OP, we trained my son before 2.5 with help from daycare and bribery. I don't have the patience to sit around the house all day with a naked kid waiting for him to pee, so that's not how we did it. We went to the store and let him pick out some toys that he was interested in. We told him he could earn a toy by using the potty four times, for either pee or poo. We put the toys up in a closet and kept track of the number of successful potty usages with a sticker chart. If he didn't go in the potty, we would say something along the lines of "oh well, maybe next time," and remind him about the toy and offer to let him take a little peek at it. It worked well for him. I can't say that it will work well for every kid, because I am sure it won't, but it couldn't hurt to give it a try.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you want to keep a child in diapers until they are 2.5 or 3? Unless the child has a medical reason for late potty training or they are special needs just do it. Believe me your daycare providers will thank you.

Or not. Our daycare provider (25 years' experience running a toddler/young 2s class) discouraged our attempts to train before 2. In her experience, early potty training was more about "parent training" (to take the kid to the potty on a very set schedule and to watch for their cues) than about "child training" (awareness of need to go and ability to control the urge until on the potty). This is not to say that parent-training has no advantages, especially if you want to be done with diapers, but she found that those kids still had tons of accidents until they made it to the "child training" phase. In a daycare setting where she was responsible for three kids, she preferred they be in diapers until they were reliably aware/in control of their urges.

Agree--in fact, I have heard of daycares insisting the kid stay in diapers (or at least pull-ups) when there is even a very occasional accident.

Obviously they do not have the time at daycares to take every child to the bathroom all on different schedules to accomplish early training. SAHMs can easily do this with one child. Of course daycares would prefer just to deal with diapers than to try to accomplish this task and end up cleaning up a lot of accidents, but if you are only working with one child, it is not too hard. Also, there is a big difference between starting before 2 (I trained both my kids before 2, btw), and going to the other extreme and waiting until 3 or 3.5. Somewhere between 2 and 2.5 seems to work for most kids. There is no need to make the argument ridiculous by saying you either start at 18 months or wait until age 3.5. I think we can all agree that people on both extremes are in the minority (though the early training crowd claims everyone can do it, and the late trainers keep shouting "every child is on his own schedule!").

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you want to keep a child in diapers until they are 2.5 or 3? Unless the child has a medical reason for late potty training or they are special needs just do it. Believe me your daycare providers will thank you.

Or not. Our daycare provider (25 years' experience running a toddler/young 2s class) discouraged our attempts to train before 2. In her experience, early potty training was more about "parent training" (to take the kid to the potty on a very set schedule and to watch for their cues) than about "child training" (awareness of need to go and ability to control the urge until on the potty). This is not to say that parent-training has no advantages, especially if you want to be done with diapers, but she found that those kids still had tons of accidents until they made it to the "child training" phase. In a daycare setting where she was responsible for three kids, she preferred they be in diapers until they were reliably aware/in control of their urges.

Agree--in fact, I have heard of daycares insisting the kid stay in diapers (or at least pull-ups) when there is even a very occasional accident.

Anonymous wrote:Why would you want to keep a child in diapers until they are 2.5 or 3? Unless the child has a medical reason for late potty training or they are special needs just do it. Believe me your daycare providers will thank you.

Or not. Our daycare provider (25 years' experience running a toddler/young 2s class) discouraged our attempts to train before 2. In her experience, early potty training was more about "parent training" (to take the kid to the potty on a very set schedule and to watch for their cues) than about "child training" (awareness of need to go and ability to control the urge until on the potty). This is not to say that parent-training has no advantages, especially if you want to be done with diapers, but she found that those kids still had tons of accidents until they made it to the "child training" phase. In a daycare setting where she was responsible for three kids, she preferred they be in diapers until they were reliably aware/in control of their urges.

Anonymous wrote:Has anybody regretted waiting until later? The potty training book I read said if you don't get it done by 2.5, it's much, much harder.

We introduced the concept at 18 mos but never pushed it. We tried a naked weekend sometime early in the 2s and he wasn't getting it so we put diapers back on. Then, two months short of three, he announced he wanted to go poop. We took him to the potty and that was that. No more diapers and no accidents.
Most of the friends we know who have struggled with PT have been the ones who've been most aggressive about it - as in, we're doing this NOW (whenever NOW was) and not backing off until you get it. We figured we would get DS familiar with the process, talk about it like a desirable milestone, but let him tell us when he was ready. It worked for us, but I'm sure part of that was just a lucky fit between our approach and DS's personality.

OP - it's discouraging, but it seems like he was not ready or motivated. Give it and yourself a break. Try again in a few months. It's ok.

OP again. Day Four, and I'm ready to call it. DS started peeing on the floor again this morning. I thought maybe he just needed us to stop breathing down his neck so right after he peed last, I put loose shorts (no diaper or underwear) on him and took him out for a walk. He peed all over his pants and shoes within 5 minutes. He just doesn't seem motivated at all to do this right now. I hate to have wasted the last 3.5 days, but I think I need to stop and try again in a month or so.

If you're had some success, it will be easier to push now than again later. Do you have other kids? Taking off a day or two to focus on potty training alone is a great solution. Be sure to do no TV.

Anonymous wrote:Why would you want to keep a child in diapers until they are 2.5 or 3? Unless the child has a medical reason for late potty training or they are special needs just do it. Believe me your daycare providers will thank you.

Get over yourself. Mine trained with no problem the month before turning 3, just like so many other kids we know. We knew plenty of boys who didn't train until 3.5, while we knew only one kid who trained before 2.5. Kids train at different rates - duh!

OP again. We kept at it today and things are definitely progressing, albeit slowly. Still not perfect by any stretch, but more pee in the potty and less on the floor. Still no poop in the potty. As much as I absolutely don't want to spend any more days stuck at home dealing with potty training, I'm thinking about taking Monday and Tuesday off to try to really see if it'll stick before he goes back to daycare.

As for Judgy McJudgerson above, only one of the ten 2.5 year olds in DS's class is potty trained and his DCPs have never said boo about it.