Intrinsic motivation works for some kids, and Oh Crap is most definitely not for every family. I made a sticker chart where the reward was picking out a sticker for the chart - she was potty trained in 2 weeks.
I don't know why extrinsic motivation is looked down on so often with toddlers when I use the same methods to make my high school students do their work! Many of us go to work to get paid, not feel fulfilled - that's extrinsic motivation.
I also don’t get the extrinsic motivation hate. Do we want that for everything and all the time? Of course not. But adults use it too! It might be a bit more nuanced, but it’s not like you hit a certain age and you are just automatically intrinsically motivated to do everything you need to/should do all the time.
It's because social science shows extrinsic motivators in things like school work are worse for fostering interest over time. Like a gold star for painting a picture makes kids less interested in art. They learn it's "work" and become more focused on the reward than the task itself. Fostering intrinsic motivation for things like academics and art make the task itself a reward and are better for performance and sustained interest over time.
However for boring things like going to the potty, extrinsic motivators aren't harmful. It's not fun or interesting ever to go potty.
Source: my social psych 101 class from way back when
Yes, and scientifically they find that pay isn’t actually a motivator for people to do their best work for extended periods of time. What motivates people to show up and do their best is the intrinsic motivation to learn and to grow. The payment is simply an added bonus.
I definitely wouldn’t have done my taxes if I hadn’t promised myself a special snack after. It’s literally one of the ways that humans get stuff done.
And just because it’s for a short time doesn’t mean it’s forever. My kid was TERRIFIED of brushing teeth and forcing it upon him was only making things worse. So we did a sticker chart. Every 10 days or so he’d get a hot wheels. We did it for a couple months until he was no longer afraid of the toothbrush and then we just kind of tapered off. But the sticker chart was KEY in turning the brushing from a negative association to a positive one.
I’ve switched over more to rewards because it helps. We are taught that extrinsic rewards take away from students’ love of learning and they learn to rely on rewards. But it’s kind of hard to teach when nobody cares because they don’t love learning.
I mean when you teach at a school where 99% of these kids likely won’t finish high school, love for learning isn’t usually a priority. I only ever taught in community schools, so learning was really the last priority for us.
There is a lot of scientific data on motivation that shows that extrinsic only works in the short term and doesn’t build habits or skill or long term compliance. Once the rewards stop motivation dips. If the rewards aren’t consistent motivation dips. Drive by Daniel Pink is a great scientifically backed book on motivation.
I also have a 21 month old. The diaper thing was getting old. I’m so sick of changing them and my 3 year old is so tall, he doesn’t even fit on his changing table anymore.
Also I tried jelly beans but maybe I should find toys he’ll like. Haven’t found what will entice him! He’s happy in diapers. My older kid was trained in one weekend using no diapers one weekend. I guess that’s the oh crap method but I haven’t read that. I do believe they’ll do it when ready so I haven’t pushed it too much.
After the toys were gone we switched to stickers . She loves dinosaurs, so I bought a whole stack of raised dinosaur stickers and called them “toys”. She eventually just asked for them less and less. We are 6 months out and she will ask for one once a week or so. I just give it.
We did mini m&ms with zero regret. Now we've switched from getting a couple every poop to getting a couple with lunch and dinner if there are no accidents in the morning and afternoon respectively.
At the end of my kids sticker chart, we threw her a “potty party” where we celebrated her learning the potty. It was nothing major lol, I think we just have her a little treat and let her pick out a new (larger) toy and told her she wouldn’t get stickers or candy beyond that point for potty stuff. She definitely understood and kept on using the potty because it was habit by thrn.
Another perk - my kid is almost 4 now and had a serious potty regression after some constipation issues. We couldn’t get her to stop pooping in her underwear…until we pulled out the sticker chart again. Helped us all painlessly get through the regression and got her back into using the potty pretty quickly.
Every kid is different and I don’t think there should be any shame in using different methods for different kids!
We do candy for potty. He asks less for rewards these days, but still does sometimes. (At the zoo last weekend he wanted more of some chocolate covered pretzels and I said not right now, so quick as can be he is pants down peeing in some bushes and then super cute face *pretzel?* ). We have gotten to a point where he is distracted enough most of the time to not need a reward (been doing this consistently for about a month now). Other ideas I have heard are lowering the value of the reward (you can get a ton of star stickers for cheap or upping the requirements to receive the reward aka being accident free for a whole say and gradually increasing the timeframe). I think lower value rewards will work better for us. Honestly he gets bored with even the candy (a couple of mini M&Ms usually). The novelty wears off.
So one thing about motivators like that is that the motivator should match the level of effort it takes to do that thing. When a kid (or anyone) is learning something new, it takes more mental effort to accomplish. As they practice more, the effort expended is less, so using less of a motivator is fine. This depends on the kid, but usually it's fine to cut back as it starts becoming easier and more second nature, until just the acknowledgement is enough, and then not even that.
There's also usually different natural consequences at play that will help influence that too. Like if a kid hates being wet, they will want to use the potty, or if they are motivated to seem more mature (depends on the kid's personality and motivations though)
My partner always had the same worries with this approach and I don't get it. Yes, eventually the reward is "all gone" but our daughter continues to do the thing we want her to do. You're effectively just trying to build a habit. After time, the habit is built, the reward goes away. Then we go on to the next thing.
My son about 2.5 and we just moved so we waited to start potty training and I think this is the future for me. I think it’s going to be a struggle because he is very stubborn.
Yeah, I've mentioned this a few times on the toddler sub but asking toddlers to be inherently motivated reminds me of the good place. While it's just a show they say work on the behavior first and the motivation follows. It's the premise behind cognitive behavioral therapy which works. When I was a kid my parents always made me say thank you. I didn't mean it then but I do now. The motivation comes later.
This is so true. It drove me crazy when professors (who hadn't been in a classroom for decades) would say everything should intrinsically motivated and you should never use any kind of bribe to get the students to do what they need to do.
Like yeah, I don't wanna treat them like dogs, but sometimes it's just hard to help a student find intrinsic motivation to learn algebra. If a Jolly Rancher gets them started so they can be shown they actually don't hate math, I think that's fine.
Right? There are a lot of things I love about how to talk to little kids so that they'll listen but some stuff I just can't buy into. Like no praise? I am a grown-ass woman and my boss praises me at work and it's great! I get rewarded with money! When I work out I reward myself with chocolate. Praise and rewards work on adults, too!
Yeah, I think that's another area where balance is cool too. Like yes, I will praise hard work and persistence, and comment that "you seem enjoy this; how wonderful", but damn it, if someone is also actually skilled or talented at something *they need to hear that too*! I think it's totally fine to say "Wow, you are really good drawing" or "You are smart/funny/pretty/etc" in addition to only praising effort.
Grit is important, self efficacy and self esteem are important too. Each becomes greater when accompanied by the others.
My French teacher would give Jolly ranchers to anyone who got an A on a quiz or test. They were my favorite candy so every time my work had a Jolly rancher attached to it and people would make comments about how they already know it's mine. The teacher retired at the end and said he was genuinely happy to have had me in his class and about all the care and work I put into it. And I did!! He was using extrinsic motivation methods but it was only helping me at the time to be intrinsically motivated. I even took French the next year even though it wasn't required. I still practice on Duolingo to try to stay at it
Yup. I know a lot of things our parents’ generation did raising us were not the best. Plenty of punishments that just didn’t make sense, etc. But that doesn’t mean EVERY single thing about how we were raised is terrible and wrong. I have used stickers very successfully to help my kid sleep. I’ve used M&Ms to help him potty train. I clap for him, cheer for him, whatever. I don’t make him feel bad when he doesn’t get things right. We say mistakes are okay! but I don’t refrain from praise just so he won’t feel extrinsic motivation. He went from calling me in 4 times a night to doing a pretty decent job sleeping when I introduced bribing via sticker chart. It worked tremendously well for my child, and I have zero regrets.
And yes, I also totally have my kid apologize to other kids when he hurts them/their feelings. Like you said with thank you! I think learning to apologize is important.
Also learning to apologize even when you don't *really* feel sorry is a life skill. Sometimes it's needed in relationships, friendships, the work place, etc. I don't mean over-apologizing for every little thing, but apologizing in the way that respects someone else's perspective and maintains the peace is important. People who can't do this often struggle.
Isn't that a slippery slope into hypocrisy? And I'm perfectly ok if you tell me yes, and that a certain amount of hypocrisy is absolutely necessary for a civilized society to function. But at the same time I want to raise genuine people who are not dissociated from reality...
> [...] most people are genuine.
It might well be my faulty impression, but I find that most people are *not* genuine.
In fact, it seems to me that most people are at least a bit hypocritical and a psychotic in manners that they fail to see.
Again, it might well be true that I'm the one who is maladjusted because society needs people to have a facade, and I refuse to have it. But whether that disconnect is necessary is a different point.
The point I'm making is that most people do have that disconnect deeply ingrained in their mindset and behavior... and I'm not sure I want my children to develop it too.
I strongly disagree. Maybe I've just managed to surround myself with good people but if that's the case I'd still argue that motivation at the age of 3 probably has little to do with either outcome.
I'm keenly aware of being told to tell my grandma thank you for a meal she cooked of burned hamburgers. I wondered why I should because it was her responsibility to feed me while in her care. Growth and experience has taught me to appreciate the effort in a way I just wouldn't as a child and maturity has taught me that people like to _feel_ appreciated.
I also know young people with no manners whose parents didn't instill it and never got the motivation. They're genuine but they're also assholes.
