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.

OK, you've been trying for four months, and it hasn't worked. It's frustrating.

That doesn't mean you give up, you need to try a different approach.

Take the pressure off both you and your child and try again when he is showing signs of readiness. They all develop differently, they all get there in the end. I would leave the potty in sight and still talk about it/read stories/make teddy go for a ‘wee’ on the potty when playing etc That’s what I did and my eldest was dry by 3 but was 4 before he mastered poops. My middle child is 2 and 4month and using the potty for both, again I put no pressure on at all.. he just took his nappy off one morning and wanted to go potty 🤷‍♀️

Never because children have to be toilet trained, end of.

Change approach, try different things, persevere. But you can’t just give in and sheepishly send him to school in nappies in the hope they’ll sort it.

What makes you think he has special needs?

I just wanted to offer a bit of solidarity OP, as your son sounds like my eldest! I tried to potty train at around 3 years old following pressure from my peers, but he is stubborn and was adamant he was having none of it. So for everyone’s sanity we went back to pull ups, and one day about 6 months later he said he’d had enough of using nappies and wanted to wear pants - no accidents, and no drama. So it can work out just fine!

Guess what? Parenting is fucking hard work. You can try something for yes, 4 months, and it doesn't work... you try something else, you keep on keeping on.

You say you won't be sending him to school in nappies but what's going to magically happen if you won't try?

The oh crap method is patronising as hell in some of its' language but it absolutely works. Take a 3 day weekend (loads coming up) and trust the method.

Thanks @AlphaBetaZeta , it’s so hard. I feel
like a complete failure but we really really can’t carry on as we are.

Oh crap really doesn’t work for every child. What you mean is, it worked for my child. It didn’t work for mine.

@GoodnightAdeline the being dry at night is nothing to do with potty training, they need a hormone to help with that.

We started later with DS than a friend did with her son. He seemed to have wee accidents forever whereas DS very rarely had a wee accident within a week of potty training.

It worked for every child at the nursery he was in. But if you don't like that method, try something else... just stop being so bloody lazy about it

My second daughter was very reluctant. Tried a few times from 2 1/2. At 3 we had to get cracking as an August born we had one year to sort it out. I bought cheap charity shop trousers and primark pants (she got to choose the pants). She then got to feel the discomfort of wet trousers. Some of these ended up in the bin when pooed on which isn’t ideal but probably cheaper than all the pull ups I would have bought. Chocolate buttons for every wee or pop in potty or toilet. Then when that was reliable buttons for poos only.

Apologies if you’ve tried all this but that’s how we cracked it with a reluctant potty trainee.

Are there other reasons you think he might have special needs? Have nursery said anything?

Do you have his father with you? Has he tried to show him 'man to man'? Being a 'big boy' seems to be an incentive, and maybe with his dad showing home how he does it ...?

I agree about nights but I think the general process of learning how to hold wee and stretching the bladder slightly helps at nights.

The point is we now potty train far too late and this is the result - ingrained habits that become very hard to break in some children.

If he starts school in September OP simply doesn’t have the luxury of trusting he will have an epiphany. He might, but he might not, so she has to persevere to make sure all bases are covered.

Literally nobody wants to change the nappy of an unrelated 4 year old simply because their parents didn’t potty train them. It’s grossly unfair to expect that from anyone.

But that’s not every child!

You sound at the end of your tether so I would absolutely give it a break for a few weeks and reset, as your frustration won't be helping (I say that as someone who has been there). I don't think you can leave it til he says he's ready though, that may not happen and it will actually get harder for him the longer you leave it. Like someone else said, use the time to prepare and talk to him about when you're going to start, take him to the toilet with you if you don't already, maybe even start a few sits on the potty after meals (this is a good time) but still using nappies/pull ups. I recommend the Eric website/helpline if you haven't used it yet. He will get there in the end.

I don’t expect them to. I can keep him home. But they’d have to change his pants anyway 🤷

What methods have you used?

So if he is incontinent at school, isn't that unfair on the teachers and classmates, and more importantly, your child?

Have you tried it? Sorry if I missed that. You said that you aren’t following a specific method, this is the issue. I’ve done ‘potty training’ training, and the older they are the harder it is. Find a method and when you’re ready to come back to it, use it.

Give it a couple weeks, then try again and see if there's a less stressful way to do it.

My HVs recommended a full on "pants only from now on in the day" which was incredibly stressful - especially as I don't drive, so if no public toilets I had nowhere private-ish to sort a child dripping with wee out on the go.

The next time, I started off with pants at home and pull ups when out. It was a lot better, and I don't think the "going between pull ups and pants confuses them" holds true, at least not always.

I skipped the potty all together

I just asked him a regular intervals if he needed to go and if it was too long then pu him on there

my son wasn’t ready until he was three - you’re doing fine

I get the frustration. I had a difficult child to potty train and she's still in pull ups at night time (nearly 5).

We had accidents for a year and it was tough. We had a bucket in the bathroom with vinegar for dirty clothes, which were left overnight. At 4 years 8 months she suddenly stopped having accidents completely. There was no slow progress, we went from 3-5 accidents a day to none overnight.

So while it's really hard, I recommend you keep trying. Make him sit on the potty after a drink and maybe put pull ups on only if he's going to do something very distracting, like watching TV or a game he really loves.

What we found helped a bit: sticker charts (child gets a little reward on completion of say 10 stickers), chocolate buttons for doing a number 2 as this was something she hated and would have rather gone under the table/held it in, but we have a medical issue there.

Just to add, a very small portable potty was a life saver on many occasions.

It's hard, but it won't be forever. He will get there, I promise.

💯
I heard on the radio a third of children start SCHOOL wearing nappies. It’s absolutely crazy. Except in cases of special needs, 3 year olds should be pretty horrified by the idea of soiling themselves.
On the radio they were saying they weren’t allowed in school nurseries at 2 unless they were potty trained, why an earth did they change the rules?! It’s become a massive problem.

I think you're absolutely right to take a break and put a pause on this. Stressed mummy, stressed child isn't going to help any of it.

You've been trying all winter which is in many respects a harder time. Let the weather warm up and then talk about it and find the right time - for everyone - to try again. Fingers crossed his interest will very likely grow which can only help.

OP, what makes you think he might have special needs? Is he hitting milestones in other areas? Speech, etc. Does he understand and follow commands, i.e., can you get mummy a book? If he isn't able to do this, then he may not really understand what you are asking him to do when you are trying to potty train. Has the school suggested that he may have special needs? The school senco may have helpful resources or helpful advice.If he has special needs, then you are being incredibly hard on yourself. You are not a failure, and if he doesn't have additional needs, you are still being hard on yourself. Can you sit him on the potty and put a kids' programme on where one of the characters is potty training, and just let him sit there and watch it. Every time you manage to sit him on the potty, put the same programme on each time, and he might want to copy the character he is watching. I know Bing definitely has an episode where he is being potty trained. Even if he doesn't wee at first, just try and get him to sit on the potty and watch the programme again and again. This might or might not help, just an idea. X