3 year old and Potty

[Anonymous]

My 3 year old has never had an issue meeting milestones; she is very bright (not just family’s opinion, but teachers and drs too). She first went to the potty around 18 months. We thought we’d be one of those lucky parents who have a toilet trained 2 year old. Fast forward to now and she is still not there.

The tricky part is, if she is naked from the waist down, she has a 100% success rate. She takes herself to the potty and will poop and pee, no issue. Says poo poo is coming, etc. The minute she is in clothes (commando), wearing a pull up, or underwear, she has a 0% success rate. She will sometimes poop or pee in the potty when we take her, other times she sits and nothing - but then will go in pull up or undies shortly thereafter. But she will NEVER initiate if wearing something. The mess in her pull-up does not bother her.

We’ve tried all the tricks- extreme enthusiasm, tough love, fun undies, treats, sticker chart, prize bucket, taking away “big girl” toys like her tablet and tonie box (she can earn them back by potting / staying dry).

Daycare was taking her every 20 mins, but after telling our dr this, he said that is causing a power struggle (which it was - lots of tantrums), and to take her every 2 hrs. Right now, we asked daycare to take her every hr bc even with every hr, her pull up is wet half the time. This has at least limited the tantrums.

Dr says play therapy if no improvement after 2 months.

We’re at a loss and desperate. To make things worse, we have a 6 week old (I know, regression…).

She starts preschool in May and has to be trained to go.

Overnights during bedtime are always soaked, if that means anything….

[Anonymous]

That sounds hard! I have a couple thoughts:

If you think you might need to take her to a therapist start researching right now and getting on waitlists. A 2 month waitlist would be short/typical. You don’t have to do the appointments if you don’t need them.

So have you asked her what is going on from her perspective? Does she hate wearing clothes and wants to be allowed to wander around with no pants? I know she’s only 3 but my kid who was also bright and stubborn would really surprise me with her ability to explain herself at that age. Even if she can’t explain maybe she has some ideas about what would help. I really like how to talk so little kids will listen for kids this age. If she’s having big tantrums it does sound like there’s a power struggle to some extent. I’d try really hard to be super matter of fact about everything to try and work on that.

Also, my kid had ADHD and really did not know when she needed to go until very shortly before she was going to have an accident. When I had my younger child I realized how much easier it was - some kids have a much greater ability to recognize the signal before they have like 1 minute to make it to the toilet. My poor kid had accidents even at 5 if they were out on a far playground and she couldn’t make it back in time. So maybe focus on working on something 100 percent in her control- her ability to be taken to the toilet without a struggle. Maybe you focus on that for a while. A sticker chart or just lots of praise for improvement. That strategy might work even in preschool; both my kids schools had pretty regular potty schedules - maybe you will feel calmer if you know what they will and won’t do in the spring.

[Anonymous]

This sounds really hard.

I had the "my pants are a diaper" confusion with a two year old. I spent an uncomfortable three weeks carrying 10 changes of clothes and a portable little potty everywhere and checking every twenty mins. Eventually it stuck.

It's harder in colder weather and if you're not at home to do this.... But maybe you can arrange something if my experience sounds useful to you.

It's possible that you might need to lose the pull-up entirely, day and night? For night, layer several waterproof layers on the bed for easy cleanup, and take her.to pee at night before you go to bed but after she is in bed?

And during the day you/daycare will have to deal with wet pants... but... is she ok with wet and stinky pants as well as a pull-up? Does she generally care about your approval/disapproval?


Anyway, good luck!

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP, you might need to drop the pull ups and underwear and just send them to daycare with 10 pairs of pants and socks. The loser the better (get sweat pants instead of leggings) so it feels more like going bare bottom than having the accident contained.

[Anonymous]

Overnight is something that is out of her control. She should not be in underwear if she can't be successful at it. This may take a couple of years.

[Anonymous]

Question: Was she EVER successfully toilet trained, before the baby? you say "We thought we'd be lucky..." To me, that says you had initial success at 18 months, but there wasn't continued success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That sounds hard! I have a couple thoughts:

If you think you might need to take her to a therapist start researching right now and getting on waitlists. A 2 month waitlist would be short/typical. You don’t have to do the appointments if you don’t need them.

So have you asked her what is going on from her perspective? Does she hate wearing clothes and wants to be allowed to wander around with no pants? I know she’s only 3 but my kid who was also bright and stubborn would really surprise me with her ability to explain herself at that age. Even if she can’t explain maybe she has some ideas about what would help. I really like how to talk so little kids will listen for kids this age. If she’s having big tantrums it does sound like there’s a power struggle to some extent. I’d try really hard to be super matter of fact about everything to try and work on that.

