to think this does not constitute potty training

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We are having issues with toileting our 4 year old. MIL announces today that both dh and dsil were potty trained at 18 months. Apparently they uses pottys in them days and they sat on them till they went.
I may be oversensitive but I offended by this. I used pottys too you know. Just find it difficult to make a 4 year old sit on potty until he poos. Wees ok.

Repapa - In your place, I would stop all attempts at potty training and put him back in nappies. Retry in several months.

If in another six months, he still wets and soils himself with no worries, I would take out the stick.

We are having similar problems with my nearly 4 year old son. He is clean and dry at school, but has accidents in his pants at home. He's been toilet trained with his wees for over a year now. We have tried all the usual bribes etc to no avail. Even MIL who is a former childminder is stumped. Not tried having him take ownership of the laundry, so will try that next.

my youngest was very similar - refused to use the toilet for a poo (he does have learning disabilities though) and we tried everything that all of you have already suggested and nothing worked.....until we had to replace the toilet seat as it had broken and had to replace a wooden one with a plastic one and straight away he used the toilet (not just at home, but at school and everywhere else!)

just a thought!

When we potty trained dd (now 3) we kept her in cloth. She felt wet in them but didn't with disposables. Helped her so so much. Don't know if that helps at all?

DS was like that for a while and I think it was because he was constipated - so might be worth getting this checked out by the doctor. DS would put off going until the very last minute - sometimes he would make it too the loo in time and other times he wouldn't. Fortunately, he never had an accident at school. DS did grow out of it, but, if I was in that position again, I would get DC to have a try on the loo for a couple of minutes morning and evening, even if they instisted they didn't need to go.

Sorry Pandemoniaa, that was a huge generalisation but in the main true for the people I know. You still potty trained before 2 which is now considered young.

Most of the children I work with are much nearer 3 or 4 before being potty trained (those without additional issues as discussed in this thread) - surely children haven't changed that much - as you say disposable nappies make it easier not to potty train a young child.

I had a few negative comments about potty training mine before 2, people said why bother, when they are 3 they will just do it automatically without loads of accidents and one HV refused to give me advice as she didn't recommend starting till they were 3.

I was amazed to see a little girl I know toilet trained well before 2. She wasn't being pushed, she kept asking for the toilet! She wants to be like her big sister. She did it, all dry and successful, so with some children it can be done if they're willing. She was dry at night a few weeks later! Certainly not the norm around my friends, I'd say 2.5 is really. But all children are different.

I think changing the toilet seat may be an option. Last night I caught him doing a wee perched over toilet. Maybe he dosn't like the feel of the wooden seat.

I think that might be a good idea. It would also provide a new start for both of you.

I never gave the toilet seat a thought; we changed it because we had to! Seemed to be the trigger for youngest ds - good luck

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2126091/Potty-trained-months-old-Early-learner-makes-boo-boo-noise-alert-parents-nature.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Does this constitute potty training?

OP, we were having the same sort of issue with our 3 year old. She has never had an accident with wee's but would always poo in her pants, refusing to poo in the potty or toilet. This has gone on since November. With her, I think it was more of a control thing - she would use the toilet in nursery if desperate but would always dirty when with me.

Have you tried reading 'poo goes to pooland' to your son? There's a pdf copy if you google it. Another person in the potty training section recommended making a personalised book with photos for your child (it was fairly recent in the last couple of weeks or so if you want to copy her idea). We did both of these things with our daughter and have been having some success in the last week, with no poo accidents. Something has clicked in her head and she's happy to poo in the toilet/potty. I feel things have improved and feel a bit more relieved about the situation. Good luck - it's such a horrible thing to deal with.

I have a friend who has a daughter who always pooed in her night-time nappy up until she was over 4. I think the issue resolved itself as her daughter got older.

It was probably that article that prompted discussion. Dh mentioned in front of ds and MIL that a 6 month old could do what ds can't. Was not impressed with dh for saying that in front of ds either.

Op, that was a nasty thing to say infront of your ds, that's not going to help his confidence at all.

Exactly sockpuppet

I was 'clean' by 18 months and that's exactly how mum trained me. She sat me on the pot while watching a film and i wasn't allowed off till i did a poo. If i wandered off she just distracted me and put me back on.

If mum went out of the room i would get up and wander off and often leave a poo in the pot and the dog would eat it Mum would come back in and make me do another one!

