Patience is always a good thing. The child will do it when he is ready and there is no need to rush. Reassure the child that it is ok to feel that way. Maybe since he won’t go into the toilet but will go in something else I have a suggestion. Maybe you should take him and buy him a potty chair. I know you may feel you are going backwards here as far as potty training but if he has his own special toilet then it won’t seem so scary. You can even have him pick out a special book that you can read to him when he wants to go to the bathroom. Just give him lots of hugs and let him decide when it is alright for him.

I am an advocate of the potty training in a day method that was developed by some well known psychologists in the 60’s and 70’s and was made popular by Dr. Phil more recently. It takes some preparation and some commitment for a week or so (even though it says a day). I have seen it work in a day or two, but you need to be consistent for a few weeks to get real good reliability.

According to doctors it is not abnormal for a boy to be four and just learning. Tey say if at age five, he is still having problems then they may need to do test.

This came from a friend of mine who has seven brothers. She told me this story when I was trying to potty train my son. She said her mother trained all of he brothers with a coffee can. They loved the sound it made when they peed in it. After a while the can was sat down inside the potty chair (instead of the little bowl they come with). Then the can was taken away and repaced with the correct bowl. then they moved up to the big potty. I’m not so sure about what she did when they had to go #2.

The prereqisites for begining potty training are: stage one- the child must be able to realize when he has gone, stage 2- the child is aware when he is going (pauses in play, makes sounds, facial expressions) and stage 3- the child is aware they are about to have a bowel movement( is able to tell you ahead of time. if he has gone through all this, the next step is consistancy. Bring them to the bathroom at regular times and stay with them…sing to them, read a story for a set amount of time. Offer incentives like a sticker chart or something everytime they go. or simply take away the diapers and have lots of changes of clothes ready, just say it is time to say good bye to diapers and wear underwear. If there is no medical reason or developmental delays, the child should be able to be trained, just remember to be consistant with whatever you do and dont stress about it. the child needs to feel comfortable with this process and show readiness to want to use the bathroom.

after you rule out any medical conditions try just putting him in underwear and taking him to the bathroom every 20 minutes until he slowly starts going on his own. This takes a lot of work but you have to be consistent. If he cant “go” or wets himself even after going consistently he may just not be physically ready as he doesn’t have the awareness of being wet. This is hard but it’s how my son was trained at 3years1month. After literally taking him consistently he was good to go after a week. He still wears a pull-up at night because he cant hold it in all night and he’s 4 years old

Have you tried putting cheerios in the toilet and having him aim at them for fun? Also giving him one m and m everytime he goes in the toilet might work too.

take him every few hours to the restroom then he will get used to it….just like training a puppy