I don't know what we did wrong but nothing seemed to work for DS. Got to the point at around 3 he knew very well how peeing in the potty worked and was quite capable of it, but just wouldn't. There wasn't anything motivating enough. Didn't want to be a big boy, didn't want bribes, subterfuge, reverse psychology, etc. A lot of ideas worked once and then the novelty was gone and that was that. So, started dressing him in underwear and making him clean it up when he had an accident, which was pretty much always, that still didn't work despite his hatred of cleaning. He did start to really notice when he went though, so that was a step.
Finally, after what felt like (and was) years of feeling patient about it, I lost it one day and yelled at him for 15 straight minutes on the way home from preschool one time, me crying, him crying of course, telling him none of the other 4 year olds still peed in their pants etc etc etc. Not my best parenting moment, I still feel awful about it. But to be honest, he seemed to at that moment realize we were actually serious about the whole toilet thing. Was 100% for peeing right away. And then for pooping a few months later, pooping seemed harder for him to predict developmentally.
Polly
