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

You shouldn’t be leaving the house at this stage. You need to invest time in training him.

Tbh I think a large part of the issue is your attitude. You are massively combative and basically have many different points you aren’t willing or able to compromise on.

Yes, absolutely this. It was the "this must be done in a week" juxtaposed with "I don't want potty training to mess with his bilingualism" that made me raise a large eyebrow. He's got an entire lifetime to learn a second language, come on now, get your priorities straight.

It sounds like he may well have the control just not the desire.
Can you get dad to turn it into a cheeky/ ‘forbidden’ father-son thing.
Get dad to take him on one side and tell him the real reason that he wants him to learn to pee in the toilet is do that they can do a cool thing together. Have dad sneak away with him and show him how much fun it is aiming at cheerios he has thrown into the bowl. Have dad just be a master at it first few times with no pressure that your son has to try too. Let the idea sit with your son for a while. Hopefully he will have a competitive edge that he wants to try too. Let them keep it a secret for a while so that there are some ‘fun’ toilet episodes behind mummy’s back then get them to do a big reveal.
It might end up with pee everywhere at the start but it would get things going.

Some of this advice might help.

https://www.instagram.com/stoolwithholdinghelp?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

we used the “oh crap” potter training book, available on kindle.

The ages are the ages they were ready

Getting it right for every child. The premise of child protection and education. Where is that?

I have four. Two adopted, then two biological. For completeness.

Dd1. Age two.

Ds1. Age nearly three.
Dd2. Age 3.5
Dd4. Age 3.5

None of my children have been "trained". Each and every one has felt ready and wanted to wear pants.

I've seen it all, I work in a playgroup two days and a nursery two. Parents following x, y, x, g, h, b.

If the child is not ready they are not ready. You can "train" them yes.

But I can say I have four children who have had maximum two accidents each ever. And one who is still in nappies at night. She's still three.

I haven’t mentioned “oh crap” - I don’t really find any of these potty training books (or sleep training books) helpful, because as you say, every child is individual.

OP is clear she has a time frame though and therefore this needs to happen. It’s not helpful people saying her child isn’t ready etc. I’m sure the bulk of 3 year olds are ready, and I do think it makes sense that there’s a bit of a sweet spot - when they are old enough to get it/physically able to hold it, and before they are obstinate enough to argue and control. Part of the reason I despise travel potties is because I think if your child is ready, they should be able to hold it until
you find a loo and not need to shit in what’s effectively a bucket
in public.

I don’t really think anyone has attacked the OP, I think people are offering advice and the response is just to slam
it down for whatever reason.

@Coldsore MN can be extremely unpleasant towards parents of children who are for whatever reason struggling with toileting issues so I’m not surprised the OP has been ‘combative.’ I don’t personally see it though.

Whenever I’ve looked for support on here Oh Crap is just pushed relentlessly as is the idea that it’s been left too late, the U.K. are full of dreadful lazy parents and so on.

With potty training and with lots of other things, parents tend to insist a thing is right or wrong based on their own experience of their one or two children. I’ve been guilty of this - we did gentle sleep training with DS and it worked after one night and I’ve definitely probably assumed it would with all children! But I deeply regret reading the Oh Crap book. The tone is awful: so judgemental and its claims are not true <eyes DS> we’re six months in and are still having regular accidents and soiling in particular. I don’t think we’ve done anything wrong or DS is behind or anything, it’s just for whatever reason this is tricky.

Yet so often threads where parents are struggling invite attacks - often claiming the parent wants teachers to clean the child up, lots of complaints about bygone days not having this issue. It’s worth remembering that smacking, shouting and humiliation were used far more frequently than now and I certainly remember having an accident at nursery and being smacked for it (I am 44.) I don’t want to go back to those times and I don’t think anybody does. Some children will get this quickly and some slowly. What they all need is patience and positivity and encouragement. I am human and I’ve been frustrated with DS on occasion which I deeply regret. It just is: they will all get there eventually. And hopefully before school.

