We have one DD 26 mos. and are trying to potty train her.

We introduced her to the concept at 16 mos. and she did great, but we didn't push it and she consequently found the potty novel but not necessary.

Then, after reading other posts here, we tried to re-introduce the potty training at 25 mos., with our ped's encouragement, a stack of neato underpants, and bribes.

DD totally has the skills, but has no desire to use the potty. Note: she is extremely willful in all areas of life.

Yesterday morning she got out of bed and crawled down the hall to greet us. She's been saying she's a baby more often, and she said, out of the blue, "I'm too little to talk." She also had a bit of an anxiety attack when I gently asked if she'd sit on the potty.

I'm backing way off now.

Anyone? Anyone? Help!

Seablue, I have a DD2-1/2 who has been potty-training. She also went back and forth between wanting to be a baby and a big girl. I just have to say that we totally backed off the potty-training (taking the power struggle out of it) and then one day she came to us and said, "I want to go on the potty." End of story she was potty-trained. My DS on the other hand... Let's just say I was worried he would be the only one in Preschool in a pullup. He just didn't care to take the time to stop whatever he was doing and go to the bathroom. Good luck! It sounds like you are doing the right things.

My dd was trained at about 40 months old, just a couple weeks before the start of preschool (which required the children to be potty trained). We were really under the gun. Cold turkey method - we were at the store, buying diapers, and I said it was the last pack, that starting Sunday there would be no more.

It took about a week for her to be trained. Unfortunately, being as strong willed as she is, she went the entire first day without peeing (about 12 hrs) and then I put a diaper on her for bedtime (in which she immediately peed and pooped). So the nighttime diapers had to go. It was summer so a lot of the daytime was spent outside; we brought the plastic potty out there. Plenty of nakedness.

The horrible thing was that she ended up with a UTI from holding it so long. We didn't realize that until later, the following week, after she was already trained. So I felt pretty bad about that. (The only alternative was not going to preschool. Due to her speech issues and the fact that I had newborn twins at home, I decided preschool was very important for both of us).

By the way, this is the same girl who, when she was a baby, the ped called the most strong-willed baby he had ever met. (long story....)

I later used the cold turkey method again with the twins when they were about 36 months. Since they were less opposed to the idea, it ended up working well. (except that it was indoors in cold weather; they stayed naked from the waist down for about a week; thank goodness for hardwood floors.)

My advice would be to lay off until it's absolutely necessary. Is she in any kind of programs with other kids? Sometimes peer pressure works wonders.

The approach that worked for my kids was for me to sound very confident that it was time to use the potty. Kids have anxiety about using the potty and if you sound like you are unsure then they interpret that as "maybe I can't do this."

What I did was set a timer and when it went off I would announce that it was time for potty practice. That means that the child sits on the potty for a few minutes while you read a story. If the child produces something in the potty--great! Give lots of praise. If not, praise her for practicing.

Gradually increase the number of times you practice until your child has had many successes. At some point, you will need to switch to underwear and explain that she is getting very good at using the potty and now that you and your child both know that she can go on the potty, it would be a lot better than diapers/pullups to go on the potty all the time.

When there is an accident, don't go back to diapers/pullups. Show your child that you are confident in her ability to do this even if there are a few mistakes.

Jelly beans.

My sister keeps dd-almost-3 during the day, and to get her to go, she used to bribe her with jelly beans. I didn't even do it at our house, but I did ask dd about going and she seemed enthusiastic so it was pretty painless.
She tried really young, too, and then backed off for a few months. Probably around 2y7months she came back around to it - wanted to go in the store bathroom, etc., maybe she was curious, not sure.
It took way more than a week, but I was not in a rush. She is now signed up for pre-dance, 'potty trained girls only', so that was a nice incentive to keep her on track and improving.

hkc - I'm thinking this may be DD and that it's a wee willy wink too early.

Snowgirl - amazing bladder control! I'd love to hear your story about your ped's assessment of strong will.

Cathy -we've done absolutely everything you said to do. The gentle voice attempt and the pull-ups were introduced because she regressed so much it seemed to be intentional. We actually went from diapers to underpants with great success. Then the regression.

Thank you ALL for your responses!

Chris - we use jelly beans, too! (And two gummy worms for a #2). I think it's the 2 years 7 months mark that is the kicker. Perhaps we just need to wait a little longer.

My kids had periods of regression too. I was a two steps forward, one step back process. DS6 still occasionally wets his pants. He only recently started wiping his own bottom after pooping. What you're describing sounds like what happens with many kids. Just keep doing what you're doing, communicating confidence and praising her for trying.

My son had a lot of accidents until he was around 3 and I think he didn't want to stop what he was doing, especially if he was on the computer, to take the time to go. I remember worrying a lot about this at the time and wondering if he would ever be completely potty trained.