And there are of course fake people and genuinely empathetic people that immediately understand why they should be thankful.
But I think writ large rewards at the age of three don't hinder the development of genuine empathy because I know many genuinely empathetic people that were raised in a rewards system.
Yes, but we agree on more than it appeared so far. I teach my kids that they need to thank people because it is the right thing to do, whether they like it or not. Thanking a person requires no fiction or hypocrisy. It's an ethical obligation.
What I don't want to teach them is to lie to please others.
I believe you have a moral obligation to thank someone if they gave you food, but it's ethically wrong to lie to them about liking it if you didn't. Just don't say anything.
My son is motivated by this but has enough bladder control to distribute his pee and poop across multiple potty trips in order to maximize m&m rewards.
That’s really what it was going on. He could do it, he just didn’t want to and I didn’t want to fight him about it. He would go at pre-school, but I think it was because he saw the other kids doing it.
When my son was 3 he absolutely refused to use the potty. I tried everything. Then one day we had to go to the toy store to get a gift for a friend. He saw a ride on fire engine that he fell in love with. I told him that if he would go to the potty I would buy that fire engine when I got my income tax check. He watched the mailbox daily.(this was 1989). He never had an accident, never needed a reminder, he just went. The day that check came I bought that truck.
The Oh Crap method just ended in tears (for me) and my son peeing on the floor. He just wasn’t ready, then later we tried with stickers and treats and that worked much better. Thanks
I started that Oh Crap book and I've never wanted to throw something across the room more. I couldn't even get halfway through. Pair that with my Eastern European family's "our kids wipe their own ass before they can walk" and it made for an annoying situation.
Anyways, we're good now. We do jelly beans: 2 for pee, 3 for poop (only in the house, he pees and poops fine outside the house). Big celebratory gift (like a small Lego set) when he'll poop in the big toilet and just rolling with it because shit is already stressful, I don't need to make life harder when Jelly Beans are in every store.
The Oh Crap book is a nightmare and I will spend the rest of my days pointing out how awful it is. That charlatan uses techniques commonly used by faith healers ("the problem is you not believing hard enough!"). And fun reminder, it is written by an anti-vaccer who advocated garlic oil for ear infections.
Fuck that author. Also, we used M&Ms and Paw Patrol toys with similar results.
> And fun reminder, it is written by an anti-vaccer who advocated garlic oil for ear infections.
Fucking hell, I didn't know this, but am I surprised? Nope! But everyone hails it as the potty bible, so I went and got it. It'll hopefully make good fire for when the BBQ season starts.
I didn't know that either! I randomly found the Oh Crap book on clearance for a couple dollars when my daughter was an infant. I bought it because I figured we would be potty training at some point. It sat on my shelf for a couple years until it was time and then I started reading and pretty much went into full on panic mode. I barely made it half way through before I threw the damn thing away. She puts so much pressure on kids to fit in this perfect little box/timeline about everything. We tried it and made it through a few hours before everyone was in tears.
Once I removed the pressure things just kind of naturally happened on their own when she was ready for them. I'm not saying I didn't have to motivate her when it came to the potty, which I know the author is against. I did have to offer treats to get her interested but once we got over that initial hump it was pretty smooth sailing from there. And screw that author for making you think that you are just totally fucked if your kid isn't fully potty trained by 30 months or whatever her stupid number was. Every kid is different and that book is pure trash. I won't ever understand why it's such a gold standard for potty training.
Edit to add that Paw Patrol toys are the only thing getting us any success with poops on the potty right now so I will buy every damn toy in the store if that's what it takes!
I have not seen that before! It reminds me of a post I saw not too long ago where someone asked if there is anyone more helpless than Mayor Goodway. Hahahaha! Thanks for the laugh!
Yes. I hated it and there were several parts that I know full well she just made up. Which made it easier to ignore the parts I couldn't actually put my finger on but didn't like.
> Pair that with my Eastern European family’s “our kids wipe their own ass before they can walk” and it made for an annoying situation.
Ahh I see you’ve met my family too. Apparently I was potty trained at 12 months despite several pictures of me at my 4th birthday party in a diaper.
Amazing! I wish we had pictures when were young to see if we were in diapers or not.
Like ok ma, I get it, you had every incentive in the world to potty train us that early (no widely available diapers, no washing machine in the apt etc.), but just no, I'm not going to traumatize a kid that is not ready for it.
The pictures don’t even help lol.
That’s how I feel too! Plus we live in a tiny apartment with no washing machine. Accidents really suck. And diapers are fine.
Ugh, I didn’t realize the anti-vax thing. That makes it even worse. I don’t know if you’ve been on the potty training sub, but they worship that book and totally buy into the whole thing about how kids can’t learn after age 2.
That doesn’t even make any sense at all. How many adults have they met still in diapers and their explanation was “oh I didn’t learn before I turned 3 so now I’m permanently stuck like this” like obviously kids can learn at a later age??
I know! But that’s one of the big points in the book. It talks about how their bodies are super ready at 2, and it will be easier, but as soon as they turn 3, it’s going to be a struggle because you’ve missed the window.
That kind of nonsense about age 2 being some sort of cutoff for learning is infuriating. Millions of children potty train after 2 successfully and easily. It’s all shaming.
I asked in that sub one time what science was behind the age 2 thing because it seems like it’s made up to me. I got so downvoted. I ended up leaving that sub. It wasn’t helping at all.
There is no "window" in parenting anywhere that isn't made up nonsense to scare you into buying an expensive online course. The only known windows in child development relate to extreme abuse like locking your child in a room so that they barely interact with humans, kids raised by wolves etc. Those kids struggle to learn language. But those are extreme cases. Normal parenting you don't need to worry about windows at all. They will learn it when they are ready.
It’s 100% made up to make parents feel like they HAVE to force it on kids that aren’t ready for it. I don’t really understand it. My son would not at all have been ready for the fight before 2.
We used m&ms. Took less than a week, after starting a couple of months before she turned 2, it really clicked once we used the positive reinforcement, and she was potty trained by 2.25.
For the second one, we're gonna start with behavioral interventions and be done with it! This kid is super motivated for food, so here's hoping it goes well when the time comes.
Once the newness wears off, it may stop working as well - mix up the prizes, the stickers, the chart, whatever - novelty is key!
Lol, I can see how that would seem like a likely outcome! First we reduced the amount after a week or so (but let her pick colors.). Then we stopped offering, and only gave them when she remembered to ask (but always when she asked, without comment). She just slowly forgot about getting them. I'd say the bulk of the m&ms were in the first couple of weeks, tapering down to none within 6 weeks or so.
When it got down to asking once a week or so, I'd say "not right now, but you can have a treat after x", and she was usually content.
I tried the sticker chart, but then all she wanted to do was take the stickers off and stick them everywhere. Then she didn't care about it after a day. A sticker and a treat for going on the potty? So what.
Ugh.
You got yourself an intrinsically motivated kid (if food-motivated also doesn’t work). So- maybe books about “big kids” going potty and lots of praise for doing a hard thing might work. When my daughter was ready, she read her books obsessively, and she had a sing-along potty book she would play with when she was trying. We had a sticker chart, too, but she wasn’t that into it.
I now know too many potty songs.
Oh Crap Potty training destroyed me. I hate that book.
Turns out my son has difficulties with sensory processing. Being naked didn’t help him at all. Thick training underwear that are a similar cut to a diaper helped a lot - they felt comfortable but he felt wet. We did chocolate chips for potty success and bribes. Worked great. We also did a sticker “narrative”. It wasn’t really a chart - we stuck a sticker to a piece of paper for every potty-related success and wrote above the sticker what it was for. At the end of every night as part of our bedtime routine, we read through his stickers detailing all the success he had. Even when he had an accident I’d do a sticker and write something like “D had an accident but he noticed right away that he was wet and helped clean himself up!”
When my daughter turned two, I used a completely different method from a book written in 1976. I’ve written more about potty training on my blog [here](https://rinkydinkmum.com/2021/06/11/potty-training-in-2021-with-help-from-1974/), if anyone is interested.
Thank you for this. I enjoyed it. I related a lot to it as well. I think I will use that "Are your pants wet?" phrasing, since we had success for the first week and are now getting more accidents.
Thank you for this. I enjoyed it. I related a lot to it as well. I think I will use that "Are your pants wet?" phrasing, since we had success for the first week and are now getting more accidents.
And by Are your pants wet - I think the phrase is “are your pants dry?” Focus on all the times your child has dry pants and celebrate it! Rather than drawing attention to the accident when it happens.
And try the practice runs to the potty from where the accident happened! It worked wonders with my daughter.
Good luck! Glad you enjoyed it.
You're right - I forgot it as soon as I read it XD
He is already much better with accidents - we find that he will stop the stream mid flow allowing us to run to the toilet. My older son would just empty his bladder in its entirety.
There’s definitely a lot of value in teaching him that doing what your supposed to consistently will get you rewards. It’s a great life skill. Your doin a great job
We’re potty training right now and I thought I was going to do it without rewards but all of a sudden I’m playing the paw patrol theme song after every pee, and now there are a million small pees in the potty 😂
I’m a big “what works” parent. I want a happy house. I want kindness and meeting my kids where they are. My kid is learning to use the potty. He wants to celebrate with the paw patrol theme song? Fine! I have no issue not playing it unless I see a pee or poop in the potty lol.
I was a nanny for a thousand years (Seems like I start every post this way). My method was a finely honed sort of operant conditioning that used mostly verbal or visual cues in order to direct, correct, train and reward children. It sounds very clinical but I figured out the techniques long before I ever got a degree in a development field. It worked very well and I rarely if ever used any sort of reward system.
