[bellasmomok]

5 mo. is still young, but not tooooo young. My Bella is 4 mo. old (+ a wk. or 2), and she uses her piddle pad VERY consistently with only a few mistakes now and then--she's piddle pad trained, not "go outside" trained, though she still will go outside if we're out there and she needs to go. (Btw, I was sitting where you were a couple of months ago because I thought we'd never get her to stop using the carpet, but it did happen!) I'll just tell you what worked for her/us, and you can take it or leave it. To start with, she had to be watched every single second (which got old VERY quickly), and when she wasn't watched she had to be in her crate. I was against crate training at the beginning, but it is SOOOO helpful during potty training--that's when I bought hers, when we started really potty training hard.

[Side note: putting her crate in the living room where we are all the time helped immensely. I thought if she saw us, she'd want out to be with us, and that was the case at first, but she cried and squalled a thousand times over worse when she could hear us but couldn't see us.]

So, by this time, we had only one pad out in the place we're going to keep it, and we took her to her pad constantly. Anytime we thought she might be sniffing, or it had just been awhile since her last potty, we took her to her pad and waited. And she pretty much had to stay on the pad until she went (unless it had been like 15 minutes or so, and we'd give up and watch for more signs, then go right back). When ever she goes, while she's still going, we said "go potty", so she'd associate that phrase with that action. Then, every time she went where she was supposed to, we made a HUGE deal over it (even if it was after she was forced to stay on her pad for awhile), excited tone of voice, "Good girl", "Yay!", even clapping excitedly. I'm telling you, we made a BIG deal of it. Then she always gets a treat (even now, still).

[Side note: Some experts say not to use food as potty training incentives, and some say to always use it. We tried not using treats, but when we started giving her treats after every single potty in the appropriate place it made a big difference. I don't think she cares whether she gets one now or not--she usually potties all by herself and we don't know until later--but she still gets excited when she does. And we make her "sit" or "down" before we give it as an extra little "we're in charge".]

In the beginning, she really resisted hard--sitting on her pad forever, refusing to go, then she'd walk right off it and go!! When that started happening, I did employ an old method that most will say you should never do, but it worked for my baby. After a week or 2 of only praise, etc... I started sticking her nose in it, giving her a little spaking, and saying "No ma'am, that is NOT where we potty." Then I'd take her to her pad and make her stay there for a bit. She did NOT like it at all, but it took a few of those before she decided she'd rather just go where she's supposed to. I hated doing it, but..... A lot of people say using that method will make your dog afraid of you, which is why I didn't want to do it in the first place, but my baby is definitely not afraid of me! She kisses me and checks on me to make sure I'm okay when I'm sick, and is ALWAYS glad I'm home, and sticks to me like glue. But, all I have to do is clap loudly and change the tone of my voice for her to know I mean buisness! (usually)

Anyway, moral is....doing the above took me all of 10 days or so to get her to potty in the right place at least 98% of the time. She does still have accidents, usually when I'm not paying close attention, but she voluntarily will stop playing and go to her pad when she needs to potty without me having to take her there. And, if she just woke up or we just got home, I can usually day "Do you need to go potty?" There are a lot of times she hears those magic words (because we said them EVERY time she was actually going while we were in training mode), and walks right over and does her business. All that for a 4 mo. old!! I think that's pretty good, considering I know 2 year old Yorkies that aren't potty trained! Yay!

Good luck! I hope whatever method or combination of methods you choose work out for you (and your baby) as good as ours did. I do remember thinking in the beginning....she's never going to get it is she? But, she did! And we're both happy!