To ask how to potty train a resistant 3 year old?

My youngest was difficult to toilet train, we finally managed it a few months ago (around 3yrs 9mo). What finally did the trick for us was buying lots of cheap hot wheels cars and some little plastic pots to put treat foods in, wrapping them all up in some tissue paper and putting them in a basket, we then told him that every child that uses the toilet gets to take a present from the basket (he has an older brother too so didn't want to exclude him from it). He was trained in about a week like this (and almost immediately went dry at night too). The only downside was he went from not wanting to use the toilet to wanting to go every 5 minutes to get a reward 😅 So I implemented a rule that he had to wait at least 30 minutes between wees and stretched this to 1 hour as he got better at it.

OP, I know this is a very unhelpful comment (sorry!) but your stress definitely won't be helping.

I have seen so much inappropriate parenting from parents while potty-training, layering developmentally inappropriate expectations onto little children. Lots of passive aggressive behaviour, if not actually anger, when kids had accidents in inappropriate places because it was inconvenient and embarrassing for the parents. I sympathise with the parents - it's really tough - but it's bewildering for the kids. There is no universe in which it is acceptable, for example, to sit your crying toddler, pants down, on a potty in a public park for 20 minutes and bark at them "we're not leaving until you've done a wee!" I'm not saying you'd ever do that, but that's an example of the madness that I've seen descend on some parents when it comes to potty-training. And if you have to take an unreliably-trained child to the theatre or cinema, put a pull-up on them rather than freaking out when they have an accident!

My ten pence worth would be to take the long-game and focus on what you can do to make potty-training bearable for you so that you and your DC aren't stressed about it. Ideally imo accidents should be greeted with "oh well, never mind, you'll get it soon" and triumphs with high fives, hugs and stickers. But it's hard to do when you're fed up.

For me, the answer to this was wearing pants under pull-ups when we went out. This contained the mess somewhat but my DC still had that feeling of wetness so they learned when they needed to go. So if I were in your shoes, I'd buy loads of cheap pants, remind your DS where the potties/toilets are, get lots of fabric cleaner in and then just go out as usual but pop a nappy over the pants.

I agree Oh Crap is crap. We’ve had a nightmare toilet training my 3.5 year old. He’s sort of there but still a lot of accidents and regularly soils his pants. All we can do is be patient and hope he’ll get there. Very stressful though.

I’m going to agree with other PP’s and say he’s not ready.
However, a little step stool to the toilet and Cheerios cereal (or similar) how many can you aim for, worked with my middle boy
Be aware, splashes are bound to happen

Also, ignore the "bribery is evil" troll - looks like they have been deleted now anyway.

If you had all the time in the world then you probably wouldn't need extrinsic motivation, but it is a mighty useful tool to ease them down a path a bit faster that they would prefer to dawdle on. It definitely has its place.

Not sure how much help this is but DD was a similar age to your DS. She was absolutely adamant that she didn't want the potty, despite clearly having good bladder control. We had weeks of flooded nappies because she would hold it in and then do a massive wee. One day she just announced that she wished to use the potty and that was it. Trained herself within 48 hours. Fingers crossed OP!

I had a very resistant almost 3 year old, similar to you tried younger but had baby and it was impossible. She could hold on for 24 hours.

In the end she responded best to not reminding at all. We "ran out of nappies", put the pants on, told her she would get a sweet for doing something on the toilet, and left it up to her. Went out as normal just took spare clothes. It's not a big deal if they have an accident outside anyway. Had some accidents and some tears but it didn't take long.

A 3 year old can probably be dry at night straight away in most cases , you could at least try him for a few nights. Get 4 plastic sheets and layer them up. If not go back to night nappies

I think 3 year olds are often too old for a lot of the advice. They are too big for potties, feel embarrassed being half naked and resent being bossed around.

I did my second child before 2 and although it took much longer until he was reliable, at least we avoided the emotional stress!

You have my sympathy. Potty training is so stressful.

Your child's nursery should be supporting you with this after you've done the first few days - send him in with 6 spare sets of clothing and let them crack on.

I don't like Oh Crap generally - I think it is 99% a load of, well, crap.

I kept recognising things in it which I KNOW are total bollocks and it made me sceptical of the author's other claims which were new to me. Plus I find her peppy, know-it-all, judgemental tone absolutely infuriating and I think the insistence that you have to do it exactly her way or you've failed can fuck right off. And I think setting an alarm so you can take your sleeping-through baby to the toilet is madness. MADNESS.

But I do admit she has one extremely good tip which is to dedicate a day to watching them, she reckons naked, but I think the PJ shorts would work too - because it's just that awareness that you need to know immediately when they go - just basically observe what they do body language style when they are on the verge of having an accident.

What I learnt with DS2 doing this is that he would have those predictable signs before he actually recognised it himself. It was tiny and subtle - he would basically turn his toes inwards. DS3, I don't know. He is also nearly 3, and sounds similar to your LO. We had one perfect half day and since then he has utterly refused the idea of pants or anything and if he doesn't have a nappy on he will repeatedly cry, lie down on the floor and ask to be changed, try to climb up to the changing table where the nappies are kept etc.