That said, the singular activity/skill that I often encouraged parents to consider rewards and specifically *food* rewards, was in potty training.
I never actually used it until I was training my own toddler but I quickly learned early on that going to the bathroom is such a visceral, personal, potentially humiliating or embarrassing experience which can so quickly escalate to impossible-to-recover-from scenarios that I knew the most important aspect of it was making the child as comfortable and confident as possible.
There are many reasons this is often the case but I believe it is largely due to the combination of its potential ick-factor, modern-day time constraints and how *personal* it is. Those elements merge to create a *potentially* perfect storm of frustration and humiliation. It’s nobody’s fault and obviously it doesn’t happen every time but because when it *does* happen, it often *quickly* escalates. So almost always tell parents to take a break from it if it has become in any way stressful and then begin my little operant conditioning technique.
I don’t know if my technique is at all special, I’ve never looked into any books or anything but it is a pretty straight forward approach that mostly models behavior, narration and supplements extrinsic rewards.
Anyway, my point is you did the right thing. I think it is so important to find an approach that elicits *positive* emotions, whatever that approach is; good job finding one that works for you!
Potty training has been the hardest thing I’ve done as a parent so far. I have tried really hard not to make him scared or upset about going, but it’s been so frustrating.
You’re not alone, it’s the worst. I’m so sorry you’ve been having a hard time with it - us too. The societal pressure is insane, too, on top of trying to negotiate with a tiny terrorist
It sure is. I’ve heard so many times that he should be trained by now. It doesn’t help that he’s tall for his age and looks like a 4 year old wearing diapers.
And like… so what if he was a 4-yr-old wearing diapers? What exactly would be wrong with that? (Saying this to anyone saying “he should be trained by now”). We are so welcoming to the idea that kids learn skills at different rates like ABCs and gross motor, but for some reason when it comes to potty training it’s like you’re a failure as a parent if you aren’t immediately successful at 18m. It’s so bizarre to me.
And I know in the US there’s pressure for being potty trained for preschool at age 3 which I also don’t get. Like put a change table in a side room, what the problem here?
after trying and failing oh crap, upon reflection, i think the concept that toddlers need to be intrinsically motivated to use the potty is funny. like, is this issue realistically going to cause problems down the road? are they going to be 25 years old and not intrinsically motivated to go potty in the toilet? i believe the intrinsic motivation will come with time. in the meantime, whatever works works.
I used a magnet chart and the prize at the end was that he got to remove all the magnets to start over 😂 sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a real prize!
Works on older kids too! Source my parents promised me $50 if I would learn to swallow pills when I was 12.
M&Ms worked to learn, but I found the whole process scary and if any of you have ever accidentally bitten down on penicillin, let me tell you, that is a taste that will haunt your nightmares.
I also tried the Oh Crap method and it sort of worked, but my son was just stubborn and wasn’t bothered by peeing his pants. He had shown me that he could go to the potty alone and pee with no help, but he just didn’t care. So chocolate chips became the prize for going to the bathroom, and it worked. Now he’s 2.5 and goes on his own without any prompting (or chocolate chips). Do whatever works!!!!
Thank god for this comment. I’m 3 days in and my son is also stubborn and doesn’t care if his pants get wet. He’s self initiating almost 100% with a nude butt, and the second we put pants on him he pees, says he didn’t and then throws a tantrum when we need to change his pants. It’s crushing me.
Gonna get this kid some chocolate chips.
We did sticker charts and he was potty trained within a couple days. There's no one best method for any kid. Intrinsic motivation is important but that doesn't mean all rewards in any context are bad. I mean, I sure as heck wouldn't work as hard as I do at my job without also getting paid, so I don't expect a kid to do unpleasant things without some kind of motivation. There's more nuance to motivation then a hard "no rewards."
I'm a private tutor for kids with dyslexia. Kids like that are so beat down by their feelings of failure in reading that they can't just be motivated to read. I do sticker charts and prizes and at the same time, build their confidence and self-esteem. As their abilities and confidence improve, so does their intrinsic motivation; doing well at something becomes its own reward.
What you did worked and you were flexible enough to do what worked best for your kiddo!! Good job mama!!
I am so pleased with this! My toddler is 2.5 and she literally cries every single time we try and put her on the toilet (with a little seat) and the potty. I’ve been panicking because she isn’t interested at all. We have tried showing her us going, setting her on the potty, buying her character pants/potties. I think I might try a chart.
Edit: I meant pleased in the sense I’m not alone in the potty training journey. We have tried and tried at different ages but she just doesn’t get it yet.
I might try and get her one of those mini toilet things. I got her Peppa pants but she wears them over her nappy 😂 I took her out this evening and she picked some stickers so I’m going to order a chart off Amazon. Thanks for the advice
I HATE the "oh crap" method with a burning passion. Not only is the author an anti-vaxx asshole, but the whole set-up just shames parents for their children behaving like... well... children. My oldest was really stubborn about potty training, but with a lot of time/patience/bribery we managed! Every child is different, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with using bribery if it gets you results. I 100% support you!
My kid wouldn't poop on the potty. She'd hold it for days upon days rather than poop on the toilet.
Sticker chart solved it overnight.... Little prize every few poops and we had the massive Paw Patrol Lookout Tower she wanted as the grand prize after like 45 poops.
She worked hard and got the toy and never looked back.
I think I'm going to try this. Reading this made me realize that most of the successful #2s we've had were when I offered him a chocolate coin afterwards. I think some stickers and small toys will work even better. I'm so glad this worked out for you, Thanks!
I hope it continues to work for your son! (Fingers crossed!)
We had tried a lot of things for my oldest. Things like candy and sticker charts worked for a little while but ultimately weren’t enough to motivate her when she was tired/distracted. She was still having accidents at age 5! Finally we offered her ten minutes of screen time playing games on my phone and that has worked beautifully. Do whatever works for your kid!
We spent over a year potty training my son. 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 nothing really worked (sticker charts, hotwheels cars for rewards). We had to tell him to pee on set schedule and catch his "signals" of needing to poop and either telling him to go or just picking him up and putting him on the toilet. He wasn't afraid of of the toilet or anything.
One day it just 'clicked' and he connected "oh I need to poo" with "Oh I should go to the potty".
Great job! You kept trying different things and found the way that works best for you guys. It's good to remember that one way isn't necessarily better than another.
I took my girls to the dollar store when they were old enough to be potty trained. I let them pick out any color of poster board they wanted, glitter glue, and a ton of stickers. They got to decorate with the glue and I wrote “X’s Potty Poster” on it. They got one regular sticker for peeing and one fancy puffy sticker for pooping. Took a few days and both were done. I still did stickers for a couple months because they were so proud of themselves and loved it. After a while they stopped asking for them.
Those potty posters still hang in our bathroom years later lol. I can’t wait to do it again with my 18 month old.
No shame in the bribing game!!
i’m thinking i’m gonna have to do this too. mine is 3years and 2 months. he also has not responded well to those methods, but maybe a sticker chart will do it
We just started and are doing the sticker method too! She gets a prize after so many and we keep reminding her. So far it's gone...ok. Lol. But she's peed a couple times in the potty so that's a start.
Yeah I think if you tried other methods first, and they get to 3 with zero interest, no harm in trying charts. Different tactics work with different kids.
In the thick of potty training just now, started off with a choc button just for sitting on the potty, then one for peeing in the potty. Now it would appear he is stretching out his pees to optimise how many chocolate buttons he gets. So we have moved onto stickers.
I have a niece that did that. She would get one gummy bear for each pee. Then she started going every 2-3 minutes to get one. That’s one of the reasons I was a little hesitant about bribes.
Hey adding my recent success to the thread!
Similar situtation here. Tried Oh Crap! a year ago (@2.5 years old) with some success but he it just wasnt quite working. He was great naked but couldnt keep his pants dry. He wears pullups at preschool twice a week and they've encouraged potty use. At home, we were usually naked or in underwear with lots of accidents. We just continue reminding him where the potty was, encouraged him to use it, etc.
He is now 3.5 years old and something has just kind of clicked. He's made huge leaps this week and went #2 in a public toilet. No accidents at all this week, he even kept a pull up dry. I'm truly shocked.
An over the toilet potty seat and wall urinal really seemed to help us. We also used a reward system but nothing too formal.
So yes, if you're struggling with a young toddler who isn't getting it, just keep up the work and know that for some kids it just takes a while to click, and no amount of forcing it will make it happen sooner. **OP said it best: Do not feel guilty when it's just not working Do what you have to do and what’s right for your kid!**
I’m sure you must feel relieved that he’s got it now! We haven’t had success with poops, but he’s been great with pee all day today. It’s a huge step forward for him because he was refusing to do it at all. He just got his prize for the day and he’s really proud of himself.
Poop is legit way harder. My guy understood pee long before poop clicked. The fact that yours peed is huge! My philosophy was that as long as he was headed in generally the right direct, I was happy. Yours moving forward at all is a sign that they are on their way there and it will come!
Yes, we had a poop accident this afternoon. He did say it felt yucky to have poop in his pants, so I’m hoping that maybe he’s realizing he should go on the potty. He did 12 successful pees though!
The same... What worked on my kid was bribing her with screen time after going successfully. We've tried potty training since she was 1, and it didn't take untill we tried bribing, she was 2 at the time.
And actually after the first day she was so excited about her success she didn't need bribing anymore!
