potty training the kid with a large bladder?

[daniela_r]

I am trying to potty train our son who is 2 years 7 months.  This kid can go an amazingly long time without needing to pee.  For example, wetting his pants at 9:30 am and then not peeing again until 4:30 pm.  During this time he drank 3 sippy cups of Kool-aid!  Other times he'll pee after only 2 hours, so it can be anywhere in between 2-7 hours.  It's hard to know when to take him to the potty!  Any ideas?

 

Here's some details: The weather here now is hot and dry (and we don't have AC).  I frequently offer him drinks (water, Kool-aid) but he only drinks a little at a time or just says "No fanks":)  In the past several weeks, I've seen some progress with potty-training: at first, he would REFUSE to sit on the potty, had no clue what was going on, and cried for diapers instead of underwear.  Now he's positive about underwear, announces every time he wets his pants ("Mommy, pee-pee come out!") and knows that he will get a candy every time he does something in his potty.  Over the past month he's had maybe 15 successes total, all because I just happened to guess right.  I can get him to sit on the potty for 10-20 minutes easily as long as I sit next to him and read "Go, Dog, Go" or Curious George over and over and over…. He poops usually once in the morning and then once in the afternoon, but not at predictable times.  Since he's not having many accidents a day (since he's not peeing much!) I have been keeping him in underwear most of the time as long as we're at home, diapers when we're going somewhere, or for naps.  This has been going on for over three weeks.

 

Thanks in advance!! 

[SKL]

I would have him sit on the potty at specific times, probably every couple of hours in his case, whether he "needs to" or not.  Help him learn how to relax and go when it isn't "urgent."  Once he is used to always going in the potty, he can start gradually taking responsibility for deciding "when" to go to the potty.

[KungFuPanda]

If you have older kids, and you're not above bribery, consider giving EVERYONE an m&m when the toddler potties :-). The kids nag him all day long for you and it eases your workload :-)

[Seasider]

If you have older kids, and you're not above bribery, consider giving EVERYONE an m&m when the toddler potties :-). The kids nag him all day long for you and it eases your workload :-)

Hilarious! Positive peer pressure, aye?

 

OP, I say make sure you're giving him some salty pretzels for snacking on between kool-aid swigs. Or some salty olives. You may get him to take more fluids that way. Not for the long term, mind, but at least until you get him to go enough to earn enough M&Ms to please the crowd!

[kbutton]

We put a baby potty in the kitchen because otherwise it was "out of sight, out of mind." That's pretty much all we needed to do to train my younger one--he wanted to go like big brother and daddy, and he was really curious about the whole deal.

 

As for awareness, does running water or anything like that trigger his need to pee? As soon as my boys noticed that they were peeing in the tub (they'd look down and see/feel the stream), we started encouraging them to pee down the tub drain while we waited for the water to warm up to run the bath. The running water stimulated the need, and we explained that it would keep the bathwater clean. It helped them learn that they had at least a bit of control over the process. It made them more aware of what their body was doing. If you can get him to pee on command when he's not bursting, he might realize he can make it stop and start (or learn to stop and start).

[AK_Mom4]

Peeing on demand here for my boys started by peeing ON THINGS.  Trees, plants, flowers, then sinking cheerios in the toilet.

 

And the "M&Ms for everyone" thing worked MARVELOUSLY here!

[Mom in High Heels]

Urgh, potty training!  I swear I think Indy has the largest bladder in the entire world.  He stopped wetting at night when he was around 8 months old IIRC, and could drink as much water as he wanted (that's basically all we drink) and wet maybe 3 times a day.  I don't know how he held it all.  He wasn't fully potty trained until he was just over 4, because he would just hold it.

Han Solo doesn't seem to have quite as a big a bladder, as he does still wet at night (he just turned 3), but he's not interested in using the toilet.  We ask him all the time if he wants to go, and he always say "Ummm, not today."  Sigh.  I'm not going to push it, because I know he'll get there eventually.  

I hate potty training.

[Lara in Colo]

Put the potty chair in front of the tv with child's favorite DVD's. 

 

Try to get the child to drink  (that's why bars have SALTED things for free)

 

Put the child's feet in warm water. (cold sometimes works better )

[Pronghorn]

Set the timer for two-hour intervals, and have the kid try whenever he hears it. Then hope that one of those intervals comes when he is ready to go.

[ondreeuh]

A little foam potty seat fits nicely on a 2-gallon bucket, and that makes a great portable potty that is so much easier to clean than a commercial one. With each of my kids, we started out with them wearing nothing below the waist. They quickly learned to connect the pee down their leg (or across the floor!) with the sensation. As soon as we could, we put the bucket in front of them to catch the pee, and praised the heck out of them. Obviously, doing this outdoors or on linoleum is preferable. Didn't take long before they were jumping on the potty as soon as they started to pee, and then could anticipate it and sit before they peed [i had my boys sit down]. After a couple of days we put on loose underwear and no pants. For outings I used pull-ups instead of diapers, but tried to do that as little as possible.

 

If the child doesn't catch on, then they may not be ready. This is a good way to practice though (and that's exactly how I worded it - we were practicing peeing on the potty). My kids did this between 2.5 and 3.5, and the oldest one had some delays.