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This worked well for us:

http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/A-Potty-Training-In-One-Day4.html

We spent a morning in the kitchen, using the doll and lots of fluids. A few minor accidents later, success!

We've tried just about with everything with DS. He recently turned 3 and we started about a year ago. We even tried sticker charts, and were *very* excited when he went to the potty two different times on the day we posted the chart. The first time he just went #1 and earned one sticker, the seond time #2 and he earned two stickers.

DH and I patted ourselves on the back. After many failed attemps at finding something that would work to get DS to use the potty, we knew we'd find someting that would work! That was easy! As a matter of fact it was too easy. We should have known better!

Once DS used the potty and received those initial stickers, he never used it again. Whenever we asked him if he used the potty, he would take us to his chart, point to it, and say "I already used the potty. I earned my stickers, see?"

Finally, very recently (a few weeks ago, in fact) we took down the chart. We stopped encourging him to use the potty, etc. Last week, we tried getting him to use the potty again. This time he pointed to where his chart used to hang and said, "Well, I already know how to use the potty. I don't need a silly sticker chart for that. I just don't *want* to use it." I asked him, "Why?" He let me know that it took too much time. If he went in his pants he didn't have to stop what he was doing and could get changed when he was ready (e.g. done with whatever he was doing) or uncomfortable.

*sigh*

I think that if he can give you this nice explanation, he's big enough for you to tell him "OK, then you have to change yourself from now on." (That's what I would do!)

That's *brilliant*! Seriously, it never occurred to me to try that. So simple. So perfect for my son's personality.

It took forever to potty train DS6. I finally gave up and about 3 weeks later he went completely independently. Never had another accident or anything. I guess he just had to make up his mind.

why, thank you! My DS sounds like he has the same personality, and he did something very irksome related to potty training, so I just said "OK, that's it. I'm done. No more pullups!" And it worked beautifully.

My daughter was 3 and my son was 3 1/2 before they were potty trained. I wasn't patient enough nor was our schedule regular enough to dedicate a lot of time to training. They both basically trained themselves overnight at that point. With my daughter, it was a month before she was supposed to start preschool. I told her she wasn't going to preschool unless she could use the potty. I told my son he couldn't attend a big boy birthday party he was invited to unless he was potty trained.

If you can back off for a while, I would highly recommend it for everyone's sanity. Especially if your daughter is having anxiety about it. You may find a lead in again at some point that might be motivating. Both my kids needed a real reason to do it.

Someone here (sorry not to give credit, but I can't recall who said it) suggested making the bathroom THE fun place in the house. When the child sits on the potty, you LAVISH attention on him/her. You read books, you play games, you sing songs. Fun!

When the child is not on the potty, you basically ignore him/her.

This seemed pretty doggone smart to me!

My other advice is what it took to get DS7 trained: he went to grandma's house for a week! I think he wanted to please me too much, and he put too much pressure on himself. I still have no idea what she did that I didn't do, except for the fact that she wasn't me!

OTOH, DS4 was simple. He wanted to be like big brother, so he basically trained himself.

Both boys were right at 3yo at the time. All kids are different on this, of course, but my kids definitely weren't ready at 2-ish. FWIW...

For some kids this can backfire because they have mixed feelings/separation anxiety about going to school. I would be careful about using this strategy and be prepared for the possibility that your child will decide they are not going to school anymore and start having "accidents."

Thinking back to when I was training DD, I would say that as a parent I had some performance anxiety about my ability to accomplish training my child. It seems to be a parenting milestone as well as a childhood milestone.

Maybe kids pick up on that and it feeds into their own performance anxiety about using the potty?