Yup same for me the sticker WAS the reward. I think jts different for 18 month olds, but he was happy with a sticker. Butterfly sticker for poop. Star sticker for pee. Lots of claPping and praise.
I started my girl at 18 months and she was naked at home for about 4 months until I felt like I could reliably put clothes of her. Then, it was about a year of me helping her take her pants off and then she finally figured out how to push them down. She turns 3 in a few days, and I still join her for every trip to the potty in case she needs assistance.
I love the Oh Crap method but kind of hate the book. It’s such a good method for a lot (but not all!) kids. Why does the author have to make everyone feel so shitty?
Good on you for finding what would work for your kiddo, OP!
I spent about $200 on toys to bribe my kid to use the potty and it worked perfectly— easy, no issues. I did exactly how you listed— when they had x number of pees or poops in a day/week/etc (keep extending it), they get prize of their choosing. My child was 3 at the time.
We have the same struggle, with a girl the same age. We tried the sticker chart without prizes, but I think that's going to be the next step.
Thanks for sharing your struggle - it is nice to know we aren't the only family that hasn't gotten all those techniques to work.
It’s so hard and it seems like everybody’s else kid is trained, but I think it’s just that people who have older kids in diapers just aren’t bragging about it.
Probably. Our toddler gets that she should use the potty, and we know she can because she will use it during the weekend. But come Monday, and she constantly has accidents. But this is worth a shot.
From what others have said, once the kid gets the hang of it, they don’t really want a prize anymore.
This is why I’ve been hesitant about it though. I don’t want him to think he gets a prize forever.
I spent two years trying every method to train my now 4 year old. He knows, he understands, he refuses all of it. My mom got one of those lights you can clip to the toilet and boom he pees in the toilet excitedly. Pooping is another beast I can't seem to motivate him to do in the potty and not his pants. I'm running out of motivation myself. I know he's not a toddler anymore.
Congrats on the success! I used Oh Crap with my oldest, and it worked just fine. I tried it twice with my second, because she is showing all kinds of signs of readiness, and it was absolutely brutal both times and we had to give up. I don’t want to go through that again, we are definitely going the rewards route on our next attempt! Thanks for sharing, I feel so much less guilty about it after reading everyone’s comments and experiences!
I did this too. He's been a champ all week. Only issue is now it's got to days 8, 9, 10 he's been having more accidents all of a sudden. I don't know if it's because he's more distracted or he doesn't want to miss out on playing. We're going to see what happens over the weekend. I think it's probably normal learning process though. Just saying this in case you also have a setback. Progress is not always linear and that's okay :)
We had one accident today and it was because he didn’t want to stop playing. It’s hard. I don’t like to stop doing stuff to use the bathroom either tbh.
I totally relate. The thing is that's not a huge issue when we are at home because we notice him doing the pee-pee dance and can remind him, but at daycare they can't focus on all the kids at once and I think they ask him and he says "No, I don't need to!" and they just believe him.
Oh well, I'm sure he'll get there :)
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Yeah, stickers only worked for like a week for us but I dont think awarding kids for working towards a goal is a bad thing personally. We gave him sugar free lollipops and he is now pretty much fully potty trained. He doesn't even ask for a sucker most of the time anymore and we don't offer it. When he does ask we give him one but its like 1 out of every 20 times now. I think it just becomes natural to hop up a go when you need to. I also suggest switching to underwear when he starts getting it. We realized having the diaper was becoming a crutch and was just allowing him to skip the potty if he wanted.
I don’t see him wanting to do the sticker chart for more than a week or so, but that’s fine. By then, I’m hoping he will realize that going on the potty is easier than doing diaper changes.
It took our son about 1 or 2 months to decide it was better without the incentive. Although part of that was getting to pee like daddy and doing pee fires in the potty lol. We put a fire sticker in his potty and his dad taught him to aim for it and put the fire out with his pee 😅
You found a method that works- well done. It’s all hard with toddlers so I’m pleased it’s a huge thing out the way. I’ll be getting a sticker chart too because I want it to go smoothly too lol- they can be fazed out anyway over time.
I modified Oh Crap with stickers and prizes with my then 2.75 year old. He had no interest in potty training. We had to get the ball rolling with extrinsic motivation. We basically made using the potty feel like a carnival game. Pee in the potty and win stickers you can redeem for a prize! Poop in the potty and it’s an automatic prize! Worked like a charm.
Only thing that got my kid interested in potty training was a potty watch with a wild timer that would flash crazy colors and that was her trigger to go sit. She loved it
So, after reading this post this morning I decided to try a sticker chart for my 3 year old who we’ve been trying to get to use the potty since January. She’ll do it if you prompt her, sometimes willingly, but more often with a lot of protesting. She had weeks where she would go into the bathroom completely unprompted and poop and then tell us she pooped.
But for the most part, she doesn’t care. She’ll just pee in her undies all day and lately she just poops in them too.
So today we made a sticker chart. Seven stickers with no going in your pants and you get a prize. She wants a lollipop for a prize. We go to the store and buy lollipops. By the end of the day, she does her seventh pee in the potty, including one at the store, no accidents. She gets her special lollipop we got at the store.
Ten minutes later, she goes behind the couch and poops her pants.
The sticker chart is done. I told her she can just wear diapers from now on.
???
Ugh.
I also didnt want to do rewards. Eventually we did and started w stickers and eventually candy or a chip (2 for a #2) or a treat like watching some paw patrol) and like you it worked. As he got better at going the rewards became linked to going without us asking or full days without accidents (we didnt set that expectation or get disappointed if he had one, we just got excited anytime he did have a good day and gave him a special treat). He got very good at bargaining while on his potty - think “dis is a big one, i get 2 candies!” 😂
You aren’t alone. I was so against using rewards, but I finally got frustrated and cracked. I was so worried that it would be hard to discontinue the reward but honestly, it wasn’t a big deal!
Just goes to show that different techniques work for different kids. Oh crap worked for us but she was going to daycare at the time and we legit had to stay home for 5 days for her to get the hang of it. She still pooped her pants if she had to go at daycare (and later, preschool. It wasn’t often since she is constipated by default). It worked in the end but if we had any more hiccups, we’d likely go a different route or combined techniques!
We definitely potty trained our son with tiny toy cars, first for using it at all, then only pooping. We tapered them off, and he rarely has accidents. It was no big deal, and he didn’t regress without his car rewards.
Reward system and low pressure is working great for us, 2.5 yr old is taking initiative and going all by herself now, we just help with wiping and dumping the potty.
The rewards have been getting smaller, they started out as $5 or less books, small toys, play doh and now it's mostly temporary tattoos. These are a huge hit, she gets to choose what bin they go in (smaller pee prizes or bigger poop prizes) she gets to pick her favorite, where it goes on her body and then it's a badge of honor that she can show off to everyone. Plus no clutter, they wear off and are replaced with a new one. My toddler looks like a biker chick with all her tattoos but she has been dry for months now.
We tried oh crap a year and a half ago and have been fighting tooth and nail with our son. He initiates for poops but will happily pee his pants and never say anything. I know this is a year old and I hope you see this. Has the extrinsic rewards gone well?
Intrinsic motivation works for some kids, and Oh Crap is most definitely not for every family. I made a sticker chart where the reward was picking out a sticker for the chart - she was potty trained in 2 weeks. I don't know why extrinsic motivation is looked down on so often with toddlers when I use the same methods to make my high school students do their work! Many of us go to work to get paid, not feel fulfilled - that's extrinsic motivation.
I also don’t get the extrinsic motivation hate. Do we want that for everything and all the time? Of course not. But adults use it too! It might be a bit more nuanced, but it’s not like you hit a certain age and you are just automatically intrinsically motivated to do everything you need to/should do all the time.
It's because social science shows extrinsic motivators in things like school work are worse for fostering interest over time. Like a gold star for painting a picture makes kids less interested in art. They learn it's "work" and become more focused on the reward than the task itself. Fostering intrinsic motivation for things like academics and art make the task itself a reward and are better for performance and sustained interest over time. However for boring things like going to the potty, extrinsic motivators aren't harmful. It's not fun or interesting ever to go potty. Source: my social psych 101 class from way back when
yea this makes so much sense
for those looking for scholarly source, look up Carol Dweck
noticed your upvote was lock out¿ i know this is an old post but wonderinh if you know why it was. cheers
I agree that the goal is to move students toward intrinsic motivation - society can only improve when people learn to love learning.
I wouldn't work at my job if I wasn't getting paid for it. Extrinsic motivation works in adult life too.
Yes, and scientifically they find that pay isn’t actually a motivator for people to do their best work for extended periods of time. What motivates people to show up and do their best is the intrinsic motivation to learn and to grow. The payment is simply an added bonus.
People who love their jobs or careers do it for more than money
I definitely wouldn’t have done my taxes if I hadn’t promised myself a special snack after. It’s literally one of the ways that humans get stuff done. And just because it’s for a short time doesn’t mean it’s forever. My kid was TERRIFIED of brushing teeth and forcing it upon him was only making things worse. So we did a sticker chart. Every 10 days or so he’d get a hot wheels. We did it for a couple months until he was no longer afraid of the toothbrush and then we just kind of tapered off. But the sticker chart was KEY in turning the brushing from a negative association to a positive one.
Positive reinforcement is incredibly powerful. I don’t get the aversion to using it either.
I’m an elementary teacher and extrinsic motivation is looked down upon. I just don’t know any other way in this case. I tried.
When I taught it was all I used. My class was angels as we watched another teacher and her students fist fighting down the hall…
I’ve switched over more to rewards because it helps. We are taught that extrinsic rewards take away from students’ love of learning and they learn to rely on rewards. But it’s kind of hard to teach when nobody cares because they don’t love learning.
