Saturday, 09 June 2012
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Potty Help! Potty Refusal!
Of all the frustrations in the world, potty training is one of the worst. I thought we had done well. We had our daughter trained by 2 1/2, she still had accidents a couple times a week but nothing major. We thought we were laughing, all those people who warned us it would be hard, what did they know?!Fast forward a year, she is 3 1/2 and I'm 7 months pregnant with #2. Two months ago the accidents started getting a little more frequent, almost everyday. Not fun, but doable. We'll keep a closer eye on her.
A closer eye and all we get is a complete and utter refusal to sit on a toilet. It's not that she's afraid of it, she gets there every once and a while. It's a rare thing though. She is stubborn and hot tempered. We can tell when she needs to go because she stills and crouches, but if we try to tell her to go to the bathroom she says she has no pee in her. Two minutes later she's heading up for a new outfit and I'm wiping the floor. Poops are worse. She can drag a poop out all day. Tiny bits at a time with protestations that that's all she had!
We are at wit's end. Yesterday we decided to put her back in diapers full time, and she loves it. We have no idea where to go from here.
Should we just let her keep wearing them indefinitely?
Should we start training from scratch again?
Will she outgrow this on her own? We have no idea. She's supposed to be starting preschool in the fall but now I'm worried that we are going to have to postpone it for another year if she isn't trained by then.Help! What would you do in this situation?
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Comments (16)
Regression is perfectly normal when there is a change.
She could be feeling threatened by the coming baby and all the change thats going to come.
She is a first born, and add potty training to that and you get a massive power struggle.
The bigger issue you make out of it, the more she is gonna soak up the attention like a sponge.
Make it a non issue (even though it will eat you up inside, DO NOT let her see it) and she will realize its no fun any more. The power struggle only works when we as parents fight back.
We had this with our son.. we battled with pull ups for way too long. But we finally made the decision to leave it up to him. We told him that if he wanted to stay in pull ups and go to JK in them, then thats his choice. If he wanted underwear then that was up to him. As soon as we took the issue out of it, everything changed and he was totally potty trained in a week.
Never force potty on the kid. You'll be sorry. My daughter began to regress during my pregnancy and then began to hold her poop until it compacted in her tummy. You can't punish when it comes to potty training. It can create an anxiety and a bad experience will cause further regressing.
Talk to her pediatrician.
Also I agree with Lady Gwen
The reason I think she should clean it up is not as a punishment but as a recognition of what she is doing. It's not like you are putting her in a corner or spanking. My daughter turned 3 two weeks before my son was born. I have also dealt with this.
I don't see how this with a combination of mom/daughter conversations is a bad thing.
Nor do I see this as a reason to call up the pediatrician and set up an appointment, but all kids are different. Go with what feels right for you.
To me, this doesn't sound like a case of a child not being ready to use the potty, it sounds more like a big girl wanting to be a baby again because there is going to be a new baby in the house soon. Change is hard for kids, and it's common for them to regress during stressful times. I wouldn't let her wear diapers, though. I understand how frustrating it is, I really do! My middle child is 3yrs old, and started potty training in November of last year. We had him fully trained and wearing underwear by his birthday in February. He'd go weeks without a single accident, and then all of a sudden last month, he was having accidents 3-4 times a day. It was so tempting to put him back in training pants to save on laundry and carpet scrubbing, but we knew it would only enable him to not go to the toilet and do his business in his "poo yups." My best advice would be to not make a big deal of it when she does have an accident since it seems like she may be enjoying all the attention she gets from you and her Daddy when she has an accident. Sitting her down and asking her to talk to you about what's going on could do a world of wonders. Ask her how she's feeling about everything going on and tell her how you and your husband feel. Reassure her that she is still loved and an important member of your family. At 3 1/2, she is certainly old enough for a discussion about these kinds of things, and can work through this with her parents. I would also have her help clean up her messes which, I guarantee you, she will not enjoy. My son hates when he has to get a paper towel and wipe up his own pee pee.
Sounds like she's regressing b/c there is a new baby coming. My son went through the same thing when our second came along two months ago. He turned 3 a month after I had our second. He had more accidents and was still not pooping in the toilet with #2. He would just hold it and poop during naps or when he wakes up in the morning. Give her some time. Don't force her to go and let her lead you. That's what my son's pediatrician told me. I would also just let her have the accidents and someone's advice on cleaning it up might be a good idea. It's not the first time I heard about doing that either. I was going to try that on my son if he kept pooping in his diaper while in his crib. But one day my husband offered to give him ice cream if he pooped in the toilet and that did it. Every child is different and you just have to keep offering incentives to see which one works. We tried it all. Big train set (he already has a train table but we got him another set to put on the floor), candy, chocolate, etc. You name it we tried it. He still has an occasional poop in his diaper when we go to get him but it's less and less frequent now. Good luck and I hope whatever you try works!
