Vicious cycle of stress while potty training, should we take ANOTHER break?

[Anonymous]

DD is just over 2.5. We tried to do Oh Crap last Christmas but I was also nursing a baby and it was a disaster. We are trying again now (modified Oh Crap) and it's not going well. It's been two weeks of staying home with no bottoms on. We have had some success, mostly with poop ironically, but it's generally her holding it, refusing to pee on the potty and the peeing the second she stands up. She is anxious about peeing on the potty so she holds it, becomes uncomfortable, gets more anxious and it's spiraling. I am trying to keep is low key but it's hard when she's screaming and won't go near the potty. I don't want to make this worse, but will it only get worse the longer we wait? We have tried all the tricks- everything involving water, blowing bubbles, tickling etc. She is a pretty anxious toddler in general.

[Anonymous]

We were in a similar situation but DD did respond to me putting her feet in a bowl of warm water. If she was still holding it after two weeks I don't think I would have continued. That's really hard. Have you tried putting the potty in the bathroom with you and peeing with her? Or having her stuffed animals go on the potty?

[Anonymous]

Have you tried bribery/rewards? Training my DD now (similar age) and she only gets her jelly bean reward if she actually pees or poops, not just for sitting on the potty.

[Anonymous]

Nothing but empathy here. I don't know what the solution is. We went through the exact same thing, but when we tried again a couple months later (for the 3rd time) it was even worse. We didn't really have much success until 3.5. I know people will say we should have "pushed through" when in your position, but I know EXACTLY what you are talking about with it just going weeks and weeks and instead of seeing progress, it just feels like your kid is devising more complex and upsetting ways to avoid using the potty. It's exhausting and I honestly don't know how to push through. So we didn't. Our kid wound up in pull ups for a long time.

I will say that when we ultimately started having more success, it was largely child-driven (she really wanted to stop wearing pull ups and use the potty). And the incentive for her was not a bribe or anything (we tried those, they never worked). It was that we told her (as gently as we could) that when she started school this fall, all the other kids would be using the potty and the teacher might not be able to help her with her pull up, especially any #2. It stressed her out, which I felt awful about, but it was the truth, and it was around that time that she started talking about wearing her cotton underwear instead and making more of an effort to sit on the potty. She also stopped fighting us when we'd suggest the potty (for months and months if we said "Ok, time to sit on the potty" before leaving the house or going to bed or whatever, she'd dig her heels in and refuse).

She wasn't ready until she was ready. No idea why she is like this about potty training. She is a strong willed kid in general but also very eager to learn and develop new skills usually -- loves learning to ride a bike, learning her letters, going to dance and gymnastics class, doesn't usually have a terrible time with making mistakes. But potty training really brought out her obstinate, perfectionist side. It was really hard on our family. I say be as gentle with yourself as you can, especially with a baby in the picture. It's okay if she's late to train. Pull ups suck, but she will get there eventually and you will get your much deserved celebration. It just might take a lot longer than you'd hoped. Good luck and hugs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you tried bribery/rewards? Training my DD now (similar age) and she only gets her jelly bean reward if she actually pees or poops, not just for sitting on the potty.

+1. I knew it’s against the Oh Crap dogma, but we had a ton of success with rewards. With both my kids, they stalled out just like yours when we did the Oh Crap method to the letter. They would both hold their pee for hours and hours, even if we put them on the toilet, until they would finally just have an accident. With my first, we almost gave up after a week or two of Oh Crap and planned to restart later until we tried rewards (we got to rewards much quicker the second time around). The trick with both was finding the right reward that the kid found motivating enough. With some kids, it’s jellybeans or M&Ms, but with my son for example, it was 1-2 minute clips of Paw Patrol on YouTube that he could watch only if he peed in the potty. With both kids, we started right at 2.5 and they were essentially accident free after 1-2 weeks of training with rewards.

[Anonymous]

I hate potty training. I’d probably wait another 3 or so months. It sounds like everyone in the family is stressed and upset. If you wait, hopefully a little more maturity will make it easier.

