To have employed shock tactics with DS?

[RumbleMum]

DS1 is 4.2 and we started potty training 14 months ago.

It's never been an easy journey, and we've gone backwards and forwards ever since - he'll be fine for weeks and months at a time then suddenly regress for no apparent reason.

DS starts school in September and right now he's barely getting anything in the toilet - the best we can hope for a lot of the time is a semi-accident and the rest in the toilet.

In the past, I've done the whole endless-positivity-and-star-charts-and-no-negative-comment and it simply doesn't work - there are no consequences so nothing changes. We've found the best combination is a sweet for using the loo and/or a star chart, combined with taking a favoured toy away for a day or two when things get bad - a carrot AND stick approach.

Right now NOTHING is working and it's getting worse. This evening I've lost it, thrown all his pants out, put his current star chart in the bin, sent the star chart reward (some highly desired Lego) back and said tomorrow he's wearing nappies and if he can't use the toilet then he can't go to school with his friends (which he's really excited about).

FWIW I try to make sure he has a safe and secure environment, knows he is loved and that it's unconditional. I don't think there is a medical problem as he can be dry and clean for several months, and this regression pre-dates any discussion about school so not related to that.

So AIBU to have resorted to shock tactics even though all the professional advice is against it? Feeling like a really, really crap Mum right now so please be a tiny bit gentle!

[RumbleMum]

Iggly - actually, I think preschool have been doing the same - not asking him, but telling him it's time to go to the loo. I should try that as well!

[FidelineAndBombazine]

Sorry I don't know where that 'just' came from.

Is a semi nudist fortnight in the garden feasible during this heatwave? Paddling pool and sprinkler and trunks? Maybe the wetting of the pants is becoming a distraction from the using of the toilet IYSWIM?

[RumbleMum]

Thisismyfirsttime - I have asked him, and he usually says he doesn't know. Today he said he didn't know he needed the toilet, but I suspect that not to be true because given the right incentive in the past he magically does know - for weeks and months on end.

Fideline - yes, I suspect that's the way forward - it's the only thing we haven't tried because we have a new rug and sofas.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

I'm not sure that's a great idea to go back to nappies, but commando could help.

I understand your frustration 100%, my DD1 took 2 years to train and that took her right up to starting school. She had a couple of accidents in the first few weeks, and more at home right after school. She's just finished Reception and had no accidents at all at school this term and only 1 at home (ie, perfectly normal for a 5yo)

What I would do is yes, ditch the charts. Don't think of yourself as potty training anymore. He can do it. You know he can, but sometimes he doesn't.

Really really think about how you are speaking to him - don't say "yes, you made the toilet this time, great! Now why can't you do this all the time?" bite back that second sentence. Just the praise, nothing else. Also, no stickers, no sweets, no lego. Going to the toilet is a normal everyday function, it doesn't get rewards other than praise.

Do continue to have him clear up accidents, literally the whole lot himself. DD would call out that she'd have an accident and I would remind her where the clearing up wee towels were and leave her to it. Dirty clothes and towels in the bath, get dressed by herself. I did not supervise (though I would go and check the floors etc discretely later)

The week before she started school was the worst, so many accidents. But she knew she had to use the toilet at school and mostly she did, until now - she is a totally different child.

It does pass eventually. I know it's hard though.

And I did Chuck the potty in the bin.

[Thisismyfirsttime]

Sorry, I took too long to type and cross posted! In that case I can't say anything having never toilet trained a child myself. It must be very frustrating so I feel for you though!

[Iggly]

It is common for this to happen. I didn't see it as a regression as such. Talking to other mums it was so common! They really do zone out at times.

[serislou]

You have my sympathies it's so frustrating when nothing you do seems to make any difference. I have just been through similar with my dd, what started as regression due to a new baby went on for ages and she was enjoying the star charts/rewards which seemed to encourage her to carry on wetting. What turned things around was when I realised that she was quite enjoying getting changed into new clothes every time she was wet! So I went out and bought 5 pairs of grey track suit bottoms and black socks and told her that she could choose one nice outfit in the morning and after that it would be grey trousers. She very quickly improved!

Not suggesting this would work for you but just letting you know that the carrot approach definitely didn't work for me, my dd is also stubborn and needed a direct consequence to convince her to try and make it to the toilet.

[Flappingandflying]

I think you've done the right thing. Sometimes they just have to know that there is an end of the line and you've reached it. dS2 had accidents until quite late at home because he was so engrossed in what he was doing he left it too late. However, he started school aged four and five days old and never had an accident there. I think peer pressure will be a great influence. Once he sees others going and it's a norm then he will too.

I would have set loo times and get strict. He's doing this because he can. So he pees himself...no biggie, mum clears it up. He doesn't need to take responsibility and he isn't thinking ahead so you are going to have to do the thinking for him. I wouldn't say that there is going to be treat but, if he returns back to dryness then have a surprise outing or something. Could you also have friends to play and make a bit more of a thing of 'Mathew uses the loo like a grown up. What would Matthew think if he thought you needed a nappy'. Also, is it worth getting his Dad involved. A bit of man to man chats. After all there are the same bits involved and by four you are about to enter the wonderful phase of willies and bum jokes.