Tbh I think a large part of the issue is your attitude. You are massively combative and basically have many different points you aren’t willing or able to compromise on.

yes, you have a baby. As do many others who have done this - that’s just parenting and par for the course. I’ve done it twice and each time had a 6 month old who didn’t like to be put down.

you don’t want to stay inside but you have very limited time in which to do this. If I were you I would have stayed inside for 4 days. Yes it’s a pain in the arse, but you only have 4 days so every single accident counts. You need to be on them and watching them constantly. It’s extremely tedious but you don’t use screens which is an advantage as screens make it impossible for them to not zombie out and pay attention to going. I have a garden and very active boys but they didn’t go in the garden during training because they needed to just be playing near the potty. That’s it.

you’re basically just complaining about everything without any solutions. I disagree with posters who think it can’t be done - UK is very lazy and think children can go to school with nappies and that’s bollocks. You can definitely do this / it’s difficult when they hold on/battle with you it is almost certainly a control thing. My first potty trained in 3 days no accidents but then refused to use any other loo inside or outside the house for about a year. Control. Didn’t have accidents but just held on all day. I had to just wait him out. You can’t really wait him out on this as you don’t have the time so the only thing you can do is have the potty there and calmly say you can’t go out until he’s used it. I know you said this causes distress but he knows where it is and it’s up to him to make that choice.

have you also checked that he doesn’t have a UTI, if he was saying his willy was sore? As that will make potty training impossible.

taking hiM out so he can poo in his pants is a mistake IMO as it normalises the feeling of an accident and then he won’t mind it. Same with letting them wet trousers - I always found mine didn’t give a shit about discomfort if they had had an accident, and the only method was to keep asking/catch them about to go and get them on and reward them. That’s it.

night time stick with nappies for now and see how you go. My eldest still needs them and my second it became clear after a week of being dry during the day he was also just dry at night.

We had some issues. My advice is take away all nappies altogether. Make it fun. Sing a silly song. Put something funny down the toilet to
poo on top of. Bubbles? We did raisins 🤷‍♀️Get him laughing . It worked for us.

A sweet for every pee on the toilet and a small toy (wrapped up) for every poo.

I bought around 20 small toys and the issue was fixed before I had finished the bag of toys.

Well done! Stick with it. It's disgusting and you'll be washing clothes for ages but he'll get it eventually.

We had a bucket in the bathroom to soak poo clothes and clothes with pee that hadn't been immediately rinsed. Honestly it sucks while you're living it, but I know lots of kids who don't get it after a couple of days and need a few months going cold turkey before it clicks.

Been following this thread all day, no advice here just commiserating as we're in the same boat. My daughter turned 3 nearly 3 weeks ago and has shown no interest in potty training. She even went as far as putting in her nappy when I took it off.

We started again yesterday after she had a dirty nappy. After showering I put on her underwear and she peed in the potty throughout the day no accidents.

Today we've have two accidents, one pee (she got distracted vacuuming) and one poo when DH was cleaning her potty that she just peed in. She kept saying sorry daddy, sorry mammy and we told her it is ok.
After shower she went to put on a nappy jersey and refused to wear underwear. We let her be and she went to play next door, came back clothes wet two hours later but nappy dry. Took off clothes and put her back in a vest and underwear. She has used the potty twice so far. I'm keeping her home the next two days to see how we go and will send her to the childminder on Wednesday with underwear and plenty of change of clothes and hope for the best.
Sounds like your boy is getting there, try not to stress too much.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom so I did these as mine was also a car and truck boy

amzn.eu/d/eAU9akB

We sat and talked (multiple times) about the reason, reward, and information - but in reasonably simple terms

'We drink water which makes us wee, wee goes in the toilet - we eat food which makes us poo, poo goes in the toilet. We need to keep our clothes clean. When you wee or poo in the toilet we will put a sticker on the chart, when you get 5 you get a special truck'

Standing I found helped as I would explain just outside the toilet 'we drink water which makes us wee, shall we try?' Then give them some drink and get to stand in front of toilet - point at penis and say 'the wee will come from here' and I found him looking and concentrating on it would mean it would happen. We didn't really do every 20 mins or anything - around 1.5 hours unless has been drinking heavy etc as that was roughly how long between wees he would go anyway

It definately took a while but we had short simple talks on it regularly - varied where you can say 'what does drink make us do?' 'Where does it go' etc to try to keep it interesting but get it so it's really understood, simple, non scary and manageable for him