There are many photos of me at home, on the beach, by the pool, happily sitting on the potty.

I can't think of any other way i'd do it with mine.

Weren't pottys in victorian times made with a big bar across the front to stop the children getting off until they'd went? (I have vague memories of this from DS's victorian project at school and half listening to an episode of antiques roadshow). That makes me a bit uncomfortable though thinking about the children having to sit there for long periods of time.

Apparently (have just asked my mum) me and all my siblings were potty trained by 2 at the latest. I was 18 months.
She did us all in the summer, took off bottom half of clothes and pretty much did what your MIL did, rewarding any "action" with a chocolate button. Because we didn't have sweets generally, this seemed to work.
I did this, basically with ds;he got the reward actually on the toilet (didn't use a potty) as soon as he had done a poo/wee.
There were a couple of wets and 2 poo accidents, but that was it.

I agree that earlier is better, before any anxiety can set in, but obvs this doesn't help you OP.
I would leave it for a few months, and then try again with a concerted, consistent effort.
The main thing I found was that the reward had to be instantaneous. Pavlov's Dog innit.

RaPaPaPum my friend had a similar problem which was only resolved when she went to stay with a cousin who had a slightly younger child being successfully potty trained. Seemed that peer pressure did the trick in that case. Don't know if her DS hadn't actually realised what was being expected or that he didn't like his younger cousin getting the attention for being a 'big boy' and going in the potty......

There is a great book called "Peek a poo - what's in your nappy?" My 3 year old daughter loves it. Reading that to her (she insists on it every night!) + using a reward chart specifically for poos (I made it in Word & laminated it) has helped her to go from a poo refusenik (holding onto poos until it hurt and then having an accident) to happily doing poos in the potty or toilet in under 2 weeks.

Let's face it, no one had their 18 month old fully toilet trained if you define that as knowing when to go independently, removing clothes, doing what needs to be done, cleaning themselves and redressing. At least I am highly, highly sceptical it was anything more than a rare occurrence at such a young age.

It tends to be later now because children can't feel what they are doing in their high-tech nappies, boys are usually later than girls anyway and it's a relatively time-consuming job that is hard to do when you aren't around all day every day to work out when your child is weeing and pooing. My son is 2;4 and not in any rush. He tries to get out of having soiled nappies changed mostly - "change it a while mummy, not yet, I'm playing". He has been pretty interested in other early self-care things - had no bottle by 11 months, was feeding himself yogurts with a spoon by 14 months, is quite obstinate about self-dressing etc. He's just not motivated by this yet so I'm going to wait a while longer.

At 4 though and how you are describing it, it sounds more psychological and if there are no accidents in the day, there is holding going on which can cause all sorts of problems/backing up etc. The school nurse obviously feels that it is an attention seeking thing which would indicate less rather than more intervention though saintlyjimjam's suggestions do seem to work with many.

'Let's face it, no one had their 18 month old fully toilet trained if you define that as knowing when to go independently, removing clothes, doing what needs to be done, cleaning themselves and redressing. At least I am highly, highly sceptical it was anything more than a rare occurrence at such a young age.'

Are you happy to pay a fortune for nappies just because a child cannot do up their trousers, and therefore, by your definition, is not potty trained?

My children would have all been in nappies for one or two more years by your definition. The nappy companies would have loved that.

Oh and I really don't think that my children are outside of the ordinary nor a rare occurrence, by all being potty trained by the age of two.

Not quite sure where you got the idea from what I wrote that saying there is more to toilet training than the initial stages of plonking them on a potty until they eliminate means some sort of longstanding support for extended nappy use?

I just think that some of the "oh my child was trained at 18 months" stuff is similar to the competitiveness around labour e.g. when women say they were in labour for two weeks because they had contractions on and off for 13 days followed by 10 or 12 hours of active labour. I don't much care when people start to toilet train, it's none of my business, but I think talking about how the child is toilet trained at 18 months is disingenuous. It would be more accurate, especially in the context of discussions where that information is just really given to make the late-toilet trainer in this case feel bad about themselves, to say "I started toilet training at 16 months and by 18 months could tell when my child needed to go and we didn't need nappies any more" or "by 20 months he would always let me know when he needed to go and we didn't need nappies any more". However, toilet training is - to my mind - ongoing until a child is completely and utterly independent in all aspects of training. Which usually happens much, much later.