to abandon potty training after 6 hours?

[SomebodysMum]

She’s just turned 3.

We started this morning, she totally gets the concept but 0 success, many many wet pants and a couple of poops on the kitchen floor. I wasn’t expecting any successes so far but it’s just the frequency of wees that make me think maybe her bladder just isn’t physically ready. 16 or thereabouts so far.

We did have a dry 45 minutes as she hasn’t drunk much for a while but then she had a drink and less than 10 minutes later there was another wee. Is it supposed to go through that quickly?!

She was a late walker, still can’t jump. Has done other stuff like problem solving way way ahead of milestones but I’m wondering if maybe this is just another physical milestone she just is a bit later than others for.

So AIBU-

Yes - 16 wees in 6 hours is normal for the first day, keep at it

No - she might be physically not ready, try again in a month or so.

I'd just bite the bullet and run with it. Both of mine were over three and the first two days were hard. Then all fine. You need to take her to the potty every 10-15 min. If she has an accident let her take off the wet clothes herself, she'll soon get the hang of it.

I left it until he was over 3. It was his idea and he literally told me "No more nappis". There were no accidents. I left it to him to decide the night time nappies as well - he decided at rising 4 that he was too grown up for nappies now. Again, no accidents.

I didn't want a battle, or loads of confidence-knocking accidents so it seemed sensible to let him lead where his own body was concerned.

Every child is different and every family’s situation is different, but we took a very low key, high bribe approach and it worked wonders. A little reward like a chocolate chip for every success, plus a chart with stars and once a row filled up, a trip to the prize shelf. She didn’t even notice that as time went on more squares got added to each row and that eventually we switched from rewards for anything to just poops.

The prize shelf was a little shelf in our pantry that had an assortment of trinkets. It was a great place to put those little things that always seem to show up that you don’t know what to do with. Like when you get a party bag and she pulls out a piece of candy and forgets the rest is there. Add the little toys to the prize shelf. Occasionally I would buy something to add that I knew she would want. We used the prize shelf for all sorts of motivations for about 3 years before she outgrew the concept.

OP you have basically 2 choices.

1. potty train now - which means a lot of effort, commitment, doing little else, and cleaning wee and poo for a few days, potentially longer.
2. leave it a while longer until she’s fully ready and will essentially train herself with no accidents, but you’ll be stuck using nappies for a bit longer. Do whatever works for you. I’m a working single parent, so following my kids all day with a potty and a mop wasn’t an option. I just let them dictate when they were ready. And as I said previously, they did it themselves and never had an accident ever.

@Roomarmoset

I'll join you - we're on day 4. DD turned 3 in December and I felt we'd left it late. Let's just say I've had a gin every night for the last few nights 🙈

I was warned it would be tough, we're persevering x

Why? surely if she’s still having accidents after a few days then she’s not ready? Why force it?

With DS1 (this is going back to 2009), he had a week's worth of nothing but accidents before he started using the potty. He was 2 years 11 months. That said, it was a bit of a battle of wills with him and he also only did a couple of wees and a poo in a day so it wasn't that hard to manage. Once he started using the potty, he got the hang of it pretty quickly, although we did have the odd accident. He was also dry at night very quickly. I would say give it a few more days, you know your daughter best. With mine, I knew he was ready, he was just stubborn.

In my experience when they do this they’re not ready.

I would keep going but take pants off.

Pants feel like a nappy initial so her brain doesn't really click that she needs to use those bladder muscles.

Have her bare bum. Some kids, regardless of age, need to feel a few wees running down their legs to click.

Then watch her and try to "catch" a wee eg have a potty very close to hand and grab it when you see her do the little shoulder wriggle/shudder that precedes a wee. This will help her connect where you want the wee to go with that sensation.

Not all children develop the ability to hold wee a bit longer without active help training from a parent, although many on mnet will imply you can simply wait long enough and they will instantly do this.

Staryflight
DS did exactly this for 3 days. Then it clicked and he was absolutely fine after this. Over the following 2 weeks he went from weeing every 20 or 30 mins to going every 1.5-2 hours.

Why? surely if she’s still having accidents after a few days then she’s not ready? Why force it?

Because she's 3 years old and it's much nicer to be clean and dry than to be wetting & pooing yourself into a bulky nappy every half hour?

DD peed LOADS the first couple of days. She still pees a lot now she's potty trained tbh. She can hold it fine when out or whatever but at home she seems to just enjoy going for a wee with a book

Anyway I would stick at it for another day and see how it goes. It does just 'click' I think. Once we got her on the potty for they first wee, it went quite rapidly after that.

Oh and yes we didn't use pants at first. She was naked waist down (with leg warmers). We introduced pants a couple of days later when she was getting most pees in the potty.