Fed up with potty training

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're going to get lots of tips in this thread and I was bad at potty training, so I'm not going to give you any -- others have you covered.

I will say this: potty training went poorly for us. It's not easy to say why. Maybe we started too early and she wasn't ready. Maybe we gave up too easily when it went very, very badly the first time. I know part of it was due to two unforeseen life upheavals that hit in the middle of potty training (death of a close family member, then a job change/move) and set us back on what we thought was progress. All told, it took us over a year from when we first started training to when our child was finally, legitimately potty trained.

And now it's fine. Kid is 4, never has accidents, totally independent in the bathroom, no weird bathroom issues, never gets constipated, even night trained easily with no drama at all.

There were months and months where potty training occupied so much of my available energy and I absolutely felt like it was NEVER going to happen. And yes, we hired a behavioral therapist (who was either helpful, if you ask me, or a waste of money, if you ask my DH) who worked with us on getting to the finish line. If we could have hired a nanny to just make it happen, we would have, but it was not even a remote possibility for us at the time (not due to money but living situation).

Point is, you will get there. Keep at it. There are people on here who will have good advice. You might have to try a few different tacks before you find the one that works. It might be hell but then it will be over, and if you can just keep your head on straight and not totally lose it, you'll come out the other side unscarred, regardless of what some people will try to tell you (I had numerous people on here tell me my kid would basically be a failure at life because she potty trained at 3.5).

Op here

Thank you for this anc the other replies. I think it puts so much pressure on us, especially as mothers, when people say “it clicked after two days for 20 month Jimmy!” And other similar stories. Our first took a looooong time too. I keep setting goals for the weekends and failing at them all.

[Anonymous]

I started off with oh crap for our son but by the end tried many different tactics.

Instead of naked at home would you consider putting her in training underwear? She might hate that more than having an accident on the floor. Wet underwear are very uncomfortable!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I started off with oh crap for our son but by the end tried many different tactics.

Instead of naked at home would you consider putting her in training underwear? She might hate that more than having an accident on the floor. Wet underwear are very uncomfortable!

I agree with PP. I'd get the thick training undies and have her wear those at home. I think she is physically ready but it does take longer for it to click with some kids. I'd not worry about daycare right now-focus on at home and get her going there. Do they take her regularly at daycare?

[Anonymous]

We tried everything at 2.5 and it didn’t work. (If she’s going hours holding, maybe up the fluids to have more opportunities?) Then we moved across country and change preschools and all the stress backfired. She’d been good about peeing (not poop) and just stopped wanting to go on the potty at all. There was so much stress around it that we just backed off. We didn’t put her in pull-ups or underwear or talk about the potty etc. I assume peer pressure did the trick - something did. About 6 weeks after our move (around her 3rd birthday) she said “I’m done wearing diapers” and she was! Over the next month she had only one mistake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I started off with oh crap for our son but by the end tried many different tactics.

Instead of naked at home would you consider putting her in training underwear? She might hate that more than having an accident on the floor. Wet underwear are very uncomfortable!

I agree with PP. I'd get the thick training undies and have her wear those at home. I think she is physically ready but it does take longer for it to click with some kids. I'd not worry about daycare right now-focus on at home and get her going there. Do they take her regularly at daycare?

I did training underwear at home and pull-ups at daycare (and on our weekend trips to the market, playground, etc) and that worked for us, I think because I was significantly less stressed worrying about accidents in only 1-2 hour chunks. Taking to the potty regularly while in pull-ups was pointless for my kid; she needed her accidents to be massively distruptive for them to matter at first.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you’ve been a little wishy-washy about it. Some days she is an underwear, some days she’s in a pull-up. Some days she has to sit on the potty, other days you let her pee on the floor. Of course she’s not going to pick it up when there is no consistency be behind what you are doing. You need to pick a long weekend and clear your schedule so you can commit to getting her trained. Your job the entire weekend is potty training. You stay home, you stay within a few feet of her so you can help gauge her body signs, and you incentivize. Like another poster said, find the currency. For ours it was a sticker chart and M&Ms. But at age 2.5 you may have to up the ante and do larger prizes.