[Anonymous]

I think maturity and self-motivation helps. So time. And candy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is just over 2.5. We tried to do Oh Crap last Christmas but I was also nursing a baby and it was a disaster. We are trying again now (modified Oh Crap) and it's not going well. It's been two weeks of staying home with no bottoms on. We have had some success, mostly with poop ironically, but it's generally her holding it, refusing to pee on the potty and the peeing the second she stands up. She is anxious about peeing on the potty so she holds it, becomes uncomfortable, gets more anxious and it's spiraling. I am trying to keep is low key but it's hard when she's screaming and won't go near the potty. I don't want to make this worse, but will it only get worse the longer we wait? We have tried all the tricks- everything involving water, blowing bubbles, tickling etc. She is a pretty anxious toddler in general.

She isnt ready. Dont make it a stressful thing. Back off for months. This is about control. She is withholding to maintain control. You can either say something like you know what? You are telling me that you arent ready even though I am ready for you to use the potty but this is about you not me. Lets try this another time.
And then dont mention it.
Then start in a few weeks with some new books. Talk about how every month you guys are going to get new books and Slip a potty book in to each delivery.
Start reading about it and then only talk about it if she asks. Let her see you and spouse/partner/trusted adult go to the bathroom on a regular basis. Then encourage trying the potty even with a pullup on. Then offer pullups or underwear and remind her that underwear means that you have to go into the potty. It wont catch your urine. Make a fun experiment of pouring water into a pullup vs underwear to show her the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you tried bribery/rewards? Training my DD now (similar age) and she only gets her jelly bean reward if she actually pees or poops, not just for sitting on the potty.

+1. I knew it’s against the Oh Crap dogma, but we had a ton of success with rewards. With both my kids, they stalled out just like yours when we did the Oh Crap method to the letter. They would both hold their pee for hours and hours, even if we put them on the toilet, until they would finally just have an accident. With my first, we almost gave up after a week or two of Oh Crap and planned to restart later until we tried rewards (we got to rewards much quicker the second time around). The trick with both was finding the right reward that the kid found motivating enough. With some kids, it’s jellybeans or M&Ms, but with my son for example, it was 1-2 minute clips of Paw Patrol on YouTube that he could watch only if he peed in the potty. With both kids, we started right at 2.5 and they were essentially accident free after 1-2 weeks of training with rewards.

+2 candy worked for my son (who we potty trained last month, similar age as your kid OP). But Daniel tiger did it for my daughter!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is just over 2.5. We tried to do Oh Crap last Christmas but I was also nursing a baby and it was a disaster. We are trying again now (modified Oh Crap) and it's not going well. It's been two weeks of staying home with no bottoms on. We have had some success, mostly with poop ironically, but it's generally her holding it, refusing to pee on the potty and the peeing the second she stands up. She is anxious about peeing on the potty so she holds it, becomes uncomfortable, gets more anxious and it's spiraling. I am trying to keep is low key but it's hard when she's screaming and won't go near the potty. I don't want to make this worse, but will it only get worse the longer we wait? We have tried all the tricks- everything involving water, blowing bubbles, tickling etc. She is a pretty anxious toddler in general.

She isnt ready. Dont make it a stressful thing. Back off for months. This is about control. She is withholding to maintain control. You can either say something like you know what? You are telling me that you arent ready even though I am ready for you to use the potty but this is about you not me. Lets try this another time.
And then dont mention it.
Then start in a few weeks with some new books. Talk about how every month you guys are going to get new books and Slip a potty book in to each delivery.
Start reading about it and then only talk about it if she asks. Let her see you and spouse/partner/trusted adult go to the bathroom on a regular basis. Then encourage trying the potty even with a pullup on. Then offer pullups or underwear and remind her that underwear means that you have to go into the potty. It wont catch your urine. Make a fun experiment of pouring water into a pullup vs underwear to show her the difference.

I'm the PP above who had multiple terrible potty training tries before finally getting some progress at 3.5, and I just wanted to highlight that these suggestions are really good. We really had to take ALL the pressure off potty training and almost totally stop talking about it for a while to get our kid to kind of "reset". And when we started up again, we changed our tone completely. No pushing at all, if she said she wanted to wear a pull up we never fought her. We'd just let her know that meant she'd have to change her own pull up for pee (we'd help for poop but she still did a lot of it). And then when we'd change her we'd say "It will be nice when you decide to use the potty because we won't have to take such a long break to change your pull up. You'll be able to just go back to playing." Stuff like that. But just as info, never as a form of pressure. Trying to put deadlines around things or push her towards using the potty just always made it worse and set us back.

