My son is the same age as yours -- will be 3 in July.
Several weeks ago, during the week of Spring Break (we're in the U.S. but moving to Doha soon), we started Potty Training Boot Camp. . .by "boot camp" I don't mean disciplining him or being nasty, I just mean that we focused on the potty for a solid week. If you are working then this may not be a good option for you, but I swear I would have been willing to take a week off for it!
For the first 3-4 days he didn't wear a diaper at all. . .and no underwear either. We had a few pee accidents around the house, but no poop accidents (he saved that for naptime, when he was diapered). On day four or so we gave him some big boy underwear. We had several accidents every day (more poop than pee), which is gross, but is par for the course.
By the time we got to a week or so he *knew* what was going on and what was expected. Did he always use the potty? No. But he'd been going in a diaper for 2.5 years, so we couldn't expect him to stop going in his pants immediately. Some kids do make the transition immediately and completely, but I suspect that these kids were probably ready to be potty trained long before the parents were ready for it!
Anyway, we are in week five of potty training now. He has only had only one or two poop accidents in the past week and no pee accidents that I can recall. He has figured out that he can hold his poop all day and then go in his diaper when he wakes up (a most unfortunate development), but we're working on that by trying to get him to poop before he goes to bed and telling him every night that he should hold his poop until he gets out of bed.
I am still closely monitoring him when he's not at school, to the point that I think he's getting irritated with me asking if he's ready to use the potty because he does indeed know when he needs to go. I also tend to remove his underwear & pants when he gets home because I know he won't poop on himself and will go to the potty when he needs to. . .very strange how that works. . .no problem to poop in pants, but no way would he poop on the floor or on himself.
We chose not to give rewards for using the potty because we don't feel that we should be giving rewards for something that he is expected to learn as part of life, if that makes sense. It's a personal choice, though. We do try to make it fun by inventing games that we play on the toilet. . .tonight it was boxing into each other's hands. . .another time it was "sink the toilet paper".
OH -- and regarding poop. . .I have discovered that juice boxes work wonders. If I give him a juice box I'm almost guaranteed to hear his footsteps running through the house and into the bathroom within 30 minutes. The high sugar content in juice boxes gets the intestines going and create urgency, so they can be a terrific tool depending on the digestive tract of your child. (Aside from potty training I have never purchased or allowed him to have juice boxes because of the sugar content and the affect they have on his poop!)
Also. . .since we live in a two-story house we purchased two little potties for him. What a joke. He peed in each one once or twice and from there on out he started using the adult toilet; it's amazing to see him hop up there by himself and do his business. If I had it to do over I wouldn't bother with the little potties.. .they just encourage the reliance on something else and make them fearful to go in big toilets when there's nowhere else to go. (Contact me when I'm training child #2 to see if I still have that opinion!!!
Anyway, we're not finished with the potty training journey yet, but it seems to be going well.
My son is the same age as yours -- will be 3 in July.
Several weeks ago, during the week of Spring Break (we're in the U.S. but moving to Doha soon), we started Potty Training Boot Camp. . .by "boot camp" I don't mean disciplining him or being nasty, I just mean that we focused on the potty for a solid week. If you are working then this may not be a good option for you, but I swear I would have been willing to take a week off for it!
For the first 3-4 days he didn't wear a diaper at all. . .and no underwear either. We had a few pee accidents around the house, but no poop accidents (he saved that for naptime, when he was diapered). On day four or so we gave him some big boy underwear. We had several accidents every day (more poop than pee), which is gross, but is par for the course.
By the time we got to a week or so he *knew* what was going on and what was expected. Did he always use the potty? No. But he'd been going in a diaper for 2.5 years, so we couldn't expect him to stop going in his pants immediately. Some kids do make the transition immediately and completely, but I suspect that these kids were probably ready to be potty trained long before the parents were ready for it!
Anyway, we are in week five of potty training now. He has only had only one or two poop accidents in the past week and no pee accidents that I can recall. He has figured out that he can hold his poop all day and then go in his diaper when he wakes up (a most unfortunate development), but we're working on that by trying to get him to poop before he goes to bed and telling him every night that he should hold his poop until he gets out of bed.
I am still closely monitoring him when he's not at school, to the point that I think he's getting irritated with me asking if he's ready to use the potty because he does indeed know when he needs to go. I also tend to remove his underwear & pants when he gets home because I know he won't poop on himself and will go to the potty when he needs to. . .very strange how that works. . .no problem to poop in pants, but no way would he poop on the floor or on himself.
We chose not to give rewards for using the potty because we don't feel that we should be giving rewards for something that he is expected to learn as part of life, if that makes sense. It's a personal choice, though. We do try to make it fun by inventing games that we play on the toilet. . .tonight it was boxing into each other's hands. . .another time it was "sink the toilet paper".
OH -- and regarding poop. . .I have discovered that juice boxes work wonders. If I give him a juice box I'm almost guaranteed to hear his footsteps running through the house and into the bathroom within 30 minutes. The high sugar content in juice boxes gets the intestines going and create urgency, so they can be a terrific tool depending on the digestive tract of your child. (Aside from potty training I have never purchased or allowed him to have juice boxes because of the sugar content and the affect they have on his poop!)
Also. . .since we live in a two-story house we purchased two little potties for him. What a joke. He peed in each one once or twice and from there on out he started using the adult toilet; it's amazing to see him hop up there by himself and do his business. If I had it to do over I wouldn't bother with the little potties.. .they just encourage the reliance on something else and make them fearful to go in big toilets when there's nowhere else to go. (Contact me when I'm training child #2 to see if I still have that opinion!!!
Anyway, we're not finished with the potty training journey yet, but it seems to be going well.
Best of luck!