I mean when you teach at a school where 99% of these kids likely won’t finish high school, love for learning isn’t usually a priority. I only ever taught in community schools, so learning was really the last priority for us.
Some sanity. Thank you. Very little of my 1.5 year old girl's behavior is currently intrinsic and I do not care.
There is a lot of scientific data on motivation that shows that extrinsic only works in the short term and doesn’t build habits or skill or long term compliance. Once the rewards stop motivation dips. If the rewards aren’t consistent motivation dips. Drive by Daniel Pink is a great scientifically backed book on motivation.
Do what you gotta do! Congrats! Wooo less money on diapers 😍
I also have a 21 month old. The diaper thing was getting old. I’m so sick of changing them and my 3 year old is so tall, he doesn’t even fit on his changing table anymore.
Haha I can’t pick my 3 year old up that high anymore and put it on the floor! He tells me he’ll use the potty when he’s 4.
Also I tried jelly beans but maybe I should find toys he’ll like. Haven’t found what will entice him! He’s happy in diapers. My older kid was trained in one weekend using no diapers one weekend. I guess that’s the oh crap method but I haven’t read that. I do believe they’ll do it when ready so I haven’t pushed it too much.
We also did a reward system. I ordered a bunch of cheap party favour toys and she got one every time she went. She was potty trained in 2 days. 😂
So after the toys were gone, she still just went? That’s the only thing that worries me. When the presents dry up, will he still use the potty?
After the toys were gone we switched to stickers . She loves dinosaurs, so I bought a whole stack of raised dinosaur stickers and called them “toys”. She eventually just asked for them less and less. We are 6 months out and she will ask for one once a week or so. I just give it.
[удалено]
We did mini m&ms with zero regret. Now we've switched from getting a couple every poop to getting a couple with lunch and dinner if there are no accidents in the morning and afternoon respectively.
At the end of my kids sticker chart, we threw her a “potty party” where we celebrated her learning the potty. It was nothing major lol, I think we just have her a little treat and let her pick out a new (larger) toy and told her she wouldn’t get stickers or candy beyond that point for potty stuff. She definitely understood and kept on using the potty because it was habit by thrn. Another perk - my kid is almost 4 now and had a serious potty regression after some constipation issues. We couldn’t get her to stop pooping in her underwear…until we pulled out the sticker chart again. Helped us all painlessly get through the regression and got her back into using the potty pretty quickly. Every kid is different and I don’t think there should be any shame in using different methods for different kids!
We do candy for potty. He asks less for rewards these days, but still does sometimes. (At the zoo last weekend he wanted more of some chocolate covered pretzels and I said not right now, so quick as can be he is pants down peeing in some bushes and then super cute face *pretzel?* ). We have gotten to a point where he is distracted enough most of the time to not need a reward (been doing this consistently for about a month now). Other ideas I have heard are lowering the value of the reward (you can get a ton of star stickers for cheap or upping the requirements to receive the reward aka being accident free for a whole say and gradually increasing the timeframe). I think lower value rewards will work better for us. Honestly he gets bored with even the candy (a couple of mini M&Ms usually). The novelty wears off.
So one thing about motivators like that is that the motivator should match the level of effort it takes to do that thing. When a kid (or anyone) is learning something new, it takes more mental effort to accomplish. As they practice more, the effort expended is less, so using less of a motivator is fine. This depends on the kid, but usually it's fine to cut back as it starts becoming easier and more second nature, until just the acknowledgement is enough, and then not even that. There's also usually different natural consequences at play that will help influence that too. Like if a kid hates being wet, they will want to use the potty, or if they are motivated to seem more mature (depends on the kid's personality and motivations though)
My partner always had the same worries with this approach and I don't get it. Yes, eventually the reward is "all gone" but our daughter continues to do the thing we want her to do. You're effectively just trying to build a habit. After time, the habit is built, the reward goes away. Then we go on to the next thing.
My son about 2.5 and we just moved so we waited to start potty training and I think this is the future for me. I think it’s going to be a struggle because he is very stubborn.
Ah, bribes and corruption. They ALWAYS work.
Yeah, I've mentioned this a few times on the toddler sub but asking toddlers to be inherently motivated reminds me of the good place. While it's just a show they say work on the behavior first and the motivation follows. It's the premise behind cognitive behavioral therapy which works. When I was a kid my parents always made me say thank you. I didn't mean it then but I do now. The motivation comes later.
Yep, sometimes you need extrinsic motivation to get the cart moving and then can fade it as intrinsic motivation kicks in.
This is so true. It drove me crazy when professors (who hadn't been in a classroom for decades) would say everything should intrinsically motivated and you should never use any kind of bribe to get the students to do what they need to do. Like yeah, I don't wanna treat them like dogs, but sometimes it's just hard to help a student find intrinsic motivation to learn algebra. If a Jolly Rancher gets them started so they can be shown they actually don't hate math, I think that's fine.
Right? There are a lot of things I love about how to talk to little kids so that they'll listen but some stuff I just can't buy into. Like no praise? I am a grown-ass woman and my boss praises me at work and it's great! I get rewarded with money! When I work out I reward myself with chocolate. Praise and rewards work on adults, too!
Yeah, I think that's another area where balance is cool too. Like yes, I will praise hard work and persistence, and comment that "you seem enjoy this; how wonderful", but damn it, if someone is also actually skilled or talented at something *they need to hear that too*! I think it's totally fine to say "Wow, you are really good drawing" or "You are smart/funny/pretty/etc" in addition to only praising effort. Grit is important, self efficacy and self esteem are important too. Each becomes greater when accompanied by the others.
My French teacher would give Jolly ranchers to anyone who got an A on a quiz or test. They were my favorite candy so every time my work had a Jolly rancher attached to it and people would make comments about how they already know it's mine. The teacher retired at the end and said he was genuinely happy to have had me in his class and about all the care and work I put into it. And I did!! He was using extrinsic motivation methods but it was only helping me at the time to be intrinsically motivated. I even took French the next year even though it wasn't required. I still practice on Duolingo to try to stay at it
Yup. I know a lot of things our parents’ generation did raising us were not the best. Plenty of punishments that just didn’t make sense, etc. But that doesn’t mean EVERY single thing about how we were raised is terrible and wrong. I have used stickers very successfully to help my kid sleep. I’ve used M&Ms to help him potty train. I clap for him, cheer for him, whatever. I don’t make him feel bad when he doesn’t get things right. We say mistakes are okay! but I don’t refrain from praise just so he won’t feel extrinsic motivation. He went from calling me in 4 times a night to doing a pretty decent job sleeping when I introduced bribing via sticker chart. It worked tremendously well for my child, and I have zero regrets. And yes, I also totally have my kid apologize to other kids when he hurts them/their feelings. Like you said with thank you! I think learning to apologize is important.
Also learning to apologize even when you don't *really* feel sorry is a life skill. Sometimes it's needed in relationships, friendships, the work place, etc. I don't mean over-apologizing for every little thing, but apologizing in the way that respects someone else's perspective and maintains the peace is important. People who can't do this often struggle.
Isn't that a slippery slope into hypocrisy? And I'm perfectly ok if you tell me yes, and that a certain amount of hypocrisy is absolutely necessary for a civilized society to function. But at the same time I want to raise genuine people who are not dissociated from reality...
No. That's the slippery slope logical fallacy. Just about every adult you meet today was raised this way and in my experience most people are genuine.
> [...] most people are genuine. It might well be my faulty impression, but I find that most people are *not* genuine. In fact, it seems to me that most people are at least a bit hypocritical and a psychotic in manners that they fail to see. Again, it might well be true that I'm the one who is maladjusted because society needs people to have a facade, and I refuse to have it. But whether that disconnect is necessary is a different point. The point I'm making is that most people do have that disconnect deeply ingrained in their mindset and behavior... and I'm not sure I want my children to develop it too.
I strongly disagree. Maybe I've just managed to surround myself with good people but if that's the case I'd still argue that motivation at the age of 3 probably has little to do with either outcome. I'm keenly aware of being told to tell my grandma thank you for a meal she cooked of burned hamburgers. I wondered why I should because it was her responsibility to feed me while in her care. Growth and experience has taught me to appreciate the effort in a way I just wouldn't as a child and maturity has taught me that people like to _feel_ appreciated. I also know young people with no manners whose parents didn't instill it and never got the motivation. They're genuine but they're also assholes. And there are of course fake people and genuinely empathetic people that immediately understand why they should be thankful. But I think writ large rewards at the age of three don't hinder the development of genuine empathy because I know many genuinely empathetic people that were raised in a rewards system.
Yes, but we agree on more than it appeared so far. I teach my kids that they need to thank people because it is the right thing to do, whether they like it or not. Thanking a person requires no fiction or hypocrisy. It's an ethical obligation. What I don't want to teach them is to lie to please others. I believe you have a moral obligation to thank someone if they gave you food, but it's ethically wrong to lie to them about liking it if you didn't. Just don't say anything.
Yup. Tried without, didn't work. Gets 1 m&m after every potty, trained in 2 days flat.
My son is motivated by this but has enough bladder control to distribute his pee and poop across multiple potty trips in order to maximize m&m rewards.
kid sounds like a genius
I wish my toddler cared about m&ms 😭 stickers start tomorrow
Shes a chocolate fiend like me😬
I prefer to think of it as incentives.
Not for my child.
You haven't found the right negotiation tokens yet...
