Email From Customer:

I have a four year old little boy, he was potty training when we lived at grandma's house, but we had to move out because grandma couldn't take the pressure of having three children around. My son was doing great going potty until we moved out now we live in an apartment and his dad and I have remarried to each other. My son wants nothing to do with potty training at all. I have tried everything and nothing works. He will only go in the bathroom just to take a bath. He even fusses about being near the toilet. My husband has tried everything and still nothing. He wears pull-ups all the time even to school. My son will be five years old in November and I don't want him going to school in pull-ups. My girls were easy to potty train, but my son won't even try because he's says to scared. But he won't tell me what he is scared of. If you any suggestions please send them my way. My son is a wonderful little boy and I couldn't ask for a better kid but he needs to be potty trained. Even in the summer time he goes swimming but we have to buy the little swimmers for him to go swimming. The pull-ups are getting very expensive and we don't make a lot of money. Please send any ideas that you have. I'm willing to do what ever it takes to potty train my son.

Sincerely,

Crystal Herrick

Our Response:

Dear Crystal,

I have been thinking about this for quite a while and I wish I could tell you to do XYZ and it you son would be potty trained without any issue, but I don't. All I have can offer are some thoughts and suggestions. Have you talked with your doctor/pediatrician?

You also say that you have tried everything so I am not sure what all that includes. I have an article on the different potty training methods, have you tried all these different approaches?

I did have a couple of thoughts and I am not sure if you have tried them.

1) Get a potty chair and have him use that instead of the toilet. You can keep the potty chair in another room, preferably in a room where the floor is easy to clean and have him use the potty chair. Once he is used to this, then you can consider transition to the toilet. You will have to get rid of the pull up and go to using potty training pants or regular boys' underwear.

2) The other thing you could try is a method suggested by Dr John Rosemond - what is called the naked and $75. You can read more about it, but basically you have you child not wear any underwear for 3-5 days and have a potty chair available for him to use. He will eventually go in the potty instead of having accidents on himself. The $75 is for having your carpets cleaned after.

I hope these suggestions are helpful. Let me know what you think.

Take care and have a great day.

Narmin

Email From Customer:

Hi Narmin,

My daughter and I had our "Big Day" last Thursday. Since then, she has had 5 accidents during the day and two and night. My question is what do I do about the nighttime accidents? Should she practice 9 times going to the potty? Or since the accident occurs at night, not be as stringent? I had her help me take her sheets off the bed this morning. I'm sure she understands that she should have held her pee until the morning.

We're happy that Patty Potty (Hanah to her) has been here to guide and help with this process! She even went poop the other day (tootsie rolls!)

Thanks,

Liz

Our Response:

Liz,

Congratulations!! You have done it.

RE: accidents at night, no you should not make her do the practice runs for night time accidents. Just because a child is potty trained during the day does not mean that s/he will be potty trained for night time.

Bed wetting is a common problem that affects 5-6 million children.

There are two types of bedwetting or nocturnal enuresis - primary and secondary enuresis.

In primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE), children have never achieved complete night time control, always wetting at least a couple times a month.

According to Dr Greene, at age 5 about 15% of the children still have PNE or wet their bed once or twice a month.

Research has shown that primary nocturnal enuresis is often inherited. If both parents were bed-wetters, then 77% of their children will be. If one parent was a bed wetter, than 44% of the children will be bedwetters. If neither parents were bed wetters, there is still a 15% chance that the child will be a bedwetter.

My older son wet his bed quite a bit initially. The frequency went down significantly after the first few month after his was potty trained during the day, but night time accidents continued until about age 10, the frequency decreasing greatly. So between 2.5 and 3 years (he was trained at 30 months), he probably wet the bed every other week. Then between ages 3-4 it was probably once a month and then after that it was every couple of months. Between ages 5-10, he probably wet his bed a total of 5 - 8 times. My younger child has never wet his bed.

So each child is unique. Do not worry too much about bed wetting, at least at the younger age. If she continues to wet her bed past age 5 and the frequency is high, then you will want to talk with you pediatrician.

If she continues to wet the bed, you may consider using pull ups at night. Make sure that she takes them off as soon as she gets up so that if she has not wet them, then she has a chance to urinate in the potty and not the pull up.

Also, make it easy for her to be able to go to the potty at night. Change her bed around so that she can get out of bed and have night lights so that if she gets up with the urge to go potty, she can go potty.

Last but not least, take a look through out night time potty training products.

I hope this has been helpful to you. Please let me know how things go.

