Major regression after failed potty training.

[wilburthewalrus]

DS1 is 2 years and 5 months. He seemed to be showing some signs of being ready to train - dry on waking, would sit on the loo/potty at nappy changes and before bath and wee on demand, often (though not always) told us when he needed changing - so we thought we'd give it a go.

It didn't go well. The first day, when we reminded him every 20 minutes, was fine, but as soon as the novelty wore off and we started trying to get him to tell us when he needed to go he started refusing to use the potty and just went in his pants all the time. We did 4.5 days with increasing numbers of accidents and all poos in pants. Since the advice seems to be that if they haven't made any progress by day 4 they're not going to get it, on the morning of day 5 after he had wet himself for the third time 10 minutes after refusing to sit on his potty I asked him if he wanted to carry on wearing pants and he said no. So, we decided he wasn't ready and went back to nappies for a bit.

Now, however we are worse than back to square one. He will no longer sit on the potty/loo at all even though he'd been doing it happily for about 6 months. He is refusing to let us change him and worst of all has stopped telling us when he is dirty and even lies about it if you ask. He often seems to contrive to poo immediately after a nappy change so that by the time we check him again he's been sitting in it for a while and as a result has developed terrible nappy rash. We've tried reasoning with him and explaining that his bottom is sore because he won't tell us when he's dirty, and we've tried offering him a sticker if he tells us, but nothing works.

Has anyone has a similar experience? What should we do?

[NellyTheElephant]

It sounds like he has reacted very negatively to the whole process and as such I would suggest that you completely leave it for at least a few weeks with absolutely no talk of the potty or trying to get him to sit on it etc. I would say NOTHING at all about the pooey nappies. Just make sure you keep giving him a good sniff to keep a handle on it but don't try and make him tell you at this stage or make any comment about it as he's clearly digging his heals in about it.

In a month or so start completely from scratch. Get him some treats (e.g. chocolate buttons) to engage his enthusiasm, show them to him a few days before you plan to start and make it clear that for every success he will get one, so he has a little bit of time to think about it - but try not to pressurise him - just tell him as a fact - 'next week this is what we will be doing'. With all my 3 I found that they hated the constant reminders - they tended only to need to go every couple of hours or so (or approx 40 mins after a drink), so we had more success if I could grit my teeth and leave the intervals a bit longer (obviously risking accidents) and in the early days certainly don't continually ask / remind - 'do you need a wee?' etc, as the answer will always be no (followed 10 mins later by a wee on the floor). I found the best way in the very early days was to try not to say any thing but every hour / hour and a half simply say right, now it's time to do a wee, do you want to sit on the potty or the loo (or on the red potty or blue potty? / do you want me to read this book or that book while you sit? / do you want a chocolate button or a jelly baby once you have done your wee? - whatever works for you but the element of choice REALLY helped). All mine were 'dry' within a week - but at that stage I would say they were still heavily reliant on me taking them regularly - them taking control of the process happened bit by bit over the course of about a month after they were technically potty trained.