Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Toilet training?!?

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?

I really hope that I am not the only one that sees this as a gifted toddler issue. Yikes!

No advice, but I certainly do feel for you! Of all the things that my dd's had to learn...toilet training was the most off-putting.

The average age for a child being able to stay clean and dry without accidents is 5. Yes, 5. American expectations for this are pretty unreasonable, probably because preschools won't take diapered children. Some kids really can't do it young, and it's a shame that parents and kids feel pressure about it. 2Es and kids with disabilities in general sometimes take longer, but nearly everybody gets there eventually.

If your child is anxious about it, I would suggest backing off the topic and using whatever works (disposables, whatever) for the short term until everyone is ready for another try. (Your matter of fact approach about "here's what it's for, we wash our hands afterward" was very good IMO. Matter of fact is always good for ramping down stress.)

DeeDee

It all depends on the child.

I was totally potty trained (day and night) by 2.

DS2.5 has absolutely no interest in potty training and scared of poos.

My son had abcolutely no interest in using the toilet - when he was around 2 1/2 he started to wear pull-ups - but if I even suggested he wore underwear or sat on the toilet, he would have a meltdown. And this is a kid who never had tantrums. Around 2 3/4, one Friday, I announced that as of the following Monday he would wear underwear and would have to use the toilet. We talked about it all weekend - Monday morning, he got up, happily put on his underwear, and had 3 accidents that day. The following day he had 2 accidents. After that, he was dry day and night He was another bath pooper when he was a baby - got to the point where I kept a potty chair next to the bath, and when he showed signs of pooping, just picked him up, plopped him the on the potty chair (holding him, as he was too small to sit there by himself LOL), and then when he had pooped, back into the bath.

Oh, boy... do I feel your potty-training pain!!

DD was a nightmare to train. She went to preschool at 3 in pull-ups. She was 3.5 before we could even think about underwear. Poos... almost 4. We resorted to bribing that would be too embarassing to disclose. It was a desperate situation, LOL!

DS will be 3 in three weeks. He starts preschool in 2 weeks. He had such a huge potty-phobia, initially, that we had to hide all the potties and toilet rings from Feb-June of this year. He had full-blown panic attacks. I brought them back out in July and offered to buy him new trains if he would use them. He peed once, got a train.... pooed once, got a train... has not done a single thing since. We can get him to sit on the potty a few times a day, but only if we bribe him with treats. This is not how I intended to parent when I set out on this journey, but I am learning that everything I ever thought about parenting needs to be thrown out the window when it comes to my kids.

With DD, what ultimately worked was a dumb motivation pack I bought online called The Potty Lady. It looked like a bunch of hooey, but it worked in 6 days. I'm thinking we need to revisit Potty Lady again.

Sorry that I cannot offer any helpful advice. I often think that my kids overanalyzed the whole potty thing. It became such an event that it took on a life of its own. I would love to just back away from the potty for now, but DS has to at least be able to sit on it for preschool... and he really, really needs to go to preschool!!

Best of luck. I'll think of you every time DS throws his arms around my neck and begs me to save him from the scary potty.

DS is only 2.5 now and won't be going to preschool until next summer.

But I agree, if it wasn't for preschool, I won't force potty-training on them.

This is not helping me feel more confident about TTing with an 18 month old.

Oh and she has raging food intolerances, when we make a diet mistake she poos green mucus many times a day for a week or so. I really don't want to do this, but I also feel like it could be equally bad to not do it. Why are the supposedly simple parts of parenting so hard to make choices about?

Go for it!

(Sorry I didn't see this before.)

I don't see anything unusual in what you wrote! All children are different. It does sound like DD3 is ready to toilet train. A great read if you think your younger child is ready to TT is "Diaper Free Before Three"

I found it really really useful.

Sorry gotta go or I'd say more.

Ok I feel a bit weird asking about this here, as I am not 100% sure it's relevant to anyone else on the board, but I am really not sure where else to seek support because I do think that our issues are to do with the rather complex inner workings of my gifted toddlers thought process.

