I am losing the will to live let alone keep going!

[roadkillbunny]

I think we are in week four of potty training with ds who is 2 years 6 months. We made an okay start, he wont go near the potty only the toilet, issue being that we only have an upstairs loo and he cant's get on the seat on his own so timing can be an issue also he has a fair old speech delay, only just in the last week starting to put two words together, he can say poo but not wee, we use signing so we do get around it but it is another factor in making this quite hard.
Just today he has had one small wee on the toilet, 2 on the floor with no attempt to even ask to go the loo and one set of wet pants and trousers, he managed to keep dry for the first time to and from the village shop (I work there so have access to the staff toilet so he gets to have a try there to and has weed there before, only today he manages to keep dry, trying before we went out (no joy) trying at the shop (no joy) as soon as we got home I was unloading the shopping, turned round to say do you need the loo and he is sitting in a pool of pee... arghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
We have had no joy with poo at all but that is fairly common, I guess I am getting more frustrated and disheartened because dd trained day and night when she was 21 months, I can't take credit past the first day or so, she did it herself, I see myself as a first time mum with this, for many things with ds, the two of them are so different!
I guess I just need to say arggghhhhhhh but why!!!! as I can't say it to ds... have just been called away by him and he had a wee on the toilet, yay! but why can't he do that all the time, he forced the wee out, he seems to have good control but only when it suits, blooming heck, is this common for boys???
Sorry for the long post, just getting really arghh about it, school goes back next week, was hoping he would be more reliable by now after this time, what do I do on the school runs with dd?

[chickbean]

DS1 was well over 3 by the time he potty trained, but we waited until he showed an interest - just sticking him on the potty whenever his nappy was off. I used pull-ups to begin with (I know that die-hard potty trainers advise against them, but they are practical in situations where a wee or poo would be a bit of a disaster) but he wasn't in them for long. I think that DS2 will potty train far earlier, because he will have his brother to copy.

[roadkillbunny]

Thanks for the reply, it is good to just have the rant you can't have in r!
After I posted yesterday we ended up having a dry afternoon with all wee's in the toilet, today has also started well, only one accident (well I say accident I don't think it was, dd had just gone to play in her room, he wanted to go up with her but she was after some peace so it was a no so he signed he wanted the loo, not wanting the tantrum of him wanting to go in dd's room once we were up there and given he had had a wee in the loo not 20 mins before I told him to wait a few, he sat down and peed on the floor, gurrr!).
We have been using pull up for times when we will be out and not have good toilet access, never did this with dd but she was a different kettle of fish, good thing is that ds still will ask to use the loo when in a pull up, trying to avoid them now but will use one later today as we will be in someone else's house for a few hours and don't want any on the floor accidents there!
The whole potty training saga has shown us something about ds, it seems like dh and myself he is dairy sensitive, can have little bit but anything more and milk will result in liquid acid like (as in it blisters ds's skin in seconds) poo. We have switched to soy milk for breakfast and soy margarine with great result, the first normal looking poos we have ever seen (admittedly on the floor but hey, that life lol!) and then when I didn't think and gave him cheese on toast, the next day the liquid returned!
I will take him to the doc for advice on this one and will not put him on a complete exclusion diet without medical advice, but so far so good, I think this hasn't been so much of an issue before because although he has never had solid poo as such he was breast fed until a month ago and my diet is dairy restricted due to my dairy issues so when he self weaned and started having more cows milk the big issue happened and that unfortunately coincided with potty training, we had two occasions of being out for no more the 1.5 hours and him going through 3+ sets of clothing and ending up with angry blisters down his legs where contact was made even briefly and also a bleeding bottom poor boy, he has a doc appointment in his near future!
Thanks for listening to my endless rants and rambles, it helps to have an outlet, smiling and saying never mind, toilet for the next one gets very tiring!

[chickbean]

Tell me about it - we've had regular problems with constipation causing tiny pea shaped poos to soil pants up to five times a day. He's now on lactulose and we're getting most poos in the toilet, but it is so depressing after thinking we'd got it all cracked.

[lynniep]

to be honest most of us lot found our boys were not potty trained till gone three, and are now fully able (pee and poo!) to go by themselves at nearly 3 and a half. Although bum wiping is still an issue. When I say us lot I mean a group of gals who have kids the same age.
The girls did it probably 6 months to a year earlier than the boys. The boys sort of trained themselves - I found no point trying to 'force' the issue cos DS just didnt get it. He wore pullups (well pampers easy ups) for a long long time. And eventually he decided he'd use the potty, then the loo, then he'd stand up to pee. And somewhere during that lot he decided instead of running around with poo in his nappy he'd quite like to use the toilet to do it!

[roadkillbunny]

Thanks for the support, it is nice to know there are other about going through or have been through the trails of potty training boys!
We do seem to be doing much better. yesterday morning he was with dh while I worked and they went to the in(out)laws, he did I am told have a couple of accidents there but I think it was more of a being distracted with his 3 cousins and dd to run around and play with plus dh can be a little bit forgetful when it comes to asking ds if he needs to go and also ds tends to bypass dh and come to me when he wants to go. DH picked me up as we needed to go into the city to get the last of the back to school kit for dd, ds was not wearing a pull up and was asleep in the car, luckily he did not wee on waking, I asked dh to take him off and put a pull up on while I was in a shop with dd as ds was going to be in the buggy the whole time we shopped. We shopped for a couple of hours then stopped off to eat, ds asked for the toilet, took him and he had a big wee, his pull up was dry, yippie!!! He had a poo in his pull up on the drive home but was then dry for the rest of the day. Today, so far has been a dry day! We went out to do the chickens and go to the shop, no pull up, he tried at the shop toilet, no joy but on the way back I asked him if he wanted to pee on a tree (I know this sounds gross but he needs to learn how to pee out doors, we live in a small village and we are often far from a toilet and in open fields or woods!) and he did! First time he has actually done this (had a few tries) and he was chuffed with himself, kept wanting to do it again and again and was a bit miffed he didn't have any more wee! So that was the first totally dry trip out, woohoooo!
I know boys take longer and there is no harm in him being 3 and only just getting dry but for me he is starting pre-school in January and where as I know they have to take him in a nappy/pull up I would really rather that didn't happen for everyone's sake but saying that if it were a case of he just wasn't ready then he would go in a nappy/pull up. It does seem however that we are making progress, dd did train really easily but I had it seems forgotten some of the little trials as little anecdotes about her training time keep popping up all of a sudden, it seems we forget some of these hard bits, good to know lol!