We are lucky in that we have the opposite - school starts really late here (we are also abroad) and they have absolutely no pressure to be out of nappies as long as they are by the time school starts (and all the teachers/doctors insist that they will be - and even stuff like sticker charts is actually discouraged because they say it's pressure. Well, a sticker chart worked wonders for DS2.)

What we have been doing over the last few weeks for DS3 to try and get him over the upset is not insist on pants in the morning, but every time he had a bath, we'd get him undressed while the bath was running and suggest doing a "bath time toilet wee wee" and he'd usually perform for that. After a few successful times of this, DH started encouraging him to do a "bedtime wee wee" on the toilet, again much praise for this and he was happy about it. So we've added a "morning wee wee" and then occasionally he'll randomly inform us "Wee wee coming out!" so we say "Oh, well done! Shall we do a big boy wee wee on the toilet?" and often he will say yes. Nursery have told us that he has done wees on their toilet (and once, half a poo) as well.

So we are still in nappies (pull ups) but using the toilet usually 1-2 times a day but sometimes more than that. He still does lots of wees in the nappy as well. And there are times that he doesn't notice that he's going e.g. he had a fresh nappy on after swimming the other day and either a very fast flow or just a bad nappy placement meant that a damp patch appeared on his shorts anyway. He is now getting happier to be without a nappy although honestly I am not sure how he'd react if I tried to put pants or trousers on him with no nappy. I am thinking of having a day where we just conveniently "run out" of nappies unexpectedly and show him that so that he thinks there is no other option.

What do you mean no luck? It’s normal for them to have accidents, it doesn’t mean they are not ready.

We used the Oh Crap book. Don’t give in and put nappies back on. If they are starting school they should be able to understand that you will not put a nappy on so they can continue to be inconvenienced by accidents or they can use the toilet.

I've nothing to add. I just want to say you sound lovely and you're doing a great job.

I'm in a similar, but easier, situation. We're going nappy free day time with our just turned 3 yr old. And it's been hit and miss. He's now holding, and will only go on the toilet once I tell him to, he seems to have no awareness of needing. Once he sits on it he's mighty, but if I don't make him go every 90 mins he would just wet himself.

He starts the big nursery room in Sept, and ideally would be trained, but it's not essential. That said now we're this far I'm ploughing on. So I have buckets of empathy for you.

My 4 yr old trained in about 3 days when she was 2 1/2 and never had an issue or an accident. I suppose they are all different. But I relate to leaving it a bit longer, then wishing you hadn't!

He will get there. You will get through this. No advice, but lots of support to you.

I haven’t read everyone’s suggestions, just your posts.

Have you tried ping pong balls in the toilet? It taught mine to stand and aim at the balls. They enjoyed playing while weeing.

Obviously, there were times when wee was misfired, but who cares (easy to clean up and wasn’t in their pants).

I wouldn’t worry too much about accidents at school and other children noticing. I work in primary and remember once when the children were in the school library, I saw a child clearly having a poo in his pants, I gently escorted him back to class to be cleaned up, the other children wouldn’t even have known.

I also used to race mine to the toilet before we went out. Reminding them that everyone has to wee before we go out as we don’t know if there are toilets there. They would always win and therefore go first.

Good luck, I can hear how stressed you, understandably are.

That’s basically how I toilet trained my eldest. He is severely aurustic, non verbal and has very limited understanding but was fully trained by 3 years old, earlier than my youngest who isn’t autistic.

We would give him a drink, wait 20-30 minutes and then go into the bathroom. He’d sit in the loo and we’d play games, sing, look at books etc and then when he did a wee we’d all go crazy with praise and he’d get a chocolate button or piece of cheese (his two favourite things at the time) Outside of toilet training we didn’t offer those two things. I honestly thought it was going to be impossible but he’d cracked it within a week.

I mean you know your child best, but one who is being stubborn will definitely wait until nap time. I've known kids to do this.

Yes silly me. I guess just tell him they are only for nighttime now.

Does he have underwear he likes? Can you tell him fireman Sam or whoever gets sad when he gets peed on? Haha.

Yes, you have to fully commit, tell him the nappies are going in the bin. Let him see you throw them in.

I got a big bag of m and M's and made a big song and dance about eating one every time I went to the toilet. My son got jealous and I wouldn't give him any, just told him only people who go on the potty get one. 1 for a wee and 2 for a poo.

@AsMuchAsICanTellYou Not all incentives and rewards constitute bribery. We work for money. We treat ourselves if we have tackled a challenging task. Giving a chocolate button to a child who potty trains is not bribery. It is an effective reward system, encouraging them to associate development towards adulthood with pleasurable results and responses from others.

I used a chocolate button system on my DC. They potty trained in a few days. They rarely got sweets so the incentive was strong. The reward system doesn't last for ever. They are in their twenties now and I don't drop around to their homes to offer them a chocolate button every time they use their bathrooms.

Great advice from alsonification! Just wanted to add my first attempt at potty training failed. Put DS back in nappies for a month and tried again and it worked. I did nothing; total non-event, so no real advice to give other to say things can change very quickly with toddlers/preschoolers.

Ah fair enough. Well keep trying so. Kids will train in a couple of weeks so you might be surprised over the summer when he just suddenly does it.
You will probably look back & wonder why you were so stressed.
Very best of luck with it. I know it's extremely hard with a resistant child but he will get there.