[RumbleMum]

Thank you all - some really useful thoughts here. If nothing else it's great to know I'm not alone. And as several of you have said, school will sort it out if we don't manage it beforehand - and perhaps it won't be as traumatic as I thought ... I guess 4/5 year olds have short memories!

[RumbleMum]

PS and also very heartening that my first AIBU wasn't as scary as I thought!

[BertieBotts]

Have you tried cheerios in the toilet (to aim at)? Seemed to turn it into a fun game for DS and that helped. Start over summer hols and hopefully he won't be reliant on the cheerios by the time he starts school. Also saying "Oh I really need the toilet. I hope nobody gets there first!" seemed to appeal to his competitive nature.

It's hard though - DS is 5 now and although fully trained he holds on and holds on and holds on all day because he's having too much fun to go to the toilet and the teachers at his kindergarten won't remind him. The most they do is say "Does anyone need the toilet?" but he thinks he can hold on. Whereas if they told him "It's time to use the toilet now" or "Use the toilet, then you can go out to play" then he would do it. He has a strong bladder so it's working for him (though I worry about his kidneys!) but a couple of times he hasn't got to the toilet fast enough when we get home. I recently had a talk with him about the colour of your wee and said if you drink a lot and do lots of wees, then it will be clear, but if you leave it longer it gets darker and darker yellow. We want to aim for the clear wees because that's healthier. That worked too - we still have the odd day where he finds other things far more interesting than stopping to use the loo but most of the time he excitedly tells me "I did a really clear wee today mummy!"

If he has trouble with transitions (really common for his age but can also be a feature of some SN like ADHD - but as I said vv common in NT 4 year olds!) it might be that he finds it hard to have the self discipline to break off one activity to go and do something which isn't particularly interesting, fun or rewarding and might be a bit daunting or hard if he doesn't like the noise of the toilets, has to go alone and/or struggles with buttons.

One of my SIL used to have to "pause" everything while her DD used the toilet at about 4 - they would all freeze in place while she went off to use the toilet and then resume when she got back. I think sometimes they can worry about missing things.

Reception teachers are used to reminding and if necessary telling DC to go to the toilet as well - don't worry.

[Thenapoleonofcrime]

Sometimes, once you have checked out there are no illness/other issues, a line in the sand has to be drawn. I wrote about this on another thread recently about the little boy wearing dresses to school, but my dd2 became completely rigid and attached to one dress for about a year at around aged 6, she wore it all the time, even in freezing weather (apart from school uniform). She started to refuse to wear other things, went out inappropriately dressed and had mega paddies if the dress was unavailable or something else upset her in relation to clothes. In the end, a line in the sand had to be drawn, my husband asked her if she would like to go to the cinema, but only if she had leggings or some covering on her legs (this was Dec!). She screamed and cried and insisted she was fine with just her socks and a thin summer dress on, and after an hour of this, came down with some leggings on. The next few times we went out, we reinforced the message- you can't ride a bike without protecting your legs, you can't go out in the cold etc (she was still free to wear the dress inside).

Sometimes you can pander a little too much, and be afraid to push past and just lay out the consequences. There are consequences to pooing your pants aged 4/5 and above for NT children and you just need to very calmly explain them (e.g. you can't go swimming if you might poo in the pool, you can't go to a friend's house if you are going to have an accident and really have no control)- now of course you could get round these things if you really had to, or he really couldn't control himself, but I wouldn't be afraid to use these things to effect a change. Sometimes kids need a bit of a shove towards the right behaviour, and you can couple this with praise anyway. Peer pressure is also great for this.

[Thenapoleonofcrime]

I would also say though, that most primary schools are amazing at dealing with this. One of mine has intermittent bladder problems and will just wet herself without warning, she's older, and they have been wonderful in dealing with this, it has just never been an issue.

l

[GodDamnBatman]

He might just have a weak bladder. My cousin had to wear pull ups at night until he was about 6. He eventually outgrew it and is fine now. But it's not something they can really control.

If cracking down doesn't work, you might just have to accept that he isn't ready yet. It might be a developmental thing, or it might be a physical thing. But making it a big deal if he truly can't control is just going to cause more stress and anxiety around the issue, and he might starting hiding accidents from you.

[lightningstrikes]

My mum used to set a kitchen timer for every hour - when it dinged you had to go try to use the loo. I didn't need to use that tactic with mine, but my friend's DS sounds similar to yours and was still in nappies at 4. The timer worked for him as he was resisting being told and reminded, but did actually need a reminder and responded to it really well (he also got to reset it after, which was a bonus). May be worth a shot?

[MissDuke]

I personally think you need to be careful. I was the same as a child, and I still have memories of me screaming the place down as my mum put a nappy on me (I was probs a bit older than your ds) after I had yet another accident. I was going out, and she insisted I wore the nappy. Eventually turned out I had recurrent UTI's caused by a structural defect in my urinary system, my mum says she felt absolutely rubbish. I have very few memories of early childhood, but that one is very clear in my head! I just think you need to be careful that you don't create memories like that for him.