You can do it, and your child can do it, but you need to have a plan and commit to it. If you are not doing it 100%, it’s going to be a very long and frustrating slog for everybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you’ve been a little wishy-washy about it. Some days she is an underwear, some days she’s in a pull-up. Some days she has to sit on the potty, other days you let her pee on the floor. Of course she’s not going to pick it up when there is no consistency be behind what you are doing. You need to pick a long weekend and clear your schedule so you can commit to getting her trained. Your job the entire weekend is potty training. You stay home, you stay within a few feet of her so you can help gauge her body signs, and you incentivize. Like another poster said, find the currency. For ours it was a sticker chart and M&Ms. But at age 2.5 you may have to up the ante and do larger prizes.

You can do it, and your child can do it, but you need to have a plan and commit to it. If you are not doing it 100%, it’s going to be a very long and frustrating slog for everybody.

We're consistent at home but we can only do so much at daycare. They won't let us send her in underwear yet. They take her every 1-2 hours to pee but it's not as needed like at home. There is no toilet in her classroom so it's a process for them to take her to keep ratios.

We gave her 2 juice boxes yesterday but she mastered holding until nap/bedtime. We had no opportunities to even get a pee out of her but she did sit on the potty every 30-60 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you’ve been a little wishy-washy about it. Some days she is an underwear, some days she’s in a pull-up. Some days she has to sit on the potty, other days you let her pee on the floor. Of course she’s not going to pick it up when there is no consistency be behind what you are doing. You need to pick a long weekend and clear your schedule so you can commit to getting her trained. Your job the entire weekend is potty training. You stay home, you stay within a few feet of her so you can help gauge her body signs, and you incentivize. Like another poster said, find the currency. For ours it was a sticker chart and M&Ms. But at age 2.5 you may have to up the ante and do larger prizes.

You can do it, and your child can do it, but you need to have a plan and commit to it. If you are not doing it 100%, it’s going to be a very long and frustrating slog for everybody.

I posted above that I did a mix of pull-ups and training pants for potty training. I tried this process; it resulted in tears, frustration, and no progress. I think every child (and parent!) might do best with different approaches. Once I stopped trying to force it all at once, it took two weeks of 1-2 hours in training pants (no accidents; it was easy for her to hold that long), then one morning in training pants (because it rained so I didn't switch her to pull-ups so we could go to the playground) and she got it. The next weekend we experimented with wearing undies to the playground and she had one accident total and then was good to go for pee. I think start to finish was four weeks and except the one weekend I tried this style, it was almost entirely stress-free for me and my kid. Yes, consistency helps, but it doesn't have to be all in all the time. You can start with small things like "stay dry through breakfast, then sit on the potty before we go to daycare" and work up to bigger things like "wear undies all day at daycare without accidents."

[Anonymous]

We did the same with trying and failing several different weekends. He's an incredibly strong-willed kid and it was a power struggle at that point. Once he got to 3yo we had to just pull off the bandaid. We knew he was more than ready and we knew he could control he bladder and bowels. We eventually chose a 3-day weekend and just talked to him for a few weeks leading up to it that we were switching to undies and that once he was consistently using the potty we would go to the toy store. First day was a lot of screaming, second day he gave in, third day he had a tiny accident. Send him to school on day 4 in underwear and in the 7 months since he has not had any accidents.

I think you should also talk to school and reason with them to push through a couple days with her in underwear there. That will really be the key to turning the corner. I get that it's a production to get her to the restroom but this must be something they've dealt with before.

[Anonymous]

The only piece of advice I have as someone that has potty trained 7 kids is you cannot potty train a child on your timeline, it HAS to be on theirs. They have all the control in this situation.