To give up potty training and wait for DS to say he wants to wear pants / use the toilet?

[Comeandeat]

We’ve been trying since November and it’s obviously now march.

I’ve put pull ups on him because I’ve run out of clean trousers. I think with that I’ve decided to leave it. I don’t ever want to initiate it myself again. It’s destroyed me. AIBU just to wait for DS? I don’t even care when that is any more.

He is 3 years and 3 months.

I haven't RTFT OP but I have read your replies. Has anyone asked about whether you think your son might be deliberately being difficult because he links it to the new baby? I note you said you first tried when new baby was due and then a little while after when baby was bigger- did he just not get it at all the first time or do you think he was being difficult? I ask because I have a couple of friends who tried to train their kids quite close to birth of a new baby and found the children were deliberately difficult e.g. deliberately weed on the floor or pooed their pants when wanting attention. If this was the start of his potty training journey perhaps this is the issue. Whatever the cause I wish you luck, these kind of things can be exhausting. I felt the same with sleep - when everyone else's kids had started sleeping through mine was still waking up loads through the night and every conversation made me feel a failure and like I was ruining my child because she wasn't getting the good quality sleep she desperately needed. I felt very judged by lots of people. In that case I waited until I - me, not anyone else that didn't know her so well - felt she was ready to sleep alone in her own room and worked on it with her, and she's now a great sleeper. I don't have any advice as my DD potty trained herself(!) but lots of empathy here.

I also would be surprised if any kids or pre-school teachers thinks your child is the smelly one, every day whilst waiting for my child I hear the staff telling parents (including of 3-4yos) about the poo accidents their kids have had. Even if he has more accidents than others I'm sure no one would care. As a parent it is exhausting and defeating cleaning up accidents, as a member of staff it's just a normal (albeit grotty) part of being a nursery/pre-school employee who looks after small children.

Also perhaps part of your exhaustion/turmoil over the process has arisen from the initial failure to train ahead of new baby coming at a sensitive, stressful time and in the back of your mind it's always felt like your fault which makes you angry and defensive. Why can't I just sort out this simple thing? Etc. So you continue to have that negative voice whispering in your ear that makes it all so much harder, plus of course now the judgement from others.

We had similar at age 2 years 10 months, and I found we just had to get drastic. I was determined he would be potty trained by 3. Pulled him out of childminder, as O was pn maternity leave, no visitors, no trips out, kept telling him that you can go to childminder, see friends, see grandma when you can wee in a potty.
He was stubborn, but I was even more stubborn, and within 5 weeks we had cracked it.

Do you have a garden?

I waited until it was warmer and we were out in the garden.

Let him play in the garden with a long t-shirt on and no pants. Potty can be in the garden too. Next to the back door or just in the kitchen.

This is probably frowned upon nowadays but I was advised to give DC crisps and salty things. (A rare treat) Then lots to drink.

He'll SEE as well as FEEL the wee in the garden and you will be relaxed as no mess to clear up.

Worth a try?

I also took a week off to concentrate on this.

I introduced a potty to DS early on, he just put it on his head! We ended up going straight to toilet

I haven’t read the full thread apologies. Clearly this has become increasingly stressful for you both so yes I would go back to pull ups for now but I wouldn’t completely abandon it. Start taking him to the toilet routinely but with pull ups. So as soon as he gets up to the toilet, before meals to the toilet, before you leave the house to the toilet, when you get back to the toilet, hopefully it will then just become habit and he will get used to it but if he pees in pull ups no big deal just oh well we’ll try and get the next one in the toilet. Then when his pull ups start to get more dry and less wet and he’s into the swing of routinely going to the toilet try again. This is how I trained my two year old and it worked amazingly without the stress of accidents, we eventually got to the point that her pull was pretty much completely dry all the time and then we just told her on Friday after nursery all nappies going in the bin we made a big fuss of it and that was it. Literally not one pair of wet pants ever ever ever.