It's hard because you will get pressure from other people (family, friends, teachers) and it's really hard not to pass that pressure on to your kid. But I just learned that doing so didn't work. Putting them in charge looks indulgent to outsiders because they don't understand what it's like to be on Day 20 of trying to potty train an child who becomes anxious and tearful at the suggestion of anything related to using the potty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is just over 2.5. We tried to do Oh Crap last Christmas but I was also nursing a baby and it was a disaster. We are trying again now (modified Oh Crap) and it's not going well. It's been two weeks of staying home with no bottoms on. We have had some success, mostly with poop ironically, but it's generally her holding it, refusing to pee on the potty and the peeing the second she stands up. She is anxious about peeing on the potty so she holds it, becomes uncomfortable, gets more anxious and it's spiraling. I am trying to keep is low key but it's hard when she's screaming and won't go near the potty. I don't want to make this worse, but will it only get worse the longer we wait? We have tried all the tricks- everything involving water, blowing bubbles, tickling etc. She is a pretty anxious toddler in general.

She isnt ready. Dont make it a stressful thing. Back off for months. This is about control. She is withholding to maintain control. You can either say something like you know what? You are telling me that you arent ready even though I am ready for you to use the potty but this is about you not me. Lets try this another time.
And then dont mention it.
Then start in a few weeks with some new books. Talk about how every month you guys are going to get new books and Slip a potty book in to each delivery.
Start reading about it and then only talk about it if she asks. Let her see you and spouse/partner/trusted adult go to the bathroom on a regular basis. Then encourage trying the potty even with a pullup on. Then offer pullups or underwear and remind her that underwear means that you have to go into the potty. It wont catch your urine. Make a fun experiment of pouring water into a pullup vs underwear to show her the difference.

I'm the PP above who had multiple terrible potty training tries before finally getting some progress at 3.5, and I just wanted to highlight that these suggestions are really good. We really had to take ALL the pressure off potty training and almost totally stop talking about it for a while to get our kid to kind of "reset". And when we started up again, we changed our tone completely. No pushing at all, if she said she wanted to wear a pull up we never fought her. We'd just let her know that meant she'd have to change her own pull up for pee (we'd help for poop but she still did a lot of it). And then when we'd change her we'd say "It will be nice when you decide to use the potty because we won't have to take such a long break to change your pull up. You'll be able to just go back to playing." Stuff like that. But just as info, never as a form of pressure. Trying to put deadlines around things or push her towards using the potty just always made it worse and set us back.

It's hard because you will get pressure from other people (family, friends, teachers) and it's really hard not to pass that pressure on to your kid. But I just learned that doing so didn't work. Putting them in charge looks indulgent to outsiders because they don't understand what it's like to be on Day 20 of trying to potty train an child who becomes anxious and tearful at the suggestion of anything related to using the potty.

This is OP, thank you for all of your feedback but especially to the PP above, this is 100% our situation. She also loves learning new things but is a perfectionist (didn't talk till she could say complete sentences) and also an anxious kid. I feel like she can sense us being stressed so she's stressed. I think we need a reset for a few weeks. It's just had because she has had some success and I don't know if we should just stay the course...but this seems to be getting worse. She was doing better at the beginning when it was new, again.

We have tried bribes, stuffed animals, screen time, no screen time. I think part of the problem is that we have been inconsistent. She is a kid who needs a lot of consistence and stability and I think maybe in a few weeks we can be more consistent. Only problem is she's starting preschool and I don't want to throw too much at her, which is why we wanted to do this now.

[Anonymous]

We potty trained at 24 months (she is now 27 months; baby is due when my daughter is 28 months) and it took her a few weeks to get peeing about 6 weeks until she "mastered" pooping. I read in the book crib sheet that child potty trained before 2.5 take on average take 10 months and children potty trained after 2.5 take on average 6 or 7 months. I know Oh Crap works for some people, but I think that the idea that potty training is a sprint that can be gritted out doesn't really hold up for many of us (or at least in my experience).