Also, my kid had ADHD and really did not know when she needed to go until very shortly before she was going to have an accident. When I had my younger child I realized how much easier it was - some kids have a much greater ability to recognize the signal before they have like 1 minute to make it to the toilet. My poor kid had accidents even at 5 if they were out on a far playground and she couldn’t make it back in time. So maybe focus on working on something 100 percent in her control- her ability to be taken to the toilet without a struggle. Maybe you focus on that for a while. A sticker chart or just lots of praise for improvement. That strategy might work even in preschool; both my kids schools had pretty regular potty schedules - maybe you will feel calmer if you know what they will and won’t do in the spring.

Same with my 5yr old! If you are able to, can you share some typical ADHD behavior and the process for getting diagnosed? Our child has been going through it and I suspect ADHD but I’ve never heard anyone relate it to potty accidents. He was very similar, didn’t seem like he was aware he had to go. I guess in a sense a diagnosis doesn’t really matter if I can learn how to best support him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Overnight is something that is out of her control. She should not be in underwear if she can't be successful at it. This may take a couple of years.

I don't know if this is always the case. That's the current thinking but I've only started hearing about separate daytime and nighttime training pretty recently, and have seen siblings, cousins, and my own kids do the training all at once, day and night. It might be that the pull-up makes them comfortable peeing at night, even subconsciously? I am not an expert, but if this wasn't a thing a generation before that might not be necessarily true for all kids. it might also be different for boys than for girls, since when I've read bed-wetting at later ages is more of a boys' than a girls' issue. I only have girls and siblings/cousins were all boys. I'm not sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overnight is something that is out of her control. She should not be in underwear if she can't be successful at it. This may take a couple of years.

I don't know if this is always the case. That's the current thinking but I've only started hearing about separate daytime and nighttime training pretty recently, and have seen siblings, cousins, and my own kids do the training all at once, day and night. It might be that the pull-up makes them comfortable peeing at night, even subconsciously? I am not an expert, but if this wasn't a thing a generation before that might not be necessarily true for all kids. it might also be different for boys than for girls, since when I've read bed-wetting at later ages is more of a boys' than a girls' issue. I only have girls and siblings/cousins were all boys. I'm not sure.

NP. Yes it’s always the case. The stuff people do to “night train” kids involves literally waking them up to pee at like 11pm so that they don’t pee in their beds while asleep, or just dealing with bed wetting for as long as it takes. Since it can vary by kid, it might take 6 months or a year or 3 years, since the key factor is a hormone change that enables their bodies to wake them up to pee. People think it was their “training” but it wasn’t. It just seems that way if the shift occurs earlier.

I am female and I wet the bed well into elementary school. And then one day stopped. My parents were exasperated but there was nothing to “learn”. With my DD, we just left her in diapers at night and then in kindergarten they were always dry so we got rid of them. No training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overnight is something that is out of her control. She should not be in underwear if she can't be successful at it. This may take a couple of years.

I don't know if this is always the case. That's the current thinking but I've only started hearing about separate daytime and nighttime training pretty recently, and have seen siblings, cousins, and my own kids do the training all at once, day and night. It might be that the pull-up makes them comfortable peeing at night, even subconsciously? I am not an expert, but if this wasn't a thing a generation before that might not be necessarily true for all kids. it might also be different for boys than for girls, since when I've read bed-wetting at later ages is more of a boys' than a girls' issue. I only have girls and siblings/cousins were all boys. I'm not sure.

NP. Yes it’s always the case. The stuff people do to “night train” kids involves literally waking them up to pee at like 11pm so that they don’t pee in their beds while asleep, or just dealing with bed wetting for as long as it takes. Since it can vary by kid, it might take 6 months or a year or 3 years, since the key factor is a hormone change that enables their bodies to wake them up to pee. People think it was their “training” but it wasn’t. It just seems that way if the shift occurs earlier.

I am female and I wet the bed well into elementary school. And then one day stopped. My parents were exasperated but there was nothing to “learn”. With my DD, we just left her in diapers at night and then in kindergarten they were always dry so we got rid of them. No training.

If it was the case for you doesn't mean that it's always the case, and statistically it seems boys have more bedwetting problems than girls on average into older ages, which doesn't diminish your experience.

As it is, looks like the truth is in the middle, and based on these two links there is something like a coin-flip chance of night training earlier rather than assuming it's impossible.

First link cites stats claiming 60% or so of kids can hold it by age 3, and second link suggests ways to know when you're likely to be successful and does claim that kids get comfortable with the pull-up if you miss a certain window, and points out (correctly, IMO) that prior generations didn't make this distinction.