I have no idea! I have three kids but never dealt with this at all. Good luck!
The best I could suggest is to not allow diapers. I think I would indeed do a time out for this behavior because I don't think this is a potty training issue but an issue of control.
The same thing started happening with my son. Our solution has been to let him run around naked. He's 3 1/2, and for some reason he doesn't have a problem pooping in his underwear, but he won't poop on the floor. :) Also, with the stool in front of the toilet, he can go by himself when he needs to. I tried putting underwear on him again, but he had another accident. So, I'm reserving underwear for when we go out in public, and he's going around naked at home. We'll see if it works!
Good luck!
Dr. Sears website probably has good advice. They do it different now than when I trained mine, now in their 30's. It's kind of inconceivable to have a child you are having complete conversations with, yet poo-ing their pants in public. My daughter was more difficult, I think she was around two and a half when it was all complete. My son was a breeze, watching his sister on her little chair, and sitting on it himself well before two. I remember putting warm water in the little bowl, and every two hours sitting them on their potty. After a while, the water would help them relax and they'd pee. I told my daughter, at two and a half, she couldn't go to parties if she kept poo-ing herself, and within a week the deed was done. I just think it's ridiculous to see a kid a year before kindergarten wearing diapers.
my theory is just let them shit all over the place until they realize they aren't as evolved as they're going to be told they are in school
I'm gonna agree on 80%, and disagree with something else. I would never have allowed my children to get in other people's space. Such as, speaking out loud all the way through a movie. Running up and down restaurant isles. You say we cannot compare parenting from decades ago, and I say we can compare rudeness from centuries ago. Not every person in an eating establishment thinks it's cute to have their meal interrupted 50 times or so by loud, rude, children. And grocery stores are the worse, because parents never follow through. I hear it all the time. A mother counting to three and then ignoring the kid. Bribing with toys if the behavior changes. Yeah, I can compare with parenting decades ago. Kindness, manners, thoughtfulness, quiet behavior, are all things that should be taught. I had a friend from my parenting days who thought that allowing her boys to do anything they wanted would bring high self esteem. Well guess what? Just the opposite happened when they went to school and nobody liked them.
I know a little girl who is 3 that still wears diapers.
What age are you supposed to not wear them ?
@dw817@xanga - Boy are different than girls, and all kids are different from each other.
With my own, at my daughter's 2 year old well-visit with her pediatrician, her dr had a heart to heart with her. She told her that now that she was two it was time for her to be a big girl and to make her proud by learning how to use the potty and to stop wearing diapers and start wearing big girl panties.
She was potty trained within the week (except for nights which took about 2 more months to get out of pull ups).
My son just turned 3. He would have nothing to do with the potty. We did all of the same things we did with our daughter and nothing worked. The week before he turned 3, I had (another) similar talk with him that our ped had had with our daughter. And now he has been potty training for about a month. We are no where near finished with him. Boys. Are. Harder. To. Potty. Train. I didn't believe it 'til I lived it.
I think it's typical to have introduced the potty between 1 and a half and 2 years old. When it finally clicks in their head is unique to the gender and to the child. So my daughter was 2, and my son is 3 (and he will definitely be finished training within the next few months).
I am a stay at home mom. These numbers are different with working Moms who might not have as much dedicated time to apply to this, not all daycares or other caregivers are willing to potty-train (it's frustrating, messy work).
@sarahsmurfette@xanga - Well, I didn't have such good luck. My Mom left, shortly after I was born. She returned later when I was 15, but by then it was bad. Dad didn't potty train me. A woman at church did when I was 7-years old I remember, well sorta. I stopped wearing diapers at 5, from the early photos I saw of me, but I still didn't know how to do it right and today I still sit on the commode porcelain, not the seat, for anything and never used a urinal.
You can imagine how well that went over in Middle School bathrooms with bullies.
I finally learned it was 'okay' to use a urinal when I started dating cause my G/F showed me how but I always avoid them today when I can cause it doesn't feel right.
I guess it's not a Dad thing to teach potty. I thought it would be girls for girls and boys for boys. I never asked my sister, how she managed but likely she had worse than me growing up.
My main concern now tho is this 3-year old, a daughter of my daughter's Godfather whom I see every week, and she can't speak yet either or count to 3. I'm concerned that the people in kindergarten are going to have to teach her all this stuff cause his daughter isn't taking the time to do so.
As for the little girl, I can't really say if there is a problem or not. With speech in particular that can be so widely variant between any two kids it's basically a doctor or speech pathologist who would be able to assess that. My son doesn't speak much yet, that people besides me understand, he just turned 3 in May. I think it may be a little too early to say that there is something wrong. But by all means you can work with her on speech or learning to count, or her colors whenever you visit with her. Read with her, play games, make it fun. You can teach her a lot without having an official position in her life just by simple interaction.
You are a good person for looking out for her.