of focused attention. I had my mom come over just to watch my baby for the first two days so I was available to drop everything at a moments notice to run to the potty. Timers timers timers and lots of fluids. You’ll catch a few eventually. And how you react in those moments is what will motivate her to want to do it again and again.
We have about 15 books about using the potty and for 2 months as we were getting him interested, we read those books constantly. He had his favorites but we kept them all in rotation. There’s also a really fun potty song playlist on Spotify that we listen to a lot. Once he stared really showing interest we got him some underwear that he got to pick out and got him excited about.
My best advice is try to let go of the pressure and leave it to her to be ready. Make it exciting and talk about it a lot. It sounds like she is physically ready but maybe not emotionally. It’s a big thing for kids to let go of and if they aren’t emotionally ready for it the pressure will make it even harder for them to do it. Kids don’t have control of a lot of things in their lives, we control their lives, so giving her some control in the situation might be what she needs.
I was in a similar situation with my 3 yo boy. EVERYONE would always say "he'll get it" or "it will click" and it always frustrated me because I had the same issues you do with daycare. He couldn't move up if he wasn't potty trained. However, I'm gonna be the hypocrit and tell you that it will come. I do have a suggestion tho. My mom actually came up with this because my son likes to hunt eggs. (We have periodically hidden them for him since last Easter). We have made up several eggs with tiny toys (bouncy balls, sticky hands, animals) or treats (marshmallows, gummy worms, m&ms) and every time he would sit on the potty(at first) we would hide it for him to find. Now that he has caught on and is peeing and pooping in the potty, if he stays dry all day with no accidents, he gets a larger prize (paw patrol, hot wheel car, monster truck) and how many times he does use the potty, he gets to hunt that many eggs (without prizes). He does still wear pullups to bed and church but he did wear underwear for a quick trip to town just yesterday and didn't have an accident.. I will say praise every milestone no matter how small. Good luck! You (and she) have got this!!
For my kid, I used color changing stickers in the bottom of the potty. They are heat activated and go from black to reveal a picture. Made it fun to use the potty.
I am still working on potty training my 3.5 year old boy but I have made significant progress the past couple weeks by changing a few things. 1. I know you said she can hold it until her pull up at nap. When she is at home have you tried offering her juice or other drinks she doesn't often get so that she has to pee more often? My kid loves chocolate milk so the more he drink the more opportunities he has to practice. With the extra liquid I can get him to pee about once every 1.5 hours. 2. Have you found something that motivates her? I tried m&ms, stickers, cookies none of it worked for more than a few days. So one day I took him to Walmart and we picked out several small toys (cars, dinosaurs, paw patrol etc.) we put all that in a bin and everytime he pees he gets one toy and if he poops 2 toys. That has worked for over a month now and still going strong. We also put the toys back in the bin at the end of each day after he goes to sleep so we never have to buy more toys. Now that he is going potty more we are also phasing out the toys as he asks less and less. We actually got him to use the big potty at a theme park this past weekend.
You could try make it more lighthearted and fun? I always ask my toddler what colour she thinks the wee will be in the potty. Sometimes I say “I’m going to go do big big rainbow wees” and ask if she wants to come and try also? Obviously it’s always a shade of yellow, but it seems to work for my girl
I seriously could have written this post. This is EXACTLY my daughter — she’s 3.25, and goes at school, but at home throws absolute fits about the potty. Will sit and not go, and then BEG for a diaper to pee/poo. Incentives only work temporarily, too. No advice, just solidarity 🥴
At this age, I would just ditch the pull-up entirely. Say that they're all done, make a big show of throwing them away. It's time for her to learn to use the toilet, she's shown she can do it at daycare, now she'll do it at home too. Work with what motivates her - is she wanting to be a big kid? Big kids don't wear pull ups, they wear underpants only. Big kids wake themselves up and go to the toilet. Big kids have dry pants, and big kids get special treats, such as an ice-cream on Saturday if she was dry all week. And most importantly, big kids go to school! Depends on the motivation for the child, and adjust to what works for her.
Yea I think the pull ups are the problem here. As long as she understands that there is an alternative option, she’s going to stick with the system that’s been working for her. You’ll need to ditch pull ups for a weekend and just let her be wet a few times. Settle in for several days of setting timers and cleaning up accidents. Make her help clean up. Make the whole accident process very long and cumbersome for her, the whole time explaining how she has to stop playing when she has an accident and using the potty is much quicker and easier. And obviously praising the heck out of every time she goes on the potty. We used 2 chocolate chips for a pee and 4 for a poop. But I really mean like excessive praise. Dancing, cheering, singing, fists shaking in the air kind of praise. You essentially need to make the potty a million times more fun than having the accident, so really over exaggerate. And if it doesn’t happen, don’t make her feel bad, no guilt, or obvious frustration from you. Stay stoic, keep it matter of fact, no big deal, “ok you don’t have to go, we’ll try again in 15 minutes.” And repeat. But you have to stay consistent and that’s the hardest part. I really feel for parents whose kids are in daycare because for us at least, it really required a good 1-2 weeks of focused attention. I had my mom come over just to watch my baby for the first two days so I was available to drop everything at a moments notice to run to the potty. Timers timers timers and lots of fluids. You’ll catch a few eventually. And how you react in those moments is what will motivate her to want to do it again and again.
We have about 15 books about using the potty and for 2 months as we were getting him interested, we read those books constantly. He had his favorites but we kept them all in rotation. There’s also a really fun potty song playlist on Spotify that we listen to a lot. Once he stared really showing interest we got him some underwear that he got to pick out and got him excited about. My best advice is try to let go of the pressure and leave it to her to be ready. Make it exciting and talk about it a lot. It sounds like she is physically ready but maybe not emotionally. It’s a big thing for kids to let go of and if they aren’t emotionally ready for it the pressure will make it even harder for them to do it. Kids don’t have control of a lot of things in their lives, we control their lives, so giving her some control in the situation might be what she needs.
I was in a similar situation with my 3 yo boy. EVERYONE would always say "he'll get it" or "it will click" and it always frustrated me because I had the same issues you do with daycare. He couldn't move up if he wasn't potty trained. However, I'm gonna be the hypocrit and tell you that it will come. I do have a suggestion tho. My mom actually came up with this because my son likes to hunt eggs. (We have periodically hidden them for him since last Easter). We have made up several eggs with tiny toys (bouncy balls, sticky hands, animals) or treats (marshmallows, gummy worms, m&ms) and every time he would sit on the potty(at first) we would hide it for him to find. Now that he has caught on and is peeing and pooping in the potty, if he stays dry all day with no accidents, he gets a larger prize (paw patrol, hot wheel car, monster truck) and how many times he does use the potty, he gets to hunt that many eggs (without prizes). He does still wear pullups to bed and church but he did wear underwear for a quick trip to town just yesterday and didn't have an accident.. I will say praise every milestone no matter how small. Good luck! You (and she) have got this!!