Since last I posted we dug out the potty and have had it around the house various places. DD clearly knows what it is for and has instantly transferred her toilet anxiety to the potty too. She's also clearly demonstrated that she does know when she needs to wee and does have the control to hold on. We are back to having trouble getting into the bath because she doesn't want to wee or poo in the bath. Or she gets in and then gets straight back out. She does NOT want to get a nappy on and will have a raging tantrum if you try that. She is scared of the potty and toilet and we have had some reasonable success in teaching her that she can't wee on the carpet. So she's now locked herself in the toilet room and used the floor there. Which is gross and obviously not a long term solution. Oh and I have also realised why it is that she gets so distressed about changing a poo-ey nappy, she really has issues with the whole thing. I feel rather slow that it's taken me this long to realise it wasn't about being uncomfortable or about not enjoying being changed but about the poo itself and wanting to pretend it wasn't there....

I am really at a loss for how to teach her that we don't play with the toilet or potty (or nappies), but that everybody does need to go to the toilet and that is ok and that toilets/potties are good to use for their intended purpose and only for that... And that we then wash our hands.

She's so obviously ready but also so obviously very anxious and confused.

have you tried any potty books?

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/potty-train-david-hochman/1007964185?ean=9781416928331&itm=46&usri=potty%2btraining


http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/princess-potty-samantha-berger/1101576756?ean=9780545172967&itm=53&usri=potty%2btraining

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/its-potty-time-for-girls-chris-sharp/1015484523?ean=9781591258421&itm=60&usri=potty%2btraining

We do have "On your potty" And she has found that very interesting. I am pretty sure the Princess one above was recommended by another friend, but she's too young for dress ups and that sort of pretend play or to even know what a princess is.... or maybe she's just in the wrong house. She does like to wrap various bits of cloth around her head and shoulders, which have wondered about, thinking it might be early dressing up behaviour...

I wish I had some good advice for that. My instinctual thing would be to just make it as 'normal as possible. One suggestion I've heard of is to put them on the potty whenever you gpo to the toilet, so it's just something you do, and no big deal.

Hi! That is hard! I guess it doesn't help for people to say "Oh, well, I didn't have that problem, my kids were easy!" BUT how can people advise you if they failed at potty training?! lol..anyway, without sounding preachy, I potty trained my first daughter for poo at 18 months and by 24 months she was dry all day and night...never had one accident since. My second daughter was 24 months as well, but had a more accidents, but by 2 years, 4 months she was dry all night and day...with an accident every couple of months or so.

So I tell you this, not to brag, but to help. To tell you what I did.

Starting at 14 months, I put my older daughter on the potty. Sometimes she would pee and I would clap. I would give her M&Ms and we would call Elmo on the phone. She went a week in undies at 18 months with no accidents, but I realized it was me who was trained..not her. I took her potty every 2 hours. I would let her watch TV if she sat on her potty while watching. She came to the potty with me everytime I went. She also went with Grandma and daddy. It wasn't always easy. At 19 months she stood in a display window at the GAP and peed. FUN! But poo was done at 18 months...this is how...

I never ever said the potty was gross...BUT I did say "yuck" when I changed her poo. Any time she had to poo, I could tell. I just knew. I don't know how. BUT I would put her on the potty and hold her until she poo'ed...that was that. eventually she told me. I never expected her to do it by herself. We always did it together. SO about 6 months later, she was completely potty trained.

I could have waited a year and did it in a weekend.

So I guess in your situation, with the phobia, I would put the potty chair in a happy place. Put her in a diaper. Let her sit on the chair to eat candy or watch TV...(My kids don't do much of these things now despite my using them to teach!)

When she is happy with sitting on the chair...like it is a chair, let her go naked for a few days...have her sit on the chair naked, but don't expect her to do anything in it. Let her have the candy.

When she is totally comfortable, ask her to tinkle...show her how if you have to. Reward her...clap...call friends...whatever..

Good luck...