My daughter was potty trained at about 15 months but she went to a daycare and preschool where they had about 5 little toilets in a row and she got to go with friends. I don't know if it was competition to see who could go first or if it was because she got a reward if she went or what but I was glad I didn't have to spend any more money on diapers because I really couldn't afford it.

This is the best line I've heard in years on this topic. When our kids showed they did know how to hold and go, we just switched. It meant 1-2 weeks of sticking closer to home or potty friendly places so we didn't have pressure of what happens if there is an accident. At some point the arguement of when they are ready they'll go - when they are ready they might clean their rooms too :-) but 3 decades ago we weren't 50lbs and still in diapers. If we all were washing diapers we'd be a heck of a lot less sympathetic to how our kids "feel" about where their tinkle goes ;-)

This worked well for us:

http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/A-Potty-Training-In-One-Day4.html

We spent a morning in the kitchen, using the doll and lots of fluids. A few minor accidents later, success!

We've tried just about with everything with DS. He recently turned 3 and we started about a year ago. We even tried sticker charts, and were *very* excited when he went to the potty two different times on the day we posted the chart. The first time he just went #1 and earned one sticker, the seond time #2 and he earned two stickers.

DH and I patted ourselves on the back. After many failed attemps at finding something that would work to get DS to use the potty, we knew we'd find someting that would work! That was easy! As a matter of fact it was too easy. We should have known better!

Once DS used the potty and received those initial stickers, he never used it again. Whenever we asked him if he used the potty, he would take us to his chart, point to it, and say "I already used the potty. I earned my stickers, see?"

Finally, very recently (a few weeks ago, in fact) we took down the chart. We stopped encourging him to use the potty, etc. Last week, we tried getting him to use the potty again. This time he pointed to where his chart used to hang and said, "Well, I already know how to use the potty. I don't need a silly sticker chart for that. I just don't *want* to use it." I asked him, "Why?" He let me know that it took too much time. If he went in his pants he didn't have to stop what he was doing and could get changed when he was ready (e.g. done with whatever he was doing) or uncomfortable.

*sigh*

I think that if he can give you this nice explanation, he's big enough for you to tell him "OK, then you have to change yourself from now on." (That's what I would do!)

That's *brilliant*! Seriously, it never occurred to me to try that. So simple. So perfect for my son's personality.

It took forever to potty train DS6. I finally gave up and about 3 weeks later he went completely independently. Never had another accident or anything. I guess he just had to make up his mind.

why, thank you! My DS sounds like he has the same personality, and he did something very irksome related to potty training, so I just said "OK, that's it. I'm done. No more pullups!" And it worked beautifully.

My daughter was 3 and my son was 3 1/2 before they were potty trained. I wasn't patient enough nor was our schedule regular enough to dedicate a lot of time to training. They both basically trained themselves overnight at that point. With my daughter, it was a month before she was supposed to start preschool. I told her she wasn't going to preschool unless she could use the potty. I told my son he couldn't attend a big boy birthday party he was invited to unless he was potty trained.

If you can back off for a while, I would highly recommend it for everyone's sanity. Especially if your daughter is having anxiety about it. You may find a lead in again at some point that might be motivating. Both my kids needed a real reason to do it.

Someone here (sorry not to give credit, but I can't recall who said it) suggested making the bathroom THE fun place in the house. When the child sits on the potty, you LAVISH attention on him/her. You read books, you play games, you sing songs. Fun!

When the child is not on the potty, you basically ignore him/her.

This seemed pretty doggone smart to me!

My other advice is what it took to get DS7 trained: he went to grandma's house for a week! I think he wanted to please me too much, and he put too much pressure on himself. I still have no idea what she did that I didn't do, except for the fact that she wasn't me!

OTOH, DS4 was simple. He wanted to be like big brother, so he basically trained himself.

Both boys were right at 3yo at the time. All kids are different on this, of course, but my kids definitely weren't ready at 2-ish. FWIW...

For some kids this can backfire because they have mixed feelings/separation anxiety about going to school. I would be careful about using this strategy and be prepared for the possibility that your child will decide they are not going to school anymore and start having "accidents."

Thinking back to when I was training DD, I would say that as a parent I had some performance anxiety about my ability to accomplish training my child. It seems to be a parenting milestone as well as a childhood milestone.

Maybe kids pick up on that and it feeds into their own performance anxiety about using the potty?

Oh definitely! This would have never have worked with my son for that matter. She was very excited about preschool and had been talking about it all summer. You really have to find what will motivate your child. For my son, it was attending a big boy birthday party. For another kid, it might be a big kid game or whatever. It just helped to have some sort of motivation for my kids to be willing.

My number one concern.

