potty training

Our daughter is 2 1/2 years old and isn't potty trained yet.  She shows interest SOME days (by saying she has to pee, taking her diaper off, or wants to sit on the pot--but never goes).  Other days she could care less.  Where do I go from here?  I am really at a lose here...this is my first time.

Lindsay

Check out this thread on potty training. There are some excellent tips!

http://caloriecount.about.com/potty-training- ugh-ft131815

Edited to add: This is the issue we had with my daughter at that age. She wasn't really interested. I finally just put her in some panties and spent the day out and about. I made sure we visited restrooms often (like, every 15-30 minutes) and she was accident free the entire day. She didn't wear diapers again after that (except overnight) and she has had very few accidents, mostly when sick.

I have two little ones that are six months apart and went through potty training for a few months between both girls.  The oldest of the two never likes to be dirty, so I simply put her in some panties and after she got wet and "dirty" once and I told her that she had to go to her potty otherwise I would leave her dirty, that was the end of it.  She was surprisingly trained in a week and now at the age of 3 yrs doesn't even use a diaper at night.  She gets up around 2 or 3 AM most nights and lets me know she's going potty and then goes right back to sleep!  The youngest of the two was a bit more of a challenge.  She didn't care to be dirty, so the same strategy didn't work.  With her, we simply kept working on it, and kept her in panties knowing that accidents were going to happen.  I washed clothes and sheets constantly, but with the help of the older sister (since she wants to be just like sister) she now only wears diapers at night.  We tried no diapers at night, but after a month of wet sheets every morning, I gave up.  I told her she just needs to be ready and I know she will tell me when she is.  All I can say is each child is different and try to be very patient.  Best of luck!

Thanks...

I've tried the panties for a few days and she just pees right through them...then stands there uncomfortable.  She started telling me she had to pee but just would NEVER go on the potty.  As soon as we would pull her undies up, she'd leave the room and pee.  Same with poop! So I guess she does care, but doesn't care that she is wet...

I tried the diaperless day too...not pretty.

You might want to send a message to spuckine1. She runs a daycare/preschool and potty trains her kids at a young age. She probably has some good advice for you.

When we potty trained each of our daughters we did it over a long weekend. We had her try on the potty every hour and gave her all the positive feedback when she went. There were a few good parenting books that we followed on this, but I don't remember the names and am at work right now.

I found that positive reinforcement works best - I would not want them to have an over-trained bladder/bowel since that can lead to constipation/UTI's and other issues.

Hello!  I have 2 boys & 1 girl.  My oldest was trained within the day once I got frustrated enough to tell him he wasn't allowed to wear pull-ups anymore...only underwear.  That was just luck.  My second son really didn't care if he played in a pee-pee or poopy filled pair of underwear or pull-up so that took ALOT longer!  He is 6 now & we are still working on the middle of the night potty training.  For my daughter, she seemed to ease into it much easier than my 2nd but still wears a pull-up at night.  We recently stopped putting one on her for naps as a baby step to nixing them at night...fingers crossed!

Since my boys potty training was awhile ago I can tell you what we did for my daughter.  I bought a bright pink poster board and  a bunch of stickers (pretty, girly, glittery, whtaever would excite her).  I hung a little envelope on the bathroom wall witht he stickers inside and wrote her name in a afancy way at the top of the p.board .  I also hung that on the bathroom wall.  Whenever she peed in the potty she got to pick a sticker and put it on her board.  She loved picking out the stickers and placing them wherever she wanted on the board!!  Once it got full (that took a long time) she was pretty much trained and we moved the poster from the bathroom to her bedroom to hang above her bed.

For going #2 we knew that this was the hardest feat for little ones so we did something EXTRA exciting!  I bought a box (not see through), ribbon, and toys & snacks from the dollar store.  I attached a ribbon to each "prize" and put them in the box leaving the ribbon to hang out from under the lid.  If she went poo in the potty she got to pick a ribbon & hold on to it while we opened the lid and fished out the prize attached to it!  Voila!  The classic bribe/reward method :O) 

Don't forget to make a big stinkin' deal out of it when she does anything in the potty & Good luck!!