That might be the case. I feel we left it way too late with my son and it became a battle. But the problem is that health visitors tell you to wait for the signs of readiness and nursery say the same so as we were first time parents we left it and left it and then it was a battle.

Anyway OP, have you tried a sticker reward chart? We used the Hey Duggee book and it seemed to work well.

This! I have 2 under 4 and I can’t express how much people push it and it causes sooo much stress! It’s ok that they are not potty trained by the time they are 3! It’s not the end of the world! As long as they are ready for school!
I find that if you push it and they are not ready, they tend hold hold it and give them self anxiety. Please don’t stress too much about it!
once that awareness is there, it makes it much easier. X

I've heard that disposable nappies and pullups can make it harder as they are designed to feel dry against the skin - could you maybe put a folded muslin inside so he'll feel wet when he wees in it, might help him make the association and easy to wash in with towels.

Enable? Wow.

How doesn’t it benefit the kid? What “damage” do you worry is going to occur by being out of nappies in a few months time rather than right now?

Ahhh I know - maybe he’ll be 10 and his best friend will ask “what age did you potty train?” and he’ll reply “3 years 7 months and 2 days.” And his best friend will ditch him for being a potty training loser.

And then later on, he’ll be 29 and he’ll meet the girl of his dreams. He’ll want to propose but her father will stand in the way of their marriage stating no daughter of his shall marry a late potty trainer!

Oh and, of course, at every job he ever goes to he will be asked to submit the date he last wore pull ups alongside his CV. It’s common knowledge no employer takes a man who potty trained after the age of 2 so he’ll be screwed. He’ll never get past first stage interview and will be destitute forever.

He’ll live a sad, lonely life and all opportunities will be closed to him forever.

OR… he’ll potty train just fine in a few months when his language and understanding skills have advanced - and the OP will save herself a lot of unnecessary washing, and them both a lot unnecessary stress, in the meantime.

just to add - you should put anything that wee saturated on a cold rinse then spin in the washing machine before adding other laundry, then washing at 40 or 60 should be ok (but 60 if they're pooey or you notice they don't smell clean, or if they get stinky as soon as he wees on them again)

I would take a break and try again when you have a week free. I tried and gave up several times with my youngest after he turned 3, he just wasn't willing to tell me he needed to go or use the toilet, he'd rather wee/poo all over himself.... We had a week holiday a few weeks ago and tried again using a basket of wrapped rewards he could choose from each time he went on the toilet. He's dry at night already and mostly got it in the day, maybe 1 accident a day where he doesn't quite get to the toilet in time. If I catch him weeing/pooing in his pants on purpose I take a toy away for a while as a consequence, otherwise he doesn't really care much about dirtying himself. He's 3yrs 9mos now.

I also hated Oh Crap, just made me feel bad for not starting potty training at 18 months and wasn’t helpful at all. FWIW OP, I had similar with DS1. Started potty training just after his third birthday, he was not at all interested and would happily just poo in his pants rather than go to the toilet. We went back to pull ups, waited a few months and he started going to the toilet of his own accord, also became dry overnight at the same time with no input from us at all. No amount of bribes, reward charts, techniques etc worked, he needed to do it in his own time and he did! We’ve had maybe 2 accidents in the year he’s been toilet trained. Waiting til they’re ready absolutely does not
mean sending them to school in nappies.

Oh you can also get underpants/knickers with a layer of towelling.

They won't hold a full pee for long and will feel uncomfortable for the learning process. But it's long enough that you are only changing underwear rather than full outfits and mopping floors. They are handy for the stage that when it's coming, it's coming now!

OP I worked in a large preschool for nearly 10 years and I have changed literally thousands of soiled pants and nappies - it's really, really common for kids (especially boys) to be slow to train, slow to "get it", slow to get to the point where they actually care about not being wet or dirty. He's on the younger end of 3 so whatever MN tells you about "gosh, it used to be unheard of not to be trained by 2", he really isn't unusual. If he isn't ready, then he isn't ready. Readiness is a combination of brain development, hormone signals and social maturity, it will happen when it happens. Yes, toddlers can be forced to train before they are ready, but there is a lot of evidence that this does more harm than good.

