To have potty trained 4 children by age 2.5 but

[SloeBerries]

...be defeated by the fifth?

She’s the most articulate and wilful. Three I had a pleasant chat with and the potty excited them, one with some SEN I used pictures cards and it’s a long road but some training by 2.5. This one just say ‘no’. She tells me ‘I poo in nappies’, ‘I don’t like potties’ and literally walks around the house screaming until she gets a nappy. And she is bloody persistent too. Or she eventually wees somewhere deliberately unreasonable.

Please tell me it’s not just me facing this? She’s a tiny wilful dictator that gives no shits, she knew the alphabet and counted to twenty at two.... it’s certainly not comprehension.

I was filling a bit smug super-mum like after the first four 🤯

pre-school may be discriminating against children with disabilities. many children are undiagnosed at 3.

some autistic children train early. I met one, not mine, and have later discovered that she is autistic. many do not.

My 3.2yo is trained for wees (only in the house and nappy/pantless.)
But wont poop in the potty.
Managed about 1 nearly in toilet in weeks.
With knickers on she has wee accidents.
Nursery start next week. I think it will have to be pull ups so she can practice going for a wee when they send the others.
Oldest was late at 3.4yo but that was more because of pg/newborn not wanting to lift to toilet. Plus she was also quite stubborn.
It's funny that PT is made out to be a big achievement as if it is intellectual. When it is physical but mainly behavioural.
Both dds are a bit PDA/ODD. So telling them to do stuff doesnt work

Could you try cloth nappies? Get some cheap preloved? Apparently they often potty train quicker in cloth as they know when they go as it feels wet. Not uncomfortable as such but just not as cushty as disposables.

I haven't had to do potty training yet though so by no means speak from experience but I know lots of people use them to transition to pants...

have you tried skipping the potty and going for the toilet instead?

I never liked pull ups as it's just pants you can pee in but it could be a compromise for her, so she feels safe in them but can go when she wants.

also inwouldnt stress her, there's no really point. she will get there, she's not going to be an adult stillnrefusing to go toliet

Love this......I thought I had parenting sussed until I met my daughter. We started potty training and she took one look at it and decided she wasn't doing it. End of. No amount of bribery, flattery, games, stickers, books on the toilet would change her mind. I tried to do the whole "let her wet her pants and feel the wet" thing. I kid you not she held her pee in for 16 hours. 16hours!! I caved long before her and put her nappy back on her but by that point she was so determined she wasn't going to pee. She didn't pee until about 2 hours after she fell asleep! When it came to poo she held it in for 5 days.

One thing that did eventually work was getting her to blow bubbles. It relaxes the pelvic muscles so would help her pee but only if she actually agreed to sit on the potty. For poo......I actually just gave her half a watermelon and a spoon and let her tuck in. Natures laxative 😂

I have now learnt that my daughter doesn't like a fuss. She doesn't like lots of encouragement and praise. She likes to make up her own mind and when she does things she likes a quiet high five. I honestly think if I had made no fuss, put the potty down and just said that's what you're using now she would have done it no bother

Good luck!

I read that as by 25 lol!

We're all brilliant parents until we meet the child who teaches us that actually we're not.

Sometimes it's our first. Sometimes it's our fifth.

I was always of the school of thought that girls were quicker to toilet train- until I had one.

Ds is now 15, he has AS. He was potty trained just after 2 but didn't say much, he understood me though.

Dd is now 7, was talking in sentences at around 14 months, very bright child, was not interested in toilet training at all until she was around 3/3.5 and still refused to poo on the toilet until she was 6!

This was a little girl who was streets ahead of her friends with reading/vocabulary etc who still wanted a babies nappy to poo in.
Saw the school nurse/doctor and it was eventually decided that she simply had a fear of the noise after speaking to her. It was embarrassing though and remember having to take pull ups abroad and go back to the room with her to do a poo.

Eventually she almost ended up in hospital as she held her poo in and was severely constipated for over a week, all medications given wouldn't work and then she just decided to try the toilet and was absolutely fine. It was definitely psychological.

At the age of 7.5 she cannot believe that she was like this and its a non issue now.
Once she trained at 3/3.5 she was dry day and night but the poo just petrified her.

I've learnt that you simply cannot force them.

could she feel wearing nappies is part of her identity as being the littlest one in the family? just a thought but it sounds emotional rather than intellectual. If she is being told it will make her a big girl or she is a big girl or stuff like that then perhaps she doesn't want to be a big girl, perhaps she likes being the baby of the family and thinks that will change?

Worth trying the ‘Poo goes to Pooland’ book? Worked wonders for mine.

Thanks this is more a general rant about an impressively wilful child. Obv counting is memorisation, but she can hold a full conversation too and is very on the ball. She also uses the info of letters into basic blending and counts with one to one correspondence, she’s not parroting. She sees reading eggs as the best thing ever (sisters account).