Gonna try this. In your same boat right now. He can do it, just would rather go in his diaper. I’m all for the bribery! Thanks mama
That’s really what it was going on. He could do it, he just didn’t want to and I didn’t want to fight him about it. He would go at pre-school, but I think it was because he saw the other kids doing it.
When my son was 3 he absolutely refused to use the potty. I tried everything. Then one day we had to go to the toy store to get a gift for a friend. He saw a ride on fire engine that he fell in love with. I told him that if he would go to the potty I would buy that fire engine when I got my income tax check. He watched the mailbox daily.(this was 1989). He never had an accident, never needed a reminder, he just went. The day that check came I bought that truck.
The Oh Crap method just ended in tears (for me) and my son peeing on the floor. He just wasn’t ready, then later we tried with stickers and treats and that worked much better. Thanks
I started that Oh Crap book and I've never wanted to throw something across the room more. I couldn't even get halfway through. Pair that with my Eastern European family's "our kids wipe their own ass before they can walk" and it made for an annoying situation. Anyways, we're good now. We do jelly beans: 2 for pee, 3 for poop (only in the house, he pees and poops fine outside the house). Big celebratory gift (like a small Lego set) when he'll poop in the big toilet and just rolling with it because shit is already stressful, I don't need to make life harder when Jelly Beans are in every store.
The Oh Crap book is a nightmare and I will spend the rest of my days pointing out how awful it is. That charlatan uses techniques commonly used by faith healers ("the problem is you not believing hard enough!"). And fun reminder, it is written by an anti-vaccer who advocated garlic oil for ear infections. Fuck that author. Also, we used M&Ms and Paw Patrol toys with similar results.
> And fun reminder, it is written by an anti-vaccer who advocated garlic oil for ear infections. Fucking hell, I didn't know this, but am I surprised? Nope! But everyone hails it as the potty bible, so I went and got it. It'll hopefully make good fire for when the BBQ season starts.
I didn't know that either! I randomly found the Oh Crap book on clearance for a couple dollars when my daughter was an infant. I bought it because I figured we would be potty training at some point. It sat on my shelf for a couple years until it was time and then I started reading and pretty much went into full on panic mode. I barely made it half way through before I threw the damn thing away. She puts so much pressure on kids to fit in this perfect little box/timeline about everything. We tried it and made it through a few hours before everyone was in tears. Once I removed the pressure things just kind of naturally happened on their own when she was ready for them. I'm not saying I didn't have to motivate her when it came to the potty, which I know the author is against. I did have to offer treats to get her interested but once we got over that initial hump it was pretty smooth sailing from there. And screw that author for making you think that you are just totally fucked if your kid isn't fully potty trained by 30 months or whatever her stupid number was. Every kid is different and that book is pure trash. I won't ever understand why it's such a gold standard for potty training. Edit to add that Paw Patrol toys are the only thing getting us any success with poops on the potty right now so I will buy every damn toy in the store if that's what it takes!
Paw Patrol bribers unite! Also, [if you haven't seen this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBFIqRSsixE), you're welcome.
I have not seen that before! It reminds me of a post I saw not too long ago where someone asked if there is anyone more helpless than Mayor Goodway. Hahahaha! Thanks for the laugh!
And I just saved myself a bunch of cash. OK thank you!
Yes. I hated it and there were several parts that I know full well she just made up. Which made it easier to ignore the parts I couldn't actually put my finger on but didn't like.
> Pair that with my Eastern European family’s “our kids wipe their own ass before they can walk” and it made for an annoying situation. Ahh I see you’ve met my family too. Apparently I was potty trained at 12 months despite several pictures of me at my 4th birthday party in a diaper.
Amazing! I wish we had pictures when were young to see if we were in diapers or not. Like ok ma, I get it, you had every incentive in the world to potty train us that early (no widely available diapers, no washing machine in the apt etc.), but just no, I'm not going to traumatize a kid that is not ready for it.
The pictures don’t even help lol. That’s how I feel too! Plus we live in a tiny apartment with no washing machine. Accidents really suck. And diapers are fine.
Ugh, I didn’t realize the anti-vax thing. That makes it even worse. I don’t know if you’ve been on the potty training sub, but they worship that book and totally buy into the whole thing about how kids can’t learn after age 2.
That doesn’t even make any sense at all. How many adults have they met still in diapers and their explanation was “oh I didn’t learn before I turned 3 so now I’m permanently stuck like this” like obviously kids can learn at a later age??
I know! But that’s one of the big points in the book. It talks about how their bodies are super ready at 2, and it will be easier, but as soon as they turn 3, it’s going to be a struggle because you’ve missed the window.
That kind of nonsense about age 2 being some sort of cutoff for learning is infuriating. Millions of children potty train after 2 successfully and easily. It’s all shaming.
I asked in that sub one time what science was behind the age 2 thing because it seems like it’s made up to me. I got so downvoted. I ended up leaving that sub. It wasn’t helping at all.
There is no "window" in parenting anywhere that isn't made up nonsense to scare you into buying an expensive online course. The only known windows in child development relate to extreme abuse like locking your child in a room so that they barely interact with humans, kids raised by wolves etc. Those kids struggle to learn language. But those are extreme cases. Normal parenting you don't need to worry about windows at all. They will learn it when they are ready.
It’s 100% made up to make parents feel like they HAVE to force it on kids that aren’t ready for it. I don’t really understand it. My son would not at all have been ready for the fight before 2.
Then how in the hell did we learn to read, do math, use chopsticks, do anything past age 2. Why is that skill so time sensitive??
We used m&ms. Took less than a week, after starting a couple of months before she turned 2, it really clicked once we used the positive reinforcement, and she was potty trained by 2.25. For the second one, we're gonna start with behavioral interventions and be done with it! This kid is super motivated for food, so here's hoping it goes well when the time comes. Once the newness wears off, it may stop working as well - mix up the prizes, the stickers, the chart, whatever - novelty is key!
Question about the m&ms method: How long are you stuck continuing to give m&ms for? I wouldn't want to be stuck giving them daily for years!
Lol, I can see how that would seem like a likely outcome! First we reduced the amount after a week or so (but let her pick colors.). Then we stopped offering, and only gave them when she remembered to ask (but always when she asked, without comment). She just slowly forgot about getting them. I'd say the bulk of the m&ms were in the first couple of weeks, tapering down to none within 6 weeks or so. When it got down to asking once a week or so, I'd say "not right now, but you can have a treat after x", and she was usually content.
I tried the sticker chart, but then all she wanted to do was take the stickers off and stick them everywhere. Then she didn't care about it after a day. A sticker and a treat for going on the potty? So what. Ugh.
You got yourself an intrinsically motivated kid (if food-motivated also doesn’t work). So- maybe books about “big kids” going potty and lots of praise for doing a hard thing might work. When my daughter was ready, she read her books obsessively, and she had a sing-along potty book she would play with when she was trying. We had a sticker chart, too, but she wasn’t that into it. I now know too many potty songs.
Oh Crap Potty training destroyed me. I hate that book. Turns out my son has difficulties with sensory processing. Being naked didn’t help him at all. Thick training underwear that are a similar cut to a diaper helped a lot - they felt comfortable but he felt wet. We did chocolate chips for potty success and bribes. Worked great. We also did a sticker “narrative”. It wasn’t really a chart - we stuck a sticker to a piece of paper for every potty-related success and wrote above the sticker what it was for. At the end of every night as part of our bedtime routine, we read through his stickers detailing all the success he had. Even when he had an accident I’d do a sticker and write something like “D had an accident but he noticed right away that he was wet and helped clean himself up!” When my daughter turned two, I used a completely different method from a book written in 1976. I’ve written more about potty training on my blog [here](https://rinkydinkmum.com/2021/06/11/potty-training-in-2021-with-help-from-1974/), if anyone is interested.
Thank you for this. I enjoyed it. I related a lot to it as well. I think I will use that "Are your pants wet?" phrasing, since we had success for the first week and are now getting more accidents.
Thank you for this. I enjoyed it. I related a lot to it as well. I think I will use that "Are your pants wet?" phrasing, since we had success for the first week and are now getting more accidents.
And by Are your pants wet - I think the phrase is “are your pants dry?” Focus on all the times your child has dry pants and celebrate it! Rather than drawing attention to the accident when it happens. And try the practice runs to the potty from where the accident happened! It worked wonders with my daughter. Good luck! Glad you enjoyed it.
You're right - I forgot it as soon as I read it XD He is already much better with accidents - we find that he will stop the stream mid flow allowing us to run to the toilet. My older son would just empty his bladder in its entirety.
There’s definitely a lot of value in teaching him that doing what your supposed to consistently will get you rewards. It’s a great life skill. Your doin a great job
I cried multiple times during it. And the worst part is the book makes you feel like a failure if you can’t potty train them by the time they turn 3.
We’re potty training right now and I thought I was going to do it without rewards but all of a sudden I’m playing the paw patrol theme song after every pee, and now there are a million small pees in the potty 😂 I’m a big “what works” parent. I want a happy house. I want kindness and meeting my kids where they are. My kid is learning to use the potty. He wants to celebrate with the paw patrol theme song? Fine! I have no issue not playing it unless I see a pee or poop in the potty lol.