Have a great day.

Narmin

Email From Customer:

I am a Child Development Specialist/Early Interventionist. I want to commend you for providing parents with the Typical Timetable or Stage/Stages for Child Development.

My suggestion is to add a notation that parents be aware that all children, especially children with developmental delays, do not always fit the charts for children with no delays. If a parent goes to your website, they should be encouraged to look at the chart based on their child's developmental skills level, not the chronological age. This would help early interventionists who work with children based on their developmental age. Even though we emphasize this to parents, they still want their child to be "normal".

Also, a suggestion to try to develop a potty training doll that uses a wheelchair. It is such a shame on the industry to not address children with different abilities such as in wheelchairs, using braces/walking canes, etc. It is totally different for them and their parents to address potty training needs. It takes more time to process and more time to get to the potty.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. We, as early interventionists, struggle with this all the time.

Sincerely,

Carol McCullough
The Marc Center Early Intervention
924 N. Country Club Dr. Mesa, AZ 85201

Email From Customer:

It was a total disaster. I read your book twice. It all seemed very logical and I thought it would work. I did find out my son does have control as he held it for 4-5 hours on several occasions this weekend. The practicing just led to a dislike of the potty. A few times I could tell he needed to go and sat him on the potty (this is the 2nd or 3rd day) and he would sit there and not go. Then when I would let him leave the bathroom he would immediately wet his pants somewhere else. And the wet pants didn't bother him either. At one point he made a big puddle in my kitchen and wanted to swim in it. He keeps saying I did it already so maybe he doesn't get that he should do it every time.

I'm sure this works for most people and I'm not trying to cut down your product. The doll worked just as expected. My son did get jealous of the doll and wanted to dolls treat (matchbox car) This was getting so disruptive I said Scotty said he really wasn't into cars and my son could have it. When my son went on the potty the first time he didn't want Scotty at his party. He pulled Scotty off the table threw him behind the couch and replaced him with another stuffed animal.

Am I missing something? He hides behind the couch when he has to make a BM. I asked him to use the potty and he just screamed and said no. I didn't want to forcefully take him there but did follow up with the practicing.

He's going to be 3 next month. He is very big for his age and I'm getting to where I can't go out with him as a one time urination overflows the diaper and then I have to change his pants as well. He is 47 pounds - I'm not sure on height but he is as big as the 5 year old next door. He's not fat just tall and large for his age. There was no way he could use the potty that came with Scotty. I'm just mentioning that so you get an idea on his size.

Lisa

Our Response:

Lisa, I am so sorry to hear that this did not work for you. As you know I am not an pediatrician and my suggestions and advice below are simply based on my experience.

So, after reading your email a number of times, here are my thoughts.

First thing I want you to know is that your son wants to do what you want him to do - he wants to please you. Think about how you feel about your parents even as an adult. No matter our age, we want to please our parents and we want to them to feel proud of us and what we have accomplished. So, you son wants to please you, but for some reason (we need to figure this out) he cannot and he is getting frustrated.

This frustration is what you see - he is mad at Scotty, because Scotty did what you wanted him to do. Scotty pleased you and your son could not, so he is mad at Scotty. What do you think? Do you think that this may be the reason for his behavior?

Your son is clearly ready from a physiological perspective to be potty trained. I am however not sure that he is ready from an emotional growth perspective. I have been doing more research on this and wrote an article that was just posted on the website yesterday - Emotional growth and social awareness are hardest to gauge. Read through the article and let me know if this makes sense.

I am not sure what to recommend going forward, because I am not sure what you did after this. What are you doing now? Have you gone back to diapers?

Sometimes is it easier to work out the next steps with a phone conversation. If you would like to chat, you can give me call at 713-436-4464.

I hope this has been helpful. Please let me know.

Narmin

Email From Customer:

Thanks for the response. You sure have been very supportive. I had actually had already read that article but I read it again. I think the following is what is going on:

Sometimes, the need to control one's own body and environment are manifested in undesirable ways such as hiding when s/he has the urge to have a BM, or having an accident for the sheer satisfaction of making the decision on where to go potty or withholding stool and becoming constipated. When your child is in this phase of self mastery, back off and try again later when s/he moved into the more positive phase of self mastery.

He does hide when he has the urge to have a BM. He also completely ignores people and won't respond if the subject matter is not something of his liking. So maybe I should hold off for a while. I did go back to diapers because I work full time and after my 3 day weekend didn't really produce any results I knew my husband would not bother with all the effort of taking him to the potty 9 nines after every accident. I think we did make a little headway as he has a house with a potty in it and he sometimes says the little person in it needs to go on the potty.