The working towards the trucks definately helped.. they sat in the bathroom as well as the sticker chart ready for collecting etc

Just wanted to add to my message from before because I've read your updates and it sounds like you're really stressed. Understandable (I was too) but it's so important that he doesn't pick up on it, you need to act like it's no big deal and then he'll learn it's no big deal - and if he's not trained by 23rd, that's fine, nursery will support too and youll get there, the important thing is that youre on 'the journey'. I also think you need to change your expectations from "he'll be trained" to "he is training" - it's a process and he'll have an accident when you're out, definitely, more than one, including at your in laws. It's okay, there's not usually loads of wee and poos are contained in pants. It isn't going to be hugely disruptive when it happens and you just take wipes and changes of clothes with you and clear up as you go. It's easy to say but if you are able to relax a bit I think you'll both find it easier.

I would like to add my sympathies, it is hard!
my son was also 3 when I realised it had to be done. it took a lot of patience.
I found the when poo goes to pooland really good. I don't let my son watch very much, so I used that as the incentive, you sit on the potty, and you can watch. Also, I realised he was scared of the big toilet, so it was potties all the way. I take the potty with me everywhere. I bought a folding one that uses bags so minimal clear up when out and about.
I would take him to the potty for 20 mins at a time, about half an hour after getting up, and then half an hour after each meal. After a few days, he got the hang of wees, but poos took a while. I just decided that I can't go back to nappies, so made sure to have plenty of spares.
After a couple of months though, I started to get cross, not angry but to be very firm, poos go in the potty not in your pants. Every time. and it sank in. conversely, every time he managed it, he got a hug and a kiss and a treat and lots of praise.
Now, six months later, he is still so proud of himself. every time he makes a poo we get a loud announcement!!!

Yes sounds positive progress OP, great to get one in the potty & give a reward. Good luck with it!

For a potty training child, seeing something happen in the potty does really help to begin normalizing it as a process, even if you've rushed them there yourself. It starts to click, "oh, that's what it looks like/feels like to do it in there". Definitely a win!

One in the potty is great progress! And if that got a reward whilst the accident in the park interrupted the fun then hopefully it’ll start to sink in.

I absolutely hated Oh Crap. I found No Cry Potty Training Solution book more helpful, and also the NHS Poo Goes to Pooland app PPs have mentioned. You have to remind yourself that although you feel as if you're the only one in the world with this problem just now (the school situation is really unhelpful) in reality literally thousands upon thousands of parents have been through this. Some with kids considerably older than yours. Assuming your DS has no special needs then he WILL get it with time and you have NOT done anything wrong. I also think it's highly unlikely that in a class of three year olds (and some two year olds, from what you said?) that he will be the only one having accidents after they start. People have very elastic definitions when they say their DC are "trained"!

Definitely keep the nappy off for naptimes (not nighttime - night is a whole different ballgame) and try to stay as calm and neutral as possible when there is an accident - hard, obviously. I found sympathetic (you understand this is hard for them) but pragmatic (but this is just something everybody needs to do) type reactions worked best. Lots of positive reinforcement for even tiny wins, even just getting him to sit on potty or toilet for a couple of minutes, and not much attention for accidents (oh dear, what a shame, wee goes in the potty doesn't it, you know where the dry clothes are don't you). Don't be afraid to escalate rewards - start with tiny rewards just for small wins, then move on to requiring something a bit more from him once you think he's comfortable with the basic stages.

Glad I’m not the only one that thinks ‘Oh Crap’ is, well, crap 😂.

Just take away nappies (except for nighttime if you prefer). Put him in pants. And go with the flow. Have plenty pants and trousers as spares. My Ds is 3 end of July and is currently out of nappies, he just shouts potty and we run and I help him. A few weeks ago he would just pee in trousers. It wasn’t an ideal time we’ve been out at various places, trips in car and he needs to get baby sat at grannies tomorrow, but he’s only had one accident and that was the first poo. I’m being very chilled about it all…he’s my third and I started them too young. He seems ready now. I’d just be calm, pees go in potty’s. Clean up mistakes and repeat. Don’t make it difficult with loads of gimics. Good luc