Neither link is necessarily gospel truth but there is more nuance to the "no it's impossible, separate night and day training, don't even try them together" view.

https://alphamom.com/parenting/nighttime-potty-training-vs-daytime-potty-training/

https://www.ohcrappottytrainingmetoyou.com/post/how-to-know-when-to-drop-the-night-diapers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overnight is something that is out of her control. She should not be in underwear if she can't be successful at it. This may take a couple of years.

I don't know if this is always the case. That's the current thinking but I've only started hearing about separate daytime and nighttime training pretty recently, and have seen siblings, cousins, and my own kids do the training all at once, day and night. It might be that the pull-up makes them comfortable peeing at night, even subconsciously? I am not an expert, but if this wasn't a thing a generation before that might not be necessarily true for all kids. it might also be different for boys than for girls, since when I've read bed-wetting at later ages is more of a boys' than a girls' issue. I only have girls and siblings/cousins were all boys. I'm not sure.

NP. Yes it’s always the case. The stuff people do to “night train” kids involves literally waking them up to pee at like 11pm so that they don’t pee in their beds while asleep, or just dealing with bed wetting for as long as it takes. Since it can vary by kid, it might take 6 months or a year or 3 years, since the key factor is a hormone change that enables their bodies to wake them up to pee. People think it was their “training” but it wasn’t. It just seems that way if the shift occurs earlier.

I am female and I wet the bed well into elementary school. And then one day stopped. My parents were exasperated but there was nothing to “learn”. With my DD, we just left her in diapers at night and then in kindergarten they were always dry so we got rid of them. No training.

If it was the case for you doesn't mean that it's always the case, and statistically it seems boys have more bedwetting problems than girls on average into older ages, which doesn't diminish your experience.

As it is, looks like the truth is in the middle, and based on these two links there is something like a coin-flip chance of night training earlier rather than assuming it's impossible.

First link cites stats claiming 60% or so of kids can hold it by age 3, and second link suggests ways to know when you're likely to be successful and does claim that kids get comfortable with the pull-up if you miss a certain window, and points out (correctly, IMO) that prior generations didn't make this distinction.

Neither link is necessarily gospel truth but there is more nuance to the "no it's impossible, separate night and day training, don't even try them together" view.

https://alphamom.com/parenting/nighttime-potty-training-vs-daytime-potty-training/

https://www.ohcrappottytrainingmetoyou.com/post/how-to-know-when-to-drop-the-night-diapers

The point is that it is not possible for a child to avoid bedwetting until physiological changes make it possible. For some kids that could happen by 3, but for others it can be later. You can't know which your kid is, and if you push it and it turns out they are not ready, you could make things pretty miserable for both your kid and yourself.

You will be successful at avoiding bedwetting when your child consistently goes through the night with a dry diaper. This is the only sign of readiness, and when it happens you don't have to train your child to do anything. You just stop putting them in a diaper.

If your kid is consistently waking up with a wet diaper, you can of course drive yourself and your child crazy trying to night train them using methods that disrupt their sleep. I just don't really understand what the purpose of this would be.

[Anonymous]

You need to have realistic expectations of your child. You are setting her up to fail by trying to night train her before she is fully potty trained, so please stop that. My DD was fully potty trained (including night) at 2.5, because she was ready. She asked to wear underwear, she was fully potty trained during the day, and we didn't need to limit her liquids. She has a water bottle on her nightstand. IMHO if you need to cut liquids and wake your child up multiple times at night, your child is not ready to go the night without a diaper. And it really doesn't matter when your child is night trained. There's no award for that.

In terms of potty training during the day, set realistic goals for her and figure out what her hang ups (if any) are and how to address them. We told my DD that her poop wanted to all be together as a family in the toilet (someone on DCUM suggested this) and it worked brilliantly. Also, recognize that there will be regression if you move or change schools or there is a new baby.

Also, you seem too hung up on your kid's intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Im not trying to night train. I just gave the info about the soaked pull up at night to give you an idea about bladder control maybe- bc I’ve heard when they are mostly dry at night that’s an indicator they can control bladder.

[Anonymous]

Going to preschool was what did it for us. A few months before school started I explained there are no diapers at school. Several weeks before school started, I reiterated to DD that there are no diapers or pull-ups at school so the diapers and pull-ups are going away. And then we went cold turkey.

It was a messy few days. We just changed clothes all day until she understood what she had to do. I also asked her to take the lead on cleaning up. If she had an accident, I gave her paper towels and I helped her clean up the floor. And then we continued playing or whatever. No shame, just very encouraging and supportive.

On the first day of school, I was so worried but she came home dry. I think she had two accidents and then she figured it out.