When my daughter started holding in her poop (I know your issue is pee) we backed off a lot. We didn't want to create a medical issue and we didn't want to give her a complex about it. That helped a lot. By backing off I don't mean that we went back to diapers. We kept her in underwear, but we stopped asking all the time "do you have to pee/poop" and we also just accepted that accidents were going to happen. When she had an accident instead of saying "Honey, why didn't you tell me?" we were just like "It's ok, accidents happen. Let me know next time when you have to go pee" or something like that. We stopped being so corrective.

Also, we told her (at the suggestion of someone on here) about a poop family that all wanted to be together. Now she'll say "I made a mommy poop, a daddy poop, and a baby poop." I think it's all disgusting, but I try not to give off that vibe when speaking about poop. She's very privacy oriented, so when she poops/pees she'll close the door, go to the bathroom, flush the toilet, and wipe. We have a little portable toilet that we bring around (you can get bags) for trips to the playground or road trips.

Hopefully something in here that I wrote will help you on this journey. It will all work out. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We potty trained at 24 months (she is now 27 months; baby is due when my daughter is 28 months) and it took her a few weeks to get peeing about 6 weeks until she "mastered" pooping. I read in the book crib sheet that child potty trained before 2.5 take on average take 10 months and children potty trained after 2.5 take on average 6 or 7 months. I know Oh Crap works for some people, but I think that the idea that potty training is a sprint that can be gritted out doesn't really hold up for many of us (or at least in my experience).

When my daughter started holding in her poop (I know your issue is pee) we backed off a lot. We didn't want to create a medical issue and we didn't want to give her a complex about it. That helped a lot. By backing off I don't mean that we went back to diapers. We kept her in underwear, but we stopped asking all the time "do you have to pee/poop" and we also just accepted that accidents were going to happen. When she had an accident instead of saying "Honey, why didn't you tell me?" we were just like "It's ok, accidents happen. Let me know next time when you have to go pee" or something like that. We stopped being so corrective.

Also, we told her (at the suggestion of someone on here) about a poop family that all wanted to be together. Now she'll say "I made a mommy poop, a daddy poop, and a baby poop." I think it's all disgusting, but I try not to give off that vibe when speaking about poop. She's very privacy oriented, so when she poops/pees she'll close the door, go to the bathroom, flush the toilet, and wipe. We have a little portable toilet that we bring around (you can get bags) for trips to the playground or road trips.

Hopefully something in here that I wrote will help you on this journey. It will all work out. Good luck!

It took my almost 3.5 year old < 1 month. Honestly 2-3 weeks. 10 months is not worth the squeeze for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We potty trained at 24 months (she is now 27 months; baby is due when my daughter is 28 months) and it took her a few weeks to get peeing about 6 weeks until she "mastered" pooping. I read in the book crib sheet that child potty trained before 2.5 take on average take 10 months and children potty trained after 2.5 take on average 6 or 7 months. I know Oh Crap works for some people, but I think that the idea that potty training is a sprint that can be gritted out doesn't really hold up for many of us (or at least in my experience).

When my daughter started holding in her poop (I know your issue is pee) we backed off a lot. We didn't want to create a medical issue and we didn't want to give her a complex about it. That helped a lot. By backing off I don't mean that we went back to diapers. We kept her in underwear, but we stopped asking all the time "do you have to pee/poop" and we also just accepted that accidents were going to happen. When she had an accident instead of saying "Honey, why didn't you tell me?" we were just like "It's ok, accidents happen. Let me know next time when you have to go pee" or something like that. We stopped being so corrective.

Also, we told her (at the suggestion of someone on here) about a poop family that all wanted to be together. Now she'll say "I made a mommy poop, a daddy poop, and a baby poop." I think it's all disgusting, but I try not to give off that vibe when speaking about poop. She's very privacy oriented, so when she poops/pees she'll close the door, go to the bathroom, flush the toilet, and wipe. We have a little portable toilet that we bring around (you can get bags) for trips to the playground or road trips.

Hopefully something in here that I wrote will help you on this journey. It will all work out. Good luck!

It took my almost 3.5 year old < 1 month. Honestly 2-3 weeks. 10 months is not worth the squeeze for anyone.

DP the study quoted by Oster I believe involved parents using a "gentle" method of potty training which could mean using pull-ups and being fairly casual about things.

For us Oh Crap took like 3-4 weeks before she stopped having accidents while awake.

[Anonymous]

Throw away the diapers/pull ups/absorbent underwear/any other name for diaper.

Put your kid in underwear and pants.