Next step in potty training

Question

We are having a bit of an odd situation with our 3 year old son regarding the use of a potty.

When our son is walking around with a bare bottom, he is fully potty trained. To the extent that he will hold his pee and poop until he can reach the potty and even stops the flow after a few drops if he has an accident.

However, when he is in diapers, he will just let everything go without telling us. He will happily run around in soiled diapers for hours. It has been a few weeks since we tried having him in underwear, but that had the same effect as diapers.

My question is if anyone has any tips how we can take the next step to get our son to use the potty also when he is wearing underwear or diapers.

Answer 1

He's three, he's potty trained; lose the diapers. Only undies. If he soils the undies, he stops what he's doing and helps you clean them. Is there possibly a pattern for the undies that he would love so much, he'd be disappointed to have to take them off for being dirty?

It would probably help if you enforced frequent potty breaks for a while.

Answer 2

Usually I see the advice is to put trousers (pants in American English) which are baggy and so don't give the feeling of wearing a nappy (diaper). Then once he's got the hang of that, add in the underwear too. Also make sure to prompt regularly for potty trips and that he knows how to take his own trousers down!