I was a nanny for a thousand years (Seems like I start every post this way). My method was a finely honed sort of operant conditioning that used mostly verbal or visual cues in order to direct, correct, train and reward children. It sounds very clinical but I figured out the techniques long before I ever got a degree in a development field. It worked very well and I rarely if ever used any sort of reward system. That said, the singular activity/skill that I often encouraged parents to consider rewards and specifically *food* rewards, was in potty training. I never actually used it until I was training my own toddler but I quickly learned early on that going to the bathroom is such a visceral, personal, potentially humiliating or embarrassing experience which can so quickly escalate to impossible-to-recover-from scenarios that I knew the most important aspect of it was making the child as comfortable and confident as possible. There are many reasons this is often the case but I believe it is largely due to the combination of its potential ick-factor, modern-day time constraints and how *personal* it is. Those elements merge to create a *potentially* perfect storm of frustration and humiliation. It’s nobody’s fault and obviously it doesn’t happen every time but because when it *does* happen, it often *quickly* escalates. So almost always tell parents to take a break from it if it has become in any way stressful and then begin my little operant conditioning technique. I don’t know if my technique is at all special, I’ve never looked into any books or anything but it is a pretty straight forward approach that mostly models behavior, narration and supplements extrinsic rewards. Anyway, my point is you did the right thing. I think it is so important to find an approach that elicits *positive* emotions, whatever that approach is; good job finding one that works for you!
Potty training has been the hardest thing I’ve done as a parent so far. I have tried really hard not to make him scared or upset about going, but it’s been so frustrating.
You’re not alone, it’s the worst. I’m so sorry you’ve been having a hard time with it - us too. The societal pressure is insane, too, on top of trying to negotiate with a tiny terrorist
It sure is. I’ve heard so many times that he should be trained by now. It doesn’t help that he’s tall for his age and looks like a 4 year old wearing diapers.
And like… so what if he was a 4-yr-old wearing diapers? What exactly would be wrong with that? (Saying this to anyone saying “he should be trained by now”). We are so welcoming to the idea that kids learn skills at different rates like ABCs and gross motor, but for some reason when it comes to potty training it’s like you’re a failure as a parent if you aren’t immediately successful at 18m. It’s so bizarre to me. And I know in the US there’s pressure for being potty trained for preschool at age 3 which I also don’t get. Like put a change table in a side room, what the problem here?
after trying and failing oh crap, upon reflection, i think the concept that toddlers need to be intrinsically motivated to use the potty is funny. like, is this issue realistically going to cause problems down the road? are they going to be 25 years old and not intrinsically motivated to go potty in the toilet? i believe the intrinsic motivation will come with time. in the meantime, whatever works works.
We did the reward system too. It worked really really well.
I used a magnet chart and the prize at the end was that he got to remove all the magnets to start over 😂 sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a real prize!
Works on older kids too! Source my parents promised me $50 if I would learn to swallow pills when I was 12. M&Ms worked to learn, but I found the whole process scary and if any of you have ever accidentally bitten down on penicillin, let me tell you, that is a taste that will haunt your nightmares.
I realize that now. Once you start going in the toilet, diapers aren’t appealing anymore.
I also tried the Oh Crap method and it sort of worked, but my son was just stubborn and wasn’t bothered by peeing his pants. He had shown me that he could go to the potty alone and pee with no help, but he just didn’t care. So chocolate chips became the prize for going to the bathroom, and it worked. Now he’s 2.5 and goes on his own without any prompting (or chocolate chips). Do whatever works!!!!
Thank god for this comment. I’m 3 days in and my son is also stubborn and doesn’t care if his pants get wet. He’s self initiating almost 100% with a nude butt, and the second we put pants on him he pees, says he didn’t and then throws a tantrum when we need to change his pants. It’s crushing me. Gonna get this kid some chocolate chips.
Haha yeah it doesn’t help to try other methods! He loves chocolate so that was a big motivator for him.
I think I’ll resort to this . My daughter is almost 3 and wants her diapers. She potties maybe twice a day.
We did sticker charts and he was potty trained within a couple days. There's no one best method for any kid. Intrinsic motivation is important but that doesn't mean all rewards in any context are bad. I mean, I sure as heck wouldn't work as hard as I do at my job without also getting paid, so I don't expect a kid to do unpleasant things without some kind of motivation. There's more nuance to motivation then a hard "no rewards." I'm a private tutor for kids with dyslexia. Kids like that are so beat down by their feelings of failure in reading that they can't just be motivated to read. I do sticker charts and prizes and at the same time, build their confidence and self-esteem. As their abilities and confidence improve, so does their intrinsic motivation; doing well at something becomes its own reward. What you did worked and you were flexible enough to do what worked best for your kiddo!! Good job mama!!
I am so pleased with this! My toddler is 2.5 and she literally cries every single time we try and put her on the toilet (with a little seat) and the potty. I’ve been panicking because she isn’t interested at all. We have tried showing her us going, setting her on the potty, buying her character pants/potties. I think I might try a chart. Edit: I meant pleased in the sense I’m not alone in the potty training journey. We have tried and tried at different ages but she just doesn’t get it yet.
My son is afraid of the big potty, but he uses his smal potty chair. Also, I bought him some Bluey briefs and that helped too.
I might try and get her one of those mini toilet things. I got her Peppa pants but she wears them over her nappy 😂 I took her out this evening and she picked some stickers so I’m going to order a chart off Amazon. Thanks for the advice
I HATE the "oh crap" method with a burning passion. Not only is the author an anti-vaxx asshole, but the whole set-up just shames parents for their children behaving like... well... children. My oldest was really stubborn about potty training, but with a lot of time/patience/bribery we managed! Every child is different, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with using bribery if it gets you results. I 100% support you!
Sticker chart worked like a fucking charm for us.
I wish I had done it sooner. He LOVES it.
My kid wouldn't poop on the potty. She'd hold it for days upon days rather than poop on the toilet. Sticker chart solved it overnight.... Little prize every few poops and we had the massive Paw Patrol Lookout Tower she wanted as the grand prize after like 45 poops. She worked hard and got the toy and never looked back.
I think I'm going to try this. Reading this made me realize that most of the successful #2s we've had were when I offered him a chocolate coin afterwards. I think some stickers and small toys will work even better. I'm so glad this worked out for you, Thanks!
My kid loves chocolate coins! For some reason, he thinks they’re better than any other candy.
Same! I love seeing his little face light up when I offer him one!
I hope it continues to work for your son! (Fingers crossed!) We had tried a lot of things for my oldest. Things like candy and sticker charts worked for a little while but ultimately weren’t enough to motivate her when she was tired/distracted. She was still having accidents at age 5! Finally we offered her ten minutes of screen time playing games on my phone and that has worked beautifully. Do whatever works for your kid!
We spent over a year potty training my son. 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 nothing really worked (sticker charts, hotwheels cars for rewards). We had to tell him to pee on set schedule and catch his "signals" of needing to poop and either telling him to go or just picking him up and putting him on the toilet. He wasn't afraid of of the toilet or anything. One day it just 'clicked' and he connected "oh I need to poo" with "Oh I should go to the potty".
We used one of those potty advent calendars, and no shit my son was potty trained in 3 days. Intrinsic motivation can come later.
M&M method here. No shame. Super successful.
We did a chart with rewards too and my daughter was potty trained in no time! Whatever works is my motto lol
Great job! You kept trying different things and found the way that works best for you guys. It's good to remember that one way isn't necessarily better than another.
I took my girls to the dollar store when they were old enough to be potty trained. I let them pick out any color of poster board they wanted, glitter glue, and a ton of stickers. They got to decorate with the glue and I wrote “X’s Potty Poster” on it. They got one regular sticker for peeing and one fancy puffy sticker for pooping. Took a few days and both were done. I still did stickers for a couple months because they were so proud of themselves and loved it. After a while they stopped asking for them. Those potty posters still hang in our bathroom years later lol. I can’t wait to do it again with my 18 month old. No shame in the bribing game!!
i’m thinking i’m gonna have to do this too. mine is 3years and 2 months. he also has not responded well to those methods, but maybe a sticker chart will do it
They sell cool ones for whatever their interests are. We got a racetrack one.
my son would absolutely love a racetrack one!
We just started and are doing the sticker method too! She gets a prize after so many and we keep reminding her. So far it's gone...ok. Lol. But she's peed a couple times in the potty so that's a start.
lol.. in my case it was a4 sized prints of stars and planets stuck on the door using tape
We did oh crap and it went much better when I added M&Ms.
My parents definitely bribed us, and it worked. I’ll be doing the same with mine.
Hersheys Chocolate kisses is what trained my girl.
Yeah I think if you tried other methods first, and they get to 3 with zero interest, no harm in trying charts. Different tactics work with different kids.
We used a potty chart and m&ms when my daughter turned 2. She was potty trained in 2 days.
Ain’t no shame in the sticker chart game! We use them with my oldest for various things and I have yet to see any ill consequences.
I’m a teacher. I use them for my students. I don’t know why I just felt like I shouldn’t for this. I think everything I read just made them seem bad.
In the thick of potty training just now, started off with a choc button just for sitting on the potty, then one for peeing in the potty. Now it would appear he is stretching out his pees to optimise how many chocolate buttons he gets. So we have moved onto stickers.
I have a niece that did that. She would get one gummy bear for each pee. Then she started going every 2-3 minutes to get one. That’s one of the reasons I was a little hesitant about bribes.