[YouTheCat]

Is he constipated or prone to it?

[Sparks1007]

I don't have children but I can understand wee accidents at this age. But OP mentioned he's still doing poo in his pants. That sounds more like stubbornness/don't want to stop what I'm doing rather than a bladder infection etc.

[BernardlookImaprostituterobotf]

Actually constipation can cause wee issues and difficulty in knowing when you might have overflow poo accidents. Chronic, recurring constipation is a fairly common problem and as poo is happening it can sometimes be missed. Suddenly not being aware of sensations to toilet, urgency or accidents after being fairly reliable would get me checking.

I'm not saying the op's Ds is, she knows her child and is clearly on top of any health concerns, but in general reply to your comment I wouldn't go straight for 'stubborn' if I wasn't sure of good bowel function, it is essential to continence. Also behavioural reasons based around anxiety, change or similar reasons that provoke a need to control or be babied.
If all was good in all of those areas then you can get into stubborn or 'deliberate'and work on that. Imo, ymmv.

[deakymom]

if they have periods of being dry and good then surely there is o real underlying issues? does sound like stubbornness to me try talking 4 is more than old enough to understand (if i remember correctly mine is 5.5)

i had to "cry" to get my dd to stop dicking around we did everything she would sit outside pee and paddle in it was dry everywhere else but home i got proactive cross threatened treats finally i cried she asked me what was wrong i told her she wouldn't stop weeing at home that made me a bad mummy! (she had no baby sibs to blame it on no issues at home) she quit and said sorry!

[neolara]

My dd was similar. You have my sympathy. It is grim.

After consulting with a hugely experienced nursery teacher, I adopted the following approach. It worked literally overnight after a year of trauma.

I told her that big girls do wees and poos in the loo. All her friends did, so did mummy, daddy, granny, her teacher etc. And now she needed to do the same.

If she had an accident, I ignored it. I might have made some small comment like "something smells a bit funny" but the I'd walk off. No grappling her to the ground or chasing her around the house to get her changed.

When she told me she had had an accident, I had to be utterly nonchalant about it. I'd hand her some wipes, tell her to sort herself out let her find her own new clothes. No praise for sorting herself out. No shouting or purse lips for accidents. It was all about showing her it was her issue. If she wanted to have accidents, that was fine but she was old enough to deal with the natural consequences herself. The key is to keep zen.

As I say, this approach worked overnight for us. It also worked within a few days for dd2. You have to be prepared to deal with their outrage that you are behaving differently and not giving them attention for accidents.

This approach obviously only will work if it is a control issue not a physical one. Also if you can control your own emotional response.

Good luck.

[Inkspellme]

I feel your pain op! my son did a lot of day time wetting. we ended up going to a local nurse ( I am not in the UK) who did a training program with him. It was all about seeing how much his bladder held and making him reach his capacity. Because he wadn't reliably dry I had a habbit of encouraging him to empty his bladder often. this wasn't the best thing to do as he never really had a completely full bladder and so didn't know what it felt like. Over a good few weeks we increased the amount of water he drank each day. At first there were a lot more accidents. I knew there would be and we just dealt with them as they happened. We encouraged him to hold as long as he could. The program worked brilliantly and we have no wetting problems since then.

I would add that he was 8 at the time and my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner. It would have saved me all that useless discipline and frustrating star charts that we both wanted to work but were never going to for this problem. (I am actually a big fan of star charts btw).

[IEatBadgers]

We were trying for ages to get ds to potty train. Like you it was back and forth for ages. It was coming up to September and he was due to start playschool(his playschool didn't take children in nappies) so I laid it out plainly to him. I told him if he wanted to go to playschool,which he was really looking forward to, he had to use the toilet, end of. He was dry from that day on. I felt bad at first issuing an ultimatum but I had tried everything else to no avail.

He is 7 now and doesn't seem damaged by it.

[rumbleinthrjungle]

Agree this sounds like he's choosing to play/do what he's doing, so he's currently finding the outcome of soiling or wetting less hassle than taking himself to the toilet. Can his screen time or some of his favourite activities be kept as things that get accessed only directly after using the toilet? Less 'rewards' than this is what you need to do to earn these things. May sound mean, but it's the same theory as finish your homework if you want to watch tv.

I've also found a timer very useful in helping establish the habit of going regularly.

[ThatWasNice]

I mentioned down thread that I shouted at my DS because I was sure (as you could be) that he was just being stubborn by not using the toilet. It instantly solved the problem. He was immediately potty trained.

Surely, if kids are having accidents because they are busy doing something else then they need to know the going to the toilet should be a higher priority.

I don't understand why I seem to be the only person thinking that, in SOME circumstances you can punish a child when you are sure they are having accidents for no good reason.

My kids were usually well behaved and I generally didn't have to discipline them but there comes a time when 'star charts' are useless.