Tuesday Toddler Talk-Potty Training

Today is the first post for Tuesday Toddler Talk.  I am creating this post so I can get discussions started on ideas or info on things pertaining to out wonderful. active, and crazy toddlers.  i hope that it will be a hit and that I can get a lot of good feed back.  Please tell others to stop by and give their opinion on the subject for that Tuesday.

Today's subject is potty training.  I have a son who just turned 3 this past September and we are still trying to get the potty thing going.  Some days we have really good days where he goes regularly...with me just taking him and not waiting for him to tell me(cause that will be never).  Other says it just is not working out for either of us, he will cry every time we go near the bathroom.  It can be very frustrating at times, that is when I try to take deep breaths cause I don't want him to associate the bathroom with mommy getting angry.  I felt lost at times, like it was never going to happen.  I will say that we have had more good days then bad days now, so I do see the diaper days for him gone soon.

There are several different ways and theories on potty training.  I have tried them all.  The one thing that will be constant in the search for what works best for you and your toddler is that you HAVE to be constant.  If you can't do that then it will be a long training.  Here are a few things that I have tried.

1. Rewarding  I tried giving CJ M&M's to lure him to go to the bathroom.  I would give him one for just sitting on the potty, two if he would actually go, three if he asked to go to the potty and went.  That worked for about a week and then he didn't really care about the M&M's so he would start to play and not really associate the potty chair with peeing.
2. Charts   The chart idea didn't work at all for us but did really well for a friend and her daughter...maybe it is a girl thing.  We printed a great chart off of Nick Jr., it had Nick stuff which he loves, and got star stickers from Walmart.  It had steps on there for sitting on the potty, to asking, to going and you put the stickers on the ones that you have done.  Even tried combining the Reward with the Chart method and that didn't work.  My friends daughter liked putting the stickers on the chart, so maybe when I get started with my 1.5yr old that method might work for her.
3. Timer   This is the method that is working best for us.  How it works is you get a timer of your choice and have it go off every hour.  You want to make it a fun sound for your toddler so that they get excited when they hear it and then they know that it is time for them to go to the bathroom.  Cj loves this.  Right now I am using my cell phone and have it set for a rooster call, he thinks it is so funny.  We have been able to stay dry all day.  I am looking for a watch that he can wear and have it go off, since that is his new thing of wanting to wear a watch like mommy and daddy.

Now we have the task of keeping a dry diaper through the night, which is not happening for us.  He gets so full that he will leak out of his diaper.  He does not get anything to drink an hour before dinner and I don't feel that he gets too much during the day, so that is where I am at a loss of what to do.  We do have him go to the bathroom right before he goes to bed which does help, but not all the time.  Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Those are the things that we have tried.  I am sure that there are other ideas and I would love for you to let me know what worked best for you.  Thank you for reading Tuesday Toddler Talk. Also if you have any requests for next weeks subject let me know.