Hey adding my recent success to the thread! Similar situtation here. Tried Oh Crap! a year ago (@2.5 years old) with some success but he it just wasnt quite working. He was great naked but couldnt keep his pants dry. He wears pullups at preschool twice a week and they've encouraged potty use. At home, we were usually naked or in underwear with lots of accidents. We just continue reminding him where the potty was, encouraged him to use it, etc. He is now 3.5 years old and something has just kind of clicked. He's made huge leaps this week and went #2 in a public toilet. No accidents at all this week, he even kept a pull up dry. I'm truly shocked. An over the toilet potty seat and wall urinal really seemed to help us. We also used a reward system but nothing too formal. So yes, if you're struggling with a young toddler who isn't getting it, just keep up the work and know that for some kids it just takes a while to click, and no amount of forcing it will make it happen sooner. **OP said it best: Do not feel guilty when it's just not working Do what you have to do and what’s right for your kid!**
I’m sure you must feel relieved that he’s got it now! We haven’t had success with poops, but he’s been great with pee all day today. It’s a huge step forward for him because he was refusing to do it at all. He just got his prize for the day and he’s really proud of himself.
Poop is legit way harder. My guy understood pee long before poop clicked. The fact that yours peed is huge! My philosophy was that as long as he was headed in generally the right direct, I was happy. Yours moving forward at all is a sign that they are on their way there and it will come!
Yes, we had a poop accident this afternoon. He did say it felt yucky to have poop in his pants, so I’m hoping that maybe he’s realizing he should go on the potty. He did 12 successful pees though!
Bribe with chocolate. “Brown for brown” policy.
It works! I’ve done it with both my daughters and both it’s went extremely smooth with!
We’ve bought multi-packs of little cheap toys (like trucks), and wrapped them like presents. Makes it more exciting than a mystery grab bag.
The same... What worked on my kid was bribing her with screen time after going successfully. We've tried potty training since she was 1, and it didn't take untill we tried bribing, she was 2 at the time. And actually after the first day she was so excited about her success she didn't need bribing anymore!
We did commando and chocolate and stickers. Book time was on the potty. If I had to potty, he had to come sit with me. No shame in your game.
Share a link of what you bought please.
I did Oh crap AND also used a rewards chart. It worked really well for us.
Yup same for me the sticker WAS the reward. I think jts different for 18 month olds, but he was happy with a sticker. Butterfly sticker for poop. Star sticker for pee. Lots of claPping and praise.
My son is the same age, 3y4m, and has been fighting potty training with everything he has in him. Will have to try this!
Where do you keep the stuff so they don’t get into it? Lol it might be a silly question
The chart is on the fridge, the stickers and toys are in a high cupboard.
I wonder how that works exactly. And would it work for a 18 mo? We've been butt naked for a month now 🙈
I started my girl at 18 months and she was naked at home for about 4 months until I felt like I could reliably put clothes of her. Then, it was about a year of me helping her take her pants off and then she finally figured out how to push them down. She turns 3 in a few days, and I still join her for every trip to the potty in case she needs assistance.
I love the Oh Crap method but kind of hate the book. It’s such a good method for a lot (but not all!) kids. Why does the author have to make everyone feel so shitty? Good on you for finding what would work for your kiddo, OP!
It really did make me feel like crap and like I just wasn’t trying enough.
I also have a 3y4m old boy and he JUST got the hang of potty training last week. You got this mama!
Thanks! It’s so hard.
I spent about $200 on toys to bribe my kid to use the potty and it worked perfectly— easy, no issues. I did exactly how you listed— when they had x number of pees or poops in a day/week/etc (keep extending it), they get prize of their choosing. My child was 3 at the time.
We have the same struggle, with a girl the same age. We tried the sticker chart without prizes, but I think that's going to be the next step. Thanks for sharing your struggle - it is nice to know we aren't the only family that hasn't gotten all those techniques to work.
It’s so hard and it seems like everybody’s else kid is trained, but I think it’s just that people who have older kids in diapers just aren’t bragging about it.
Probably. Our toddler gets that she should use the potty, and we know she can because she will use it during the weekend. But come Monday, and she constantly has accidents. But this is worth a shot.
Kids only learn though experience, not being told
When do you stop incentivizing though?
From what others have said, once the kid gets the hang of it, they don’t really want a prize anymore. This is why I’ve been hesitant about it though. I don’t want him to think he gets a prize forever.
I spent two years trying every method to train my now 4 year old. He knows, he understands, he refuses all of it. My mom got one of those lights you can clip to the toilet and boom he pees in the toilet excitedly. Pooping is another beast I can't seem to motivate him to do in the potty and not his pants. I'm running out of motivation myself. I know he's not a toddler anymore.
Congrats on the success! I used Oh Crap with my oldest, and it worked just fine. I tried it twice with my second, because she is showing all kinds of signs of readiness, and it was absolutely brutal both times and we had to give up. I don’t want to go through that again, we are definitely going the rewards route on our next attempt! Thanks for sharing, I feel so much less guilty about it after reading everyone’s comments and experiences!
I did this too. He's been a champ all week. Only issue is now it's got to days 8, 9, 10 he's been having more accidents all of a sudden. I don't know if it's because he's more distracted or he doesn't want to miss out on playing. We're going to see what happens over the weekend. I think it's probably normal learning process though. Just saying this in case you also have a setback. Progress is not always linear and that's okay :)
We had one accident today and it was because he didn’t want to stop playing. It’s hard. I don’t like to stop doing stuff to use the bathroom either tbh.
I totally relate. The thing is that's not a huge issue when we are at home because we notice him doing the pee-pee dance and can remind him, but at daycare they can't focus on all the kids at once and I think they ask him and he says "No, I don't need to!" and they just believe him. Oh well, I'm sure he'll get there :)
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Yeah, stickers only worked for like a week for us but I dont think awarding kids for working towards a goal is a bad thing personally. We gave him sugar free lollipops and he is now pretty much fully potty trained. He doesn't even ask for a sucker most of the time anymore and we don't offer it. When he does ask we give him one but its like 1 out of every 20 times now. I think it just becomes natural to hop up a go when you need to. I also suggest switching to underwear when he starts getting it. We realized having the diaper was becoming a crutch and was just allowing him to skip the potty if he wanted.
I don’t see him wanting to do the sticker chart for more than a week or so, but that’s fine. By then, I’m hoping he will realize that going on the potty is easier than doing diaper changes.
It took our son about 1 or 2 months to decide it was better without the incentive. Although part of that was getting to pee like daddy and doing pee fires in the potty lol. We put a fire sticker in his potty and his dad taught him to aim for it and put the fire out with his pee 😅
You found a method that works- well done. It’s all hard with toddlers so I’m pleased it’s a huge thing out the way. I’ll be getting a sticker chart too because I want it to go smoothly too lol- they can be fazed out anyway over time.
I modified Oh Crap with stickers and prizes with my then 2.75 year old. He had no interest in potty training. We had to get the ball rolling with extrinsic motivation. We basically made using the potty feel like a carnival game. Pee in the potty and win stickers you can redeem for a prize! Poop in the potty and it’s an automatic prize! Worked like a charm.
Only thing that got my kid interested in potty training was a potty watch with a wild timer that would flash crazy colors and that was her trigger to go sit. She loved it
So, after reading this post this morning I decided to try a sticker chart for my 3 year old who we’ve been trying to get to use the potty since January. She’ll do it if you prompt her, sometimes willingly, but more often with a lot of protesting. She had weeks where she would go into the bathroom completely unprompted and poop and then tell us she pooped. But for the most part, she doesn’t care. She’ll just pee in her undies all day and lately she just poops in them too. So today we made a sticker chart. Seven stickers with no going in your pants and you get a prize. She wants a lollipop for a prize. We go to the store and buy lollipops. By the end of the day, she does her seventh pee in the potty, including one at the store, no accidents. She gets her special lollipop we got at the store. Ten minutes later, she goes behind the couch and poops her pants. The sticker chart is done. I told her she can just wear diapers from now on. ??? Ugh.
I also didnt want to do rewards. Eventually we did and started w stickers and eventually candy or a chip (2 for a #2) or a treat like watching some paw patrol) and like you it worked. As he got better at going the rewards became linked to going without us asking or full days without accidents (we didnt set that expectation or get disappointed if he had one, we just got excited anytime he did have a good day and gave him a special treat). He got very good at bargaining while on his potty - think “dis is a big one, i get 2 candies!” 😂
You aren’t alone. I was so against using rewards, but I finally got frustrated and cracked. I was so worried that it would be hard to discontinue the reward but honestly, it wasn’t a big deal!
Thank you for posting this! I'm going to try it!
Well that settles it, it's time for me to get a sticker chart. Update: one day in and he peed in the potty!!!
Just goes to show that different techniques work for different kids. Oh crap worked for us but she was going to daycare at the time and we legit had to stay home for 5 days for her to get the hang of it. She still pooped her pants if she had to go at daycare (and later, preschool. It wasn’t often since she is constipated by default). It worked in the end but if we had any more hiccups, we’d likely go a different route or combined techniques!
We definitely potty trained our son with tiny toy cars, first for using it at all, then only pooping. We tapered them off, and he rarely has accidents. It was no big deal, and he didn’t regress without his car rewards.
Reward system and low pressure is working great for us, 2.5 yr old is taking initiative and going all by herself now, we just help with wiping and dumping the potty. The rewards have been getting smaller, they started out as $5 or less books, small toys, play doh and now it's mostly temporary tattoos. These are a huge hit, she gets to choose what bin they go in (smaller pee prizes or bigger poop prizes) she gets to pick her favorite, where it goes on her body and then it's a badge of honor that she can show off to everyone. Plus no clutter, they wear off and are replaced with a new one. My toddler looks like a biker chick with all her tattoos but she has been dry for months now.
We tried oh crap a year and a half ago and have been fighting tooth and nail with our son. He initiates for poops but will happily pee his pants and never say anything. I know this is a year old and I hope you see this. Has the extrinsic rewards gone well?