I am certainly NO expert...so, take or leave the advise and VERY good luck to you!

Thanks for such a thorough reply sydness! Sadly my DDs diet is so restricted there is very little we can give in the way of candy (she can have white marshmallows but nonmore than 2 per day and a tiny amount of dairy free chocolate). And it's winter and freezing, so no naked time either... Really I know I sound obstructive but I feel so over a barrel.

I have tried putting the potty in the toilet but she seems happier when it's in the bathroom. We'll just keep trying to normalize it.

Hi MumOfThree! I do feel for you... Some suggestions on what worked with my three kiddos...I let them put stickers all over the "big potty" and their "little potty" and also let them decorate the potties using washable markers. We also role played a lot with my daughter putting her stuffed animals or dolls on the potty. I actually bought another potty so her stuffed animal/doll could "use" the potty at the same time as my daughter. Oh, we would hug the potty, talk to the potty as if it was real, we named the potty, sang to the potty, let her actually "clean" the potty with a spray bottle filled with water (she thought she was such a BIG girl doing this haha) Rewards worked great with my sons (matchbox cars) but not with my daughter. If you don't want to use candy because of her restricted diet, you could always use whatever else she is interested in. Another wonderful thing that worked is to carry the potty (and have a potty on each floor) wherever she was playing, so she wouldn't have to panic and race to the bathroom. You mentioned winter and freezing...That's exactly when I potty trained too. I just cranked the heat and let her run around naked all day until eventually I would move the potty further away and further away...Finally it was permanently in the main the bathroom. Hang in there!

Hi MumOf3

We had an absolute nightmare training DS, absolutely due to giftedness - he way over thought it. He could not be bribed and once we went the pull up route we lost a year. Finally we went cold turkey, took 3 days, me weeping on the couch, nd the purchase of a steam cleaner for the rugs but he was done and went to pre-pre k in underwear!

In the midst of the hell, we found two nice tools, one video, and one book. The video is great, Elmo takes them through the whole process and the other is just cute and comes with a chart and stickers. Those only worked for a short time. We also never used a potty, we got a toliet seat with a kid seat in the lid because he was scared of falling in!

Elmo potty video
Time to pee

We totally screwed it up too and now he is 5.5 and is always dry through the night with issues only when affected by soemthing else. Don't discount the stomach issues affecting her, DS gets constipated with a hint of dehydration and it set off bad memories and cycles about poop. We had to do all sorts of things no one ever talks about!!! I said to DH the other day that I wanted to be done with all bodily fluids already - no poop, no vomit, no snot!

DeHe

Hi Mumofthree,

I have no advice as dd trained relatively easily, but I did want to say that while that was the case, the toilet has been an issue on and off for use ever since - scared of them, obsessed with them and wanting to try out every one we came across, loving some, refusing to use others for no apparent reason.

A friend with a gifted boy real difficulty to get him toilet trained, because he over thought the whole thing. He still, at 6 wears night time pull ups because he's scared of going to the toilet at night (but has no other night time issues, and this includes if they leave all the lights on and go with him).

It's such a fundamental part of the day, it can be so frustrating as a parent. Good luck!

Hi Mumofthree,

Just my 2pworth, but your DD sounds stressed out and to me that means she's not ready, even if she can tell when she's going to go and hold it. I'd back off completely, and in the meantime try to be very calm and matter-of-fact, to avoid reinforcing any impression she has that poo is yucky and touching toilets will make you ill and all that scary stuff. Worth bearing in mind that there are many fewer bacteria on the average toilet seat than on the average computer keyboard, and potties are designed to be easy to clean perfectly. I distinctly remember my DS wearing his potty as a hat some time during the process. It had been washed since being used, so why not? :-)

Also, slightly tangentially, several people have written about their children being dry day and night. Worth bearing in mind that being dry at night requires not only the commitment to going to the toilet last thing and also if they wake and need it, but also sufficient levels of a hormone, ADH, that very young children don't have. Children vary wildly in when they start to have enough of that to be physically able to stay dry at night (ISTR that girls are typically much earlier than boys, though).

