Our method basically boiled down to this: by the time Christopher was four years old, I was sure that he knew how to pull his pants on and off. He knew where the bathroom was and what is was used for (his dad helped with that part a great deal). The only thing that really stood between us and Beulah Land was sheer stubborness.
So one day, after notifying my family that our bathroom was off-limits for the day, I loaded up the bathroom shelves with his favorite juice drinks, his favorite cookies and crackers, a radio, and a bag of bite-sized Kit Kat Chocolate Bars (his all-time favorite treat). Together Christopher and I entered the bathroom and I told him very matter-of- factly that we were not going to leave the bathroom until he had used the toilet three whole times. He was tall enough to use the toilet and had long since physically outgrown his plastic potty-chair.
I locked the door and sat on the edge of the tub. He screamed. He cried. He begged. He ate a lot of crackers, which made him very thirsty. He drank a lot of juice because screaming and eating crackers makes your throat really dry. Because he drank so much juice, he had many opportunties to use the toilet. When he was successful, he got to eat a Kit Kat Bar! I just stuck to my word and sure enough, by the end of the day, we were potty trained!
The only thing that I can add to this is to say never allow temper tantrums to stand in the way of doing what is right and necessary for your child. It is difficult to deal with at the time, but it is for his own good in the long run. Stay calm, be firm, and be patient!
Janet wrote:
Toilet training .....When Alex was about 3 1/2 he decided he would not wear a diaper but also refused to use the potty or toilet. He would urinate in any toy that he figured would hold liquid and do his other business on the doorstep (we live in the country, no neighbours to watch!!) or in the bathtub. Since he often chose these little blue plastic (empty) jam 'buckets' I gave the kids to play with to urinate in, I took away all the toys that would hold liquid and put lots of these jam buckets around the house. After I accepted him using the jam buckets, he accepted using the potty. Soon he used the potty exclusively. I think I expressed enough displeasure with his doorstep routine that he decided to use the potty for that too. Not the most conventional way to toilet train, the daycare owner was horrified when I told her, but it worked.
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