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My DS4 was really hard to potty train, he was 3.5 when we finally got him out of diapers, but he still wears Good Nights at night because he can't stay dry. For us, it seemed that I had to really mean business before he trained and when he did it was simply because I didn't give him any other option. I would have just had to keep cleaning the carpet because I absolutely wasn't going to put him back in a diaper.

He simply refused to sit on the potty to begin with, so we did bribe him one time- he wanted a new Thomas the Train engine so we told him if he would pee on the potty 3x without an accident in between we would go right then to get it. We printed out a picture of the train he wanted and let him color it, then we hung it up near the potty where he could see it. We did that in the morning and that afternoon we went to the toy store because he had done what we asked.

Once we had him peeing on the potty we didn't do any more rewards. I literally walked him to the potty every 10 minutes, I joke that I nagged him into potty training but it's actually not far from the truth. It became easier for him to interrupt his play to potty than to be interrupted by me every 10 minutes and have to sit for a minimum of 5 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I had more than my fair share of him going on the floor in between my taking him, just out of defiance, but eventually I wore him down. I didn't yell or scream at him when he had an accident (which is *really* hard!), I had him sit on the potty while I cleaned it up and we moved on.

With my stubborn kid, I had to be ready to win the battle of wills. I had to be sick enough of it that I wouldn't back down no matter what. And I think he realized when I got to that point and didn't fight as much as he had previously.

DS6 just one day at 2.5 announced that he was going to use the potty and that was that. DD2 will only sit on the potty when no one is paying attention, she can undress herself, get up there, wipe and be out of the bathroom in no time. If I say so much as "good job", she will pee on the floor the next time, if I ignore it chances are good she'll go on the potty again later. It has to be her idea or she fights me, so for now I'm letting it go because she's working towards training.

I think I've had the gamut of potty trainers and I can honestly say that it's nothing that I've done or not done to cause it!

ETA: In re-reading, it seems like maybe I was a bit mean, but really, the child could go to the potty (as evidenced by the rapid earning of the train), he just *refused*. I wouldn't use this method for a kid who isn't completely willful and stubborn.