Thanks for your thoughts ColinsMum, she is stressed out and I have no interest in toilet training now. We will leave the potty out so there is something her size if she wants it. My kids have worn our potty as a hat too. We really aren't precious about it.

But I still have the problem of bath refusal and her wanting to go on the floor because she doesn't want to go in a nappy, the bath, the toilet or the potty. If we had floorboards I would be inclined to tolerate that, just clean it up and work towards reducing her anxiety by having no drama. But we have carpet through most of the house and it's also too cold to spend 15 minutes running around naked too scared to get in the bath but refusing to go potty so she will feel safe in the bath. She does seem to be calming down a bit so hopefully it will just peter out on it's own.

HEY! I have a great idea! How old is she? At some point, I bought a removable shower head...the babies used to LOVE it! I would "hose" them off. One of them had skin problems and baths made it worse so I did showers! I use the removable head, which I bought at Home Depot, and gently washed her hair. It took so short a time to have her ready for bed. Now at 6 and 9, they only take showers! Anyway, I guess since the water is draining, she might not be so worried about the poo or pee floating around her. You could even tell her that it is okay to pee in the shower, just not poo cause it will get stuck...but not cause it's yucky.

Also, I agree with the previous comment about maybe not telling her that poo is yucky. I did it for my girls, but I know that it's not always a good thing to do. I watched them for signs of anxiety though.

My girls also decorated their potties, it just sort of happened. Another thing I did with my second. I didn't like the poo in the garbage...thought it was too stinky, so I always dumped it in the toilet. I didn't realize at the time, but the baby started to help me dump it in, and that must be how she got that part.

I also think that real young girls could watch daddy go pee cause it's more obvious what is happening...(IDK) I'm sure that some disagree with that.

BUT the shower! It's the best idea I've had all week! You could start with having her get in with you and sit on the floor..eventually she will stand up and you can hose her down!

It's so fast that even IF she cries, it's over before you know it! My older daughter always had to roll up a towel and hold it over her eyes when she took a shower. She's fine now, but it used to drive me crazy. She would scream and I thought the water was too hot. Just the possibility of water getting in her eyes put her over! BUT the towel trick worked good if you come accross that! GOOD LUCK!

Thanks Sydness, embarrassingly she's as, or more, frightened of the shower. She has a lot more fears than my first two kids, which I think is in part that she forms beliefs very quickly about things. We honestly do no make a big fuss over poo being yucky, but her big sisters making a fuss over being in the bath that she poo-ed in two days running left quite the impression. As have one or two bad head wetting experiences. Sadly she doesn't get over her anxieties nearly as fast as she forms them, slowly slowly on that front.

It is hard to watch them suffer from anxiety, especially at such a young age. My DS (almost 3) makes quick decisions about what scares him and then, too, will hold on to that fear with both hands for a very long time. Yesterday, he sat on his tricycle for the first time ever (he got it when he was 18 months). He would not pedal, but he allowed me to push him around. And he even let me put his helmet on (another big fear). Small little victories like that mean so much more when we know how hard it is for our little ones to work through it. Best of luck to you with the bath fear. Have you tried asking her for suggestions about what would make it less scary? I find this helpful now that DS is articulate. And he actually comes up with some pretty unique ideas!

Can she tell you exactly what she is afraid of?

If she is afraid of accidentally pooing in the bath, it might be helpful to explain that if she poos in the potty just before she gets in the bath, then she won't poo in the bath, because there won't be any poo ready to come out. She might not realize that when she needs to poo is not totally random and that she can buy herself some time.

Thanks for that suggestion I will try explaining more explicitly to her next time it comes up. At the moment she's too sick to muster the energy for bath time carry on.

But speaking of forming beliefs about things very quickly, and sometimes ill advisedly, after 3-4 doses of paracetamol in 24hrs she has started refusing the breast because it's "yucky" (because I have been offering straight after medicine).