Take the pressure off yourself and your DS. Put him back in nappies and have another go in the summer. You can still ask him if he wants to go to the toilet every now and then, or take him with you when you go and see if he wants to try, but take the stress out of it for now. If the preschool staff are half-decent at their jobs they won't be judging you, and he won't be the only one anyway.

I bet there were many children who struggled to potty train early years ago, but no parents would have admitted to it. Bit like bed-wetting, very common but never spoken about

I don't know why you're getting such a hard time on here OP. Please ignore all the nasty people.

3 years 3 months isn't old to have not potty trained. I know people who haven't even started trying at that age! And certainly plenty who are still having issues.

The truth is potty training is extremely tedious and stress full. If you need a break then of course you are right to go back to nappies for a while. You have ages before school. Pre school should be supportive but if they aren't that's their fault.

What I would do is go back to nappies, but combine that with some low pressure bribery, so get a few toys that your child really wants, put them on a shelf in the bathroom and tell him if he does a poo in the toilet he can have one. If he does a wee in the toilet he can have something else like a sweet or smaller item. Then say no more about it (potentially still offer toilet for wees but if it's stressful don't bother). Take a break for a month or 2. See what happens. Maybe he will have a go on his own maybe not. Try again with him when you feel like it. Definitely wait until warmer weather.

It really doesn't matter if he's pushing 4 by the time he cracks it. You have a baby too making everything much harder. Go easy on yourself.

Excellent post

Of course there were I was a seventies baby ,yes we were out-of nappies a lot earlier ,it doesn't mean that there wasent an awful.lot of "accidents " regardless of what mumsnet tell ,s you

American grandmother here adding my opinion. I would just take a month off to reset the agenda. I actually trained my sons to urinate standing up into a tall can. Once that was mastered they would stand on my feet to reach the toilet and use their "waterguns" try to hit floating cereal [cheerios] which i put into the bowl. Poo came last of all. One got it straight away..the younger one was almost 4. Just take the pressure off both of you for a bit. He will master it. I also bought my guys underwear with characters on them when we were ready for poos. their goal was then not to get the cartoon friend dirty. Relax and enjoy your little guy.

Have to state the obvious here that just because your kids were clean and dry before 2 that doesn't mean all kids can do this. All the ones I know of who trained before 2 had accidents and regressions along the way even though they seemed to be doing great at first.

If you had read the OP's posts you would know that she did actually start trying when her son was much younger than he is now. It's not helpful or true to suggest that it would have been straightforward if done earlier.

YANBU
wait a few months. I would not leave it past 4yrs, though.

Honestly, if this post came up after potty training my DD, I probably would have posted a really preachy post, telling you to persevere and keep going. DD was done in three days and I felt like I was the potty training Guru.

BUT, DS was completely different. Started at 2.5 months and took me 6 months to successfully potty train him. It pushed me to every limit possible! Behind closed doors, I’d cry often and feel like a failure. My DS is incredible headstrong and it turned in a real power struggle between him and I. I watched a YouTube video (can’t remember the name) and I the Dr send something to the effect of “they will use the toilet when they’re ready, and not a second before that “. From then on I used my big white board in the back room and wrote “poo” and “wee”, left the markers somewhere accessible and didn’t say anything. I explained to him that I’m not taking him to the toilet anymore but if he wanted a squishy, from the big tube of squishies, he’d have to use the bathroom on his own. This worked wonders for us.

With that said OP, if I had have stopped, I wouldn’t have been surprised, this was my last attempt as I too had tried EVERYTHING. Children can only truly control three things: What they eat, when they sleep and when they use the toilet. If a child wants control, they’ll usually express it in these areas. Be gently with yourself, its a massive challenge if you have been/are going through it. You are certainly not lazy, you’re overwhelmed and out of juice. Relax, recharge and take care xx

@mirro Relax and enjoy your little guy.

And this 👆 takes priority. So do what you need to do OP. Sending big hugs your way.