Well I can't thank you enough for all your support. Is there some kind of behavior I should be looking for to gauge if he is in a more positive phase of self-mastery? Thanks again. I wish you the best in your business venture. I wish more vendors were as responsive as you.

Lisa

Email From Customer:

My daughter will be three in May. She was doing good with the potty for quite a while up until like three months ago. She was never in big kid underwear for the whole day but had training pants and not too many accidents, but lately she goes in the training pants just about every time.

Please help!

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Lauren

Our Response:

Hello Lauren,

I am sorry it has taken a couple of days to get back to you. I was out of town and only had limited email access.

What kind of training pants are you using? Are you using pull ups?

My recommendations are that once a child is using the potty, use only cloth training pants. There are many choices and selections available. Pull up are glorified diapers, so children do not feel the accident.

If you are using cloth potty training pants and she is having accident in them, than it is probably a matter of control. Have you read the article on Potty Training Readiness? Read the part at the very bottom on Emotional Growth and Social Awareness. If this is the case with your daughter, then back off and try again later when s/he moved into the more positive phase of self mastery.

Last but not least, not sure if you use consequences for behavior. As Dr. Phil would say, find out what her currency is and then you may want to give her consequences for wetting her pants.

Hope this has been helpful. Please let me know how thing are going.

Narmin Parpia

Email From Customer:

Narmin,

I am writing in regards to toilet training my 2 1/2 year old daughter. I decided that since she has shown all the signs that she is ready, that I would try the Potty Training in Less Than a Day method. She has an older sister (big girl) and a younger brother (baby) that I thought would make perfect examples for her. I read the book, bought a wetting doll, had the drink supply and lots of treats, snacks and rewards. I felt that I fully understood the concept and steps to take. I even tried to memorize some of the mother/child conversation from the book so that I could "say the right things". My daughter took to the doll immediately and within no time at all was successfully teaching the doll to use the toilet. She even displayed to me that she could follow all the instructions to correctly use the toilet. I gave her at least 3 cups of juice (8 ounces each) and she still did not urinate! She did not refuse sitting on the potty at all. She continued to willingly sit on the potty and continued to pass the dry pants inspections.

It was not until she started complaining of back and belly pain that I became concerned about this method of toilet training. About 3 1/3 hours into training, she had a small amount of loose bowel in her panties (no urine). She was very upset about this. I helped her clean herself up, still went through the practice steps with her, and restated verbally how to use the toilet. Since she took to the doll so well, I decided to have her help Dolly go potty again...with much success. I even used the toilet, praising and rewarding myself. I stuck to the task even though she was becoming noticeably tired, but interested. She then (6 hours into training) had a urination (finally) accident and I handled it the same way the book described. She continued to drink many fluids. Basically, I am not sure what to do. She seems to have the concept of using the toilet. She shows interest. She has no issues with sitting on the toilet. What should I do? She seems to have some issue with relaxing her muscles. How can I help her? Should I seek a different method to train her.

Thank you so much for any advise that you can offer to me.

Sarah

Our Response:

Hello Sarah,

I am sorry that it has taken me a couple of days to get back to you. I have been out of town and had limited email access.

It has been a couple of days since your email, so how are you and your daughter doing? Have things gotten better? I certainly hope that they have.

From reading your email, I think you have figured it out. Basically she is not relaxing her sphincter muscles so that she can actually pass the urine. My suggestions on how to this are included in The Parent's Potty Guide: How to Potty Train in One Day. They are:

1) Run water in the sink while your child is sitting in the potty. The sound of the water may help the voiding reflex.

2) Let her play with water toys while she is sitting on the potty. The water should be lukewarm and if your child has a full bladder, playing with water may help her go potty.

3) Make a psss sound. The sound may also help the voiding reflex.

4) Try and make her relax by reading to her and talking with her. Tell her jokes and hope she laughs so hard that she succeeds by accident.

5) Timing, if you have observed and noted when she had her bowel movements, then have her sit on the potty when she usually has a BM and maybe she will urinate along with the bowel movement.

6) Last but not least, relax and make it fun. If you are tense, she will sense it. So relax, make it fun and do have fun with potty training. It is a developmental milestone that you are sure to remember for the years to come.

I hope these suggestions are helpful. Please let me know how you and your daughter are doing.

Narmin Parpia