Should I persevere or try again another time?

[AveryJessup]

DS is 2 years 7 months. I started potty training him last week on Thursday just to see how we got on and had a good couple of days to begin, about 50-50 on pees in potty / accidents and he was happy to try his 'big boy pants' and so on. On Friday morning he said to me 'I have to pee in potty' and went successfully and had only 2 accidents that day.

Now he is losing interest, however. When I remind him to go on the potty he says 'no, I don't need potty' and refuses to even try. He was in pull-ups for most of the morning because he had been at nursery and then I had to take him with me to the doctors. When we got home, he peed on the potty once when I asked him to (incentivized with apple juice... !), cue lots of praise from me etc, but refused the rest of the day, ending up with a poo in his pants.

He doesn't seem to want to try anymore. I've tried the praise and staying very positive and he's very happy when he does pee in the potty but seems frustrated and bored too. Then again he is annoyed when I try to change his nappy too so in general he just doesn't like me telling him what to do! So should I persevere and keep encouraging him or just leave it and try again another time?

[AveryJessup]

Oops, he is actually 2 years 8 months!

[BrianTheMole]

I'd stop and try again in a month or two. They change quite quickly. This happened with both my dc. Second time lucky. But I hate cleaning up wee. So I preferred to wait until the whole process wasn't a chore.

[CarCiKoTab]

I don't really have any advice but didn't want to read and run, my 3 year old is going through potty regression at the moment and I am not lying when I say I have tried everything!

So will be watching. Hope things improve and someone gives better advice.

[AveryJessup]

Thanks Brian and Car - good to know it worked for your second time around Brian. I've been reluctant to give up out of worry that I'll just end up making it even more of a chore and hassle second time around as he gets more resistant. Good to hear that it worked better for you second time around.

Today when he refused the potty, I said to him 'OK I guess I'll just have to go upstairs and get you a nappy again then since you don't like the potty' and he said 'No, i want to wear my big boy pants!' so I said 'Well that means you have to use the potty too'. Didn't seem to get through to him... hmm... do their logic skills improve much over the space of a month / weeks??

[CarCiKoTab]

I've just today printed a potty training star chart thing, hoping that will work we've had two wee's since putting it up I'll send you a link...take your pick I literally used a basic one copied and pasted it to a word document and printed.

Because I'm a tight arse I have used ticks for wee's and smiley faces for poo's.

[AveryJessup]

Thanks for that Car - he liked the Thomas chart a lot! Didn't seem to get that the stickers go on it though, just wanted to draw on it. Oh well! I was actually just thinking of buying him some big boy underwear with a Thomas theme to keep up his motivation ('Thomas doesn't want to get wet so let's make sure he's dry!' etc...)

It was WW3 getting him to the potty today, kept refusing and refusing and didn't tell me once that he needed to go. Then pooed in the bath in the evening... grr... I'm not quite ready to throw in the pee-stained towel yet though.

[lucyk3]

I live in germany and here they start at about 3 and a half… and they normally let their children wear a nappy till the child decides to do it by himself. it seems to work. One day the child says I don't want to wear my nappy any more and then starts potty training. And the same with dry nights they just wait.

[FamiliesShareGerms]

It might sound counter intuitive, but have you tried the toilet rather than the potty? Both of mine hated potties and went straight to the loo instead (initially with a smaller seat on top and a step)

[AveryJessup]

Just thought I'd update and say that I gave it a break for a month or so and then tried again in the last week of summer break before preschool started again and... it went great! DS is dry all day now in underwear and for naps although I have him in a pull-up for nighttime still.

So thanks for your advice on giving it a break Brian and also, just wanted to say Families, that I did go straight to the toilet second time around (with seat and step) and he has done great, barely used the potty at all in the end.

In case anyone new reads this looking for advice, a couple of things I noticed that worked second time around were:

a.) going cold turkey completely on nappies / pull-ups and just going straight to underwear, no training pants, no confusion. This really helped as he got the concept much more quickly and
b.) just trusting him to tell me when he needed to go rather than being on his case every hour about it. We still have occasional accidents when I don't remind him but he can actually hold better than I expected. Since I'm pregnant I've been going every hour so assumed he would need to as well but he actually holds longer than I do at the moment...!