Firstly, I have no idea how gifted this kid is, she's not yet 18 months old... But given the months long toilet saga we have going on here maybe she's PG, in thinking about toileting at least :-).
I apologise now that this is long, but I think the background may be necessary and I am really stressed about this.
DD1 toilet trained about 2.5yrs, when she refused to wear cloth nappies anymore and I refused to buy disposables. It went badly and took about 18 months to be 100% reliable. In hindsight I wished I had allowed her to go to disposables. We could have months that were great then a bad patch. When she wet herself she would empty her whole bladder and keep playing completely unconcerned. My most successful approach was to implement a rule that she could return to any activity she left for timely toilet visits but any activity she wet herself for was then instantly over. Problems did seem to be quite related to teething. We now know she's 2E, all sorts of sensory issues, retained reflexes, waiting for an ADHD diagnosis, possibly even ASD. The other Es may have had something to do with her problems.
DD2 toilet trained at 18-24 months because her friend was setting an example and she wanted to. She had some serious toilet phobia issues and would only go at home, on pristine fancy toilets when out or on the "car potty", she would absolutely prefer to have an accident than use a toilet that did not meet her standards (and was not beyond requesting the home toilet be freshly cleaned before she would use it). None the less she learned quickly and well - but like #1 she would have good months and then bad patches, and like #1 she didn't seem to care at all about her lapses, she continued to have bad patches right up to her 5th birthday. Though unlike #1 she would generally have a small accident and hold the rest for the toilet, or she would have her accident trying to get undressed or half way on the toilet, etc. So she was just waiting too long. As far as we know she has no other exceptionalities, well ADHD-i is a possibility, but she seems to be just too much in her head and not enough in her body to care... She doesn't care about wiping her bottom properly, food all over her face or hands either, even at 5 and we are having to have some pretty frank conversations with her about the fact that people won't want to be around her if she smells or if she leaves greasy hand prints all over everything she touches because she won't wash her hands...
I have no idea if I just really suck at toilet training or if my kids are unusually hard to teach.
So along comes #3. At about 12 months she developed a bath phobia after poo-ing in the bath two nights one week and getting too dramatic a reaction from her sisters (in the bath with her) and I. We slowly and carefully reversed that and she learned to strictly control her bowels while in the water or get out in a panic.
Soon after she started completely freaking out when I went to the toilet. Complete meltdown stuff... And I was thinking to myself "How the heck did I manage to get two kids with toilet phobias?" I mean I like to keep things clean but I am a once or twice a week type cleaner, not daily or twice daily. We are nobody's idea of perfect house keepers!
And then I realised - they got interested in the toilet, I made great fuss about how they must never touch, it's dirty, will make them sick, blah blah blah. And then I go and sit on it! Poor kid must have been so scared for me (and clearly was).
So then I changed my toilet talk to "You do wees and poos in your nappy but Mummy and Daddy and your sisters do wees and poos on the toilet. When you are bigger you can use the toilet too. We don't touch the toilet, but we do sit on it to do wees and poos, and then we wash our hands, etc" And then we would go wash our hands together. She got over her meltdowns. Yay! She took great delight in accompanying me for these chats, but was still anxious obviously, as she would panic if left behind when someone mentioned needing to go to the toilet.
Simultaneously she's been demanding to get out of the bath early of late and invariably wee-ing on the floor. I was starting to realise she was curtailing her baths because of the urge to wee and not wanting to soil the bath. I have been considering getting the potty out but after the long hard journey with both her older sisters I have been procrastinating.
Today she was out on the trampoline with my MIL and asked for the toilet, so after consulting with me MIL took her and although nothing happened she seemed very pleased. Tonight when she got out of the bath after only a few minutes I decided she might need to wee so put her on the toilet but she got scared and upset so I let her go. She then tried to wee in the hall so I took her back to the toilet. She was scared again, so I put her down and stuck my head into the bathroom to check on #2. She shut the door and I just left her in there for a minute (I figured at least she wasn't weeing in the hall!).
When I had opened the door she'd poo-ed on the floor. And stepped in it as she tried to back away from the door. So into the bath she went, where she had hysterics (she didn't say it but was clearly communicating NO POO IN THE BATH MAMA!!).
It seems pretty clear that she understands what happens where and has some control of her bodily functions. She was very interested in "On Your Potty" at story time tonight, which is amazing because she will generally only entertain books with stars. But I am just so scared of entering into another 3 year toilet training debacle.
So - if you made it that far, thank you! And does anyone have any insight or advice to share?