DD doesn't have anxiety *in general* about using the potty, and yesterday her anxiety was not at all related to how I was feeling, because I was completely calm. But... anxiety is anxiety and whatever we are doing is not working for her. I hopeful it's just timing.

I won't use a sticker chart - thanks for the heads-up! lol

Hopefully all of us brainstorming here can come up with some new things for you to try

Maybe you just need to experiment to figure out what works for your DD.

This reminds me of when I started training DS (he's my second child) I thought to myself that since I had been successful with DD, it would be no problem to train DS. Wrong! I needed a different approach with him. He was not motivated by the same things she was. He wasn't ready at the same age. Etc.

And since it's potty-training we're discussing, I'm guessing it's also number 2!



Ah, nothing like a little bathroom humor!

(Very little...)

(Just kidding. I thought it was funny )

Yes, thank you ALL. Your input is very helpful.

DD is so incredibly bossy right now - supreme need for control. I figure some of the challenges we are facing are GT-related because her will is gigantic compared with her age peers. Let's just say she has the mechanics of when and how to use the potty down. She totally gets it.

I don't want to harm her overall sense of control and influence over her world. We don't need her to be potty trained this month. It can wait.

Kriston - you'd fit in nicely at our house with that kind of humor.

You laugh or you'll cry!

Seablue, I just went through the same exact thing with DD3. We introduced the potty early and she seemed excited, then quit. When we tried re-introducing the potty at around 2 1/2, she willfully rejected it. DD3 sounds like your DD -- very willful and bossy. We backed off with the potty because she'd throw a fit if I tried to sit her on the toilet. I figured we wouldn't get anywhere like that, so we took some time off.

We did talk about the potty, though, at other times. As she approached 3-y-old, I told her that they didn't make pull-ups any bigger and that she'd have to start wearing underwear. She understood that pull-ups meant she could pee herself and underwear meant she had to use the toilet. I also made sure we worked on pulling our pants up and down. DD gets VERY frustrated at the drop of a hat if she can't do something the first time. So we took a lot of time working on the pants so she'd be able to do it by herself when she did learn to use the potty.

One day she wanted a purple pull-up, but all we had were blue ones. So DH told her we had purple underwear. Once she wore the underwear, I could not do the normal potty-training thing of taking them to the bathroom every hour or so -- DD fought that terribly. She had to pee her pants a few times to realize that oh yeah, I need to pee in the toilet, not my underwear. After that, we've been good to go. She still wears pull-ups for naps and bed, but I'm fine with that for now.

It definitely helped when we backed way off of the potty training in the earlier stages -- I didn't even mention it for a long time -- and I tried to act like I didn't care about changing her pull-up, like it was no big deal. Sometimes when I had to use the bathroom, I'd say to DD, "Uh oh! I need to go pee! Where do I go????" She'd say, "The potty!!" So I'd sit on the floor and say, "Here???" And she'd say, "Nooo, the potty!!" We'd do that about various places so I could reinforce where we went potty. I don't know if it helped, but it made her laugh.

In the end, she was trained just before her 3rd birthday.

OP: My DD3 was the same way... she just didn't care. They always say girls are easier, but not for us. DS5 was 100% potty trained in less than a day!

We tried the same approach with DD3, but didn't have any luck, but maybe you will. We told him for about 3 days prior that "Saturday" was the big day. That morning, we stripped him of his bottoms and put the potty in the living room. We asked him every 30 minutes or so if he had to go and/or about 5-10 minutes after drinking/eating. He had one accident. But I'm thinking now that because he didn't like to be wet/dirty, and he grasped onto how to work things easily, that it made it easier for us.

For DD3, we went the pullup route. I hated it b/c I was so anti-pullup. But like Cathy stated, once you switch to underwear/panties, do not go back. Also try one thing at a time. With DD3 we worked on being at home/school with no pullup, then we worked on going places with no pullup, then night time training.

But with both kids, reminding them several days before that there was going to be a special day helped a bunch.

Oh, and when DD3 tells us she can't because she's too little or just a baby (when it's an obvious thing that she can do like walking - yes she will tell us she can't walk), we "cry" that we miss our big girl. Gets her every time. Mean, I know, but it also lets her know that while we loved it when she was a baby, we also really love the age she is now and all the things she can do.

good luck!

We attempted the sticker chart with DS5, and it so blew up in our face. He tried to outsmart us for more stickers all the time! LOL

Hoosiermommy - I'm so there. This week, with three houseguests, we backed way off the potty training. She's adamant she not use the potty now. A total regression, and it's pure will! DD completely understands the concepts and has the skills, because she went a few days with no accidents. We originally went directly from diapers to underpants, no problemo. Now, back to square one, except we're using pull-ups. Oh well, I can wait until she turns 3.

Anything else I need to know about this strong willed child? I'm all ears...

