Potty Training: Update

Mom and I decided that we are going to postpone potty training for a while.  The reason is that we don't think Alyce is ready for yet.  Physically she is capable of controlling herself to stay dry for hours on end however, she isn't telling us when she needs to go.  This presents the situation where Mom and I have to ask her if needs to go where the response is always "no".  If we think that in fact she does we can cajole her into sitting on the toilet and hopefully something will happen.  If it does she was very proud of herself and would get a prize but that success never would carry on to the next time she had to go.

We are suspending the training because cajoling seemed to be losing its effectiveness and we were resorting to having to force Alyce to sit on the potty.  It came to a head a few days ago when Mom was getting Alyce into her underwear in the morning and Alyce said she didn't want to wear them anymore.  I took it as a sign that forcing toilet training was stressing her out.  From all that we've read forcing this process is counterproductive and her resisting is a sign she isn't ready.  That being said we can't continue to keep her in diapers because why would she want to leave them?  If she wears those she can play for as long as she wants and it only take 30 seconds to switch her out vs the 3 minutes it takes in the bathroom.  So we are going to look for some form of training pants solution that will make her uncomfortable in diapers but not run through to her clothing.  We are hoping that eventually she will say she has to go before she does and we can get her to the toilet in time.

I can't place all of the blame on Alyce though.  Mom and I don't really have much of a clue on what we are doing.  Most of the things we've read include throwing parties and the like to get kids excited about ditching diapers or using dolls to explain the process.  But what happens when the party is over and your child knows how to use a potty but refuses to do so?