Potty training woes.

[bright sparks]

I have a 23month old here. She is fairly potty trained at home the only catch is they just have her running around with no pants/panties/diaper on at home (it's been 3 or so weeks of this). She apparently has never had an accident and just runs off to pee/poop on her own.

We have lots of beige carpet throughout the house and I have no interest in having a child run around without a diaper on when they have never asked to go on the potty and have zero ability to pull down their own pants on their own.

I am having her sit on the potty 5-6 times a day. She will pee and poop but she pretty much always has a wet diaper when I put her on the potty. She has just started paying pee and potty but it is only after I tell her it is time to go. She isn't yet using it to signal that she needs to go.

Any thoughts? Am I holding her back by making her wear a diaper while here? I only have her 3 days a week.

I feel that a huge part of toilet training is the ability to verbalize (or even using hand signals) and to have self help skills with undressing. She seems to be going about it backwards...in learning her body signals and knowing when to go while naked.

I don't much feel like trying that here as I suspect it is easier to do at home when she has mom and dad there watching her cues and cueing her. Whereas here she is busy playing and is distracted by her friend and toys etc.

Thoughts?

I personally think diapers and pull ups are problematic in training. If a child is ready to train, they are also smart enough to know that they are wearing a diaper. I see the inconsistency as permission to pee in the diaper because they know they can. I agree no naked children at daycare, but underwear should be fine if the kid is pretty well toilet trained at home. There likely wouldn't be to many accidents. As for pooping on the carpet, this is another requirement on my list that tells me a child is ready to train. There needs to be regularity in bowel movements. Once they have this, it's easier to predict when they will go and be prepared. BM is usually a tricky stage of training for a lot of kids, but if they are regular it's easier, if they are not then likely they have not got the control over their bowels so shouldn't be training. I understand why they are wearing a diaper at your place and like many others it is policy, but I personally think that this is the problem. Doesn't mean that going naked is the answer though. It's just inconsistency does nothing to help with toilet training. I think this is a classic sign of a parent starting too early. This child clearly doesn't have all the verbal skills or the physical ability to be successful and quickly to train. It rarely takes me more than a week to train here. On the occasion it does, it's because of parents undoing my work at home by putting pull ups on, or being lazy quite frankly. I don't care of a parent insists on training before I'm willing to do it. I give them the other option of taking a month of work to train them themselves if they don't like how I do it. You have how much experience with this mother?... I've trained over 30 kids and every time I've had any kind of issue it's because of the parents yet I'm the one left to deal with the mess. It's this first child...rush, rush, rush and second child, baby, baby, baby thing I keep seeing over and over. Lots of first time parents want their child to be first at everything, but hold their second back for longer so they can keep their baby. SIGH!!

I had a parent of one of my 21mth olds email me for my thoughts the other day because her child was taking an interest in them using the toilet at home and it took all my restraint not to speak my mind. You want to toilet train yet you won't stop breast feeding him??? The mind boggles sometimes...Fortunat ely this family like that I offer them guidance and generally take my advice.