JJ'sMom, thanks for the idea on boo-hooing about missing the "big girl." I will definitely try that one. I'm trying very hard to figure out the messages we are sending her that make her want to remain a baby.

You'll fit right in at my house!

DS3 has been trying out various ways to *slide* bathroom humor into mealtime conversations. "Toilet Talk" isn't acceptable in our house during mealtimes. So, he's been trying various tacticts like telling a story about a train that "toot-toots" all the way home, etc. That explains why he and his sister spent an hour giggling over the thesaurus the other day. They are also working to combine words into a sort of code so they can weave words into the conversation that might otherwise not be allowed. "Furt" is one example. An example of the word used in a sentence would be, "At the park the other day, some kid did a furt". In fact my kids used that sentence quite a bit at the dinner table the other night, giggling often, until finally DH and I asked them what it meant. We waited until after dinner for the answer per their request.

Turns out that "furt" is short hand for "fruit fart". As DD explained it it's when a person "passes gas" and leaves "a mess" ..."like when you squeeze a grape". She didn't use the word fart in her definition, because "Mom, it's dumb to define something by using it's own name. I don't know why people do that. It's not helpful at all!"

I have two with strong wills DD8 and DD4. I'm certainly not an expert since the school did most of the work; however, we had problems with transition to home with both girls. With DD8 it was a pure fight, kicking, screaming to put her on the potty. We finally took the pullups and she had some accidents and then it was good. With DD4 we didn't have kicking and screaming, she just wouldn't go potty often for us at home, she'd wait for about 5 minutes after trying and then go in the pullup. The added bonus with her was that instead of merely takign the pullups away we had to hide them where she could not get them otherwise she would go put one on herself to go potty. If I recall this was all +/-3 yo. I don't remember exactly, CRS on dates.....Also, DD4 was pretty stubborn in holding #2 for the hope of finding a pullup, luckily no infections

(groan) I'm so sorry to read this! Must have been hard. It does make me feel better, though. I'd bet you a dollar our DD would be using the potty at school and not at home, too.

I think she's just determined to be in control of exactly when and how she is a baby and when and how she is a big girl. It's kind of fascinating to watch, once I stand back and stop feeling emotional about it, like I'm failing.

Now we are doing a lot of role playing with her baby dolls, and I'm making sure she knows how to dress and undress herself, thanks to suggestions from this thread. We are also having conversations about what a baby is able to do compared with a big girl. Big girls, for example, have teeth to eat jelly beans after they use the potty, unlike babies. That makes the gears turn in her head, lol.

As for the "furt" ... DH and I have a few other choice terms for that. In our household, the F word for gas is banned, in favor of the word "gas" for both ends of the digestive tube. I'm hoping that takes the forbidden-fruitishness out of using it - for awhile at least.

Thanks, all. You can't imagine how often I think of your stories as I am changing my DD's diapers. lol

So it is all about power! DS3 *can* use the potty. He knows perfectly well when he needs to go and can, even, do it all by himself. (He doesn't even need a step stool!) He proved it this weekend. Not one accident while visiting his grandparents for a full day. Now, at home, is a whole other story. I asked him, today, why didn't he use the potty. He looked me in the eye, shrugged, said "What for?" and laughed.

Can you believe it? "What for?"

HEH!

I'd start calling it the What-for instead of the toilet!!

When DD was potty was about 2 and we were potty training she refused to stop playing to use the toilet. DH was the stay at home parent at the time, so I figured they ahd gotten some thing to work for her to use the toilet while I was at work, until one Saturday when we were arguing with her about the body's need to use the toilet. She then informaed us that it was ok, she had already used the toilet and had gone number 2 and was all set! Wow, we thought this is great, maybe our fights are over. DH went into her room, where she was playing to congratulate her for going without being asked to etc when all of the sudden he starts yelling at her and she starts crying - She had indeed gone number 2 in the toilet - her dolls' play toilet! right there in the middle of her room. (It's funny now, but DH was not amused at the time.)

we had ds7 all trained at 2.5 (I thought)! It was great, I remember the day, my DH came home and I was so happy, "He's trained", I whispered. It had been raining and thundering all day.

Well, DS went on the potty all proud wanted to show off to DH..... and wouldn't you know the minute he sat on the potty a huge clap of thunder hit outside with flashy lightening. He would go near the potty for weeks!

So somewhere are 3.5 he was actually trained.....lol

Poor kid! This reminds me of a friend's kid who was finally potty trained when they went somewhere that had automatic flushing toilets. The toilet flushed while she was on it, so she refused to go anywhere but at home for about a year. Note: you can stick a post-it note or a little bit of toilet paper over the "eye" so that it won't automatically flush. Highly recommended for those newly potty-trained kids!