I’ve not really been ‘fighting her’:.. more sitting with tea and biscuits with my head in my hands silently...

I haven’t had much will tbh after her clear comments if it’s mentioned, the smallest mention sparks madness.

Yes her sister has asd, non-verbal until 4/5 ish.

This is more about feeling you’ve got it all sussed- and finding no one ever bloody susses parenting .

Have you tried the fisher price smart stages potty? We've got that and our two year old potty trained in a day. When they do anything it sings and tells them good job and its got a realistic flush. We told him if he did a wee wee it would talk because it was magic. Then when he did one and it sang we sang along and danced too, ridiculously enthusiastically, ( if anyone saw us they would have wondered what the hell we were doing haha) but he thought it was brilliant

if she is your fifth no wonder she is wilful! she needs to be
bless her.
she is her own person op.

You sound like a defeated parent, actually.

You've been given suggestions and parenting is about knowing your children and adapting to them. That's where you're "failing" at the moment. You're forgetting she's her own child and not a clone of the others.
Yes, every child and every phase it's a new challenge. I read your posts as you concentrating too much on her supposed intellectual development and forgetting she's a very young child. More play, less reason.

Having same issue at moment. We're nearly there with wees, he will go flying to the potty when he needs but poos are a massive battle of wills. He holds in for a as long as he can, found fresh orange juice forces it through but can be hit and miss whether he gets to the potty, had to cheat yesterday and throw a nappy on for him to do a poo before we went out (within five minutes). He's two and a half and has always understood what he's told but he's one of those kids that will take a while observing something and not doing it and then suddenly he just does it perfectly. Just carrying on in the hope it will just click suddenly.

Have you tried using the toilet, with an insert? Rather than a potty? My son couldn't see the point in a potty. He wanted to use a toilet like grown up people.

You were lucky with the first children This one is not ready

Ds1 was 2.11, he took his nappy off one day and that was that, day and night.

Hurrah, I thought. I am clearly a potty train guru.

DD was closer to 4. And wet at night until 8. I had the potty out from two and a half and encouraged without forcing, but she’d always go once and then just pee merrily in her pants for the rest of the day. She was at nursery so it was back to pull ups until she was ready.

Ds2 took a year to be reliably dry, started at 2.6 and he was 3.6 before he got day times. Still wet at night at least a once a week and he’s seven.

I’m a firm believer now in ‘they’ll get it when they’re ready’.

Your dd sounds fantastic btw, I love (other people’s) kids when they’re wilful and feisty

Your tale has made me glad that my eldest behaviour won't necessarily be that of my second. So much poo on the floor for months even nursery was fed up at her stubborness. and even now (4.5) will leave running to the loo for wees much too late, accidents weekly.

We took my eldest to B&Q and said he could choose a new toilet seat, if it meant he would use it (he was 3). He chose one covered in fish/shells. And he did use it. We got one of those inserts too, but he generally preferred not to use that - he preferred sitting on 'his' toilet seat. He just hadn't been bothered before then.

Yippee- she is generally fantastic thanks, obv brilliant moments when she’s on form and great fun... just occasionally wish I wasn’t the one with the job of managing her expectations

We’ve got a toilet inset (and a love of flushing the loo when no one is there to stop her)

I think yes, probably best she’s not the eldest! And it sounds like others had it in reverse.

I have no concerns at all about her asserting herself as number five, bashing and trampling any sibling out of her way if she desires and forging a role as spoilt baby of the family!

Almost disappointed than in Aibu I’ve posted this and only one poster has really outright accused me of ‘failing as a parent’ and sounding ‘defeated’. I was hoping for a little bit more in the way of accusations of emotional abuse etc at my reasonably light hearted woe...

Sorry OP.

FGS parent your child, your letting her walk all over you, all of mine were trained by 18mo, you just have to be firm. It’s akin to abuse to have a three yo still in nappies.

Is that better?

(I’m always a bit disappointed when an AIBU is all polite and helpful too, tbh. It’s disconcerting).

Sympathies!! I had 3 out of nappies (including one at night, too) by 2.5yo, but omg, the 4th was set in his ways. I knew he could go fine (> 1.5 hours dry when nappy free) but he totally did not want to use potty. A total creature of habit & didn't want any changes (& still like that at 10yo, fussy eater, I never had one of them before, either).

I can't remember how but I pretty much had to force DC4 into only pants just before he turned 3yo. Chocolate rewards may have been involved. Almost immediately he went dry overnight too (without any pressure from me, he was just THAT physically ready to be totally dry 24/7).

Go straight for the loo with a step and a child seat? Both of mine hated potties and never went in them (although admittedly both of mine took aaaggges to get out of nappies )

My eldest took two years to potty train. He was over 4 and even then we still had regular relapses for a year after that. My youngest took a week at 2 and a half. They are what they are. No reflection on you.