To reply that my child isn’t potty trained?

[whattosayy]

95% reliable for we
8 months after starting still soils pants - we’ve never had a poo on potty or toilet 😭

I have been on Eric contacted hv team etc but so I just need to accept he isn’t trained & may not be before school?

Hi OP, please ignore the majority of posts on here because most people are just coming at it from their own perspective. ‘My child was potty trained at 2.5 years so you must be doing something wrong just do x,y,z.’

It is not always that easy. Sure your child may just decide he will start going on the toilet which would be great but 1 of my 3 children still refuses to go for number 2 on the toilet and she is 6! 6!? I know… we didn’t foresee that.

My other 2 dc are fully potty trained and they are younger so it has absolutely fuck all to do with your parenting. It turns out my dd probably has sensory issues and we are now working with child mental health services to form a plan to help her. She started school just aged 5 and it hasn’t impacted her hugely at school (even my fully trained dc wait to have a poo once home.) We followed all advice on potty training and when she was still refusing we continued to follow advice by not taking away the nappies due to potential withholding causing more problems.

I would wait a little longer as he is still young but if you’re having the same issues in a few months contact your GP and they will refer you. Like anything some children are quick,
some are a little longer and some struggle massively. Don’t be embarrassed and just continue supporting your son. You’ll be fine 🙏

The preschool i sent my daughter to helped me to potty train her before starting reception as I had a newborn at home and they said they support with potty training. Feel lucky they helped and we worked together and she was fine before reception. Took a bit of time. Had the very odd accident. I kept her in pull ups through reception as i was still worried she might spoil her clothes and it was just a back up incase.

He's still young and a lot can change over a few months but if he's not fully trained by the time he starts it shouldn't be a big deal and the school should support you. Its a normal thing to struggle with. I have toilet training issues with my 4 year old (although ours are different) and our nursery seem understanding. I'm hoping the issues will resolve before starting school but if not I will speak to the school - but I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Relax and back off for a bit, its not worth the anxiety for you or your child. I thought my youngest would never poo normally but he does now finally. I tried bribery and corruption but for him it was sensory and anxiety issues. You will be fine, eventually. People will be shocked but my son was well over the age of 8 before he poo'd on the toilet, until then instead of putting pressure on him, he had pull-ups available that he went and put on, used and then he got changed, as he got older we explained we didn't want to clean him up any more and he needed to start doing it himself. A few weeks of him trying to do it himself saw him sitting on the toilet. We had full support of the HV and school nurse once he started school and no one in a professional capacity put any pressure on him or told us we were hopeless parents, its actually very common and forcing a child to sit on a potty or a toilet is incredibly damaging and traumatising.

Hi OP, my DS didn't know when he wanted to poo when 3 but, when seated to wee I'd encourage him to rock forward and back to see if he felt there was one there. It was lighthearted (joking about maybe a small poo maybe a big one) rather than pressure to go, and he learnt to look out for the feeling. He will get there!

Not “Terrible parenting” at all.
Positive reinforcement works equally well for young children and young puppies-

They also learn to associate a word with doing a poo or wee.

Sweets as long as their teeth are brushed aren’t necessarily a bad thing .

Luck also plays a part.
Some young children who are put on a baby - sized loo seat adapter or potty quickly learn-

Messy odiferous pants must be uncomfortable so they naturally prefer the potty or loo.

Perhaps some nappies are “too comfortable” fully laden- as they absorb so much.

Poo is unpleasant on anyone but a young baby, let’s face it- so If a sweet 🍬🍬or two is the positive reinforcement needed to produce a result on the loo- 🚽go for it!

This must be so frustrating for you OP. Is there a possibility he's holding it in through fear or some other issue such a a fissure or something that has caused him pain when passing a motion in the past. Some children do present with retention until they can no longer hold it in. It's at least worth considering and researching ways to solve it if this is the case with your little boy. He will get there..

Have you tried a magazine kept in the bathroom - the ones with stickers?

Sit and distract him with a story or funny jokes etc really helps.

Not sure if this has been suggested as such an emotive subject and haven’t read the full thread. We never used a potty as hate the whole concept. Just used to talk to DD as “such a big girl like mummy and daddy to sit on the toilet to do poos”. It worked for her as fully trained well before 2 which was late according to my mum! We had a step and a comfortable seat and no pressure or fuss. I’d lay off for a couple of weeks and not stress too much as all children are different. Could be the potty itself is stressing your DS to perform so a slightly different approach might work. Good luck he’ll get there eventually.

Apparently they like something to catch the poo, or so our HV told us, so she advised taking that away - we kept him naked from the waste down when a poo was likely and he never had an accident as he’d always run to the potty… you could try that?

Potties are really for babies-
loo seat adaptors with a step up are for toddlers.
Young children copy each other - toddlers sitting on their potties together , especially in the garden in summer soon learn .

Late toilet trained children seem to be a much commoner problem nowadays.

All mine clicked just before they started school. I never put pressure on them, if they weren’t ready that was ok. My oldest had a bit of a relapse in reception due to being unwell at the time. School were fine with changing underwear. I used pull ups some times too. There was a child still in nappies at the time I remember.

In each of my DDs classes their have been children for various reason not fully trained, maybe age, Sen or other issues. A good school would not hold it against you if they saw you were doing your best.

I’ve become friends with the Reception TA at my DDs school, she’s been doing the job over 20 years, many of her family are TAs too. She’s always said don’t worry about it, we know the children whose parents give a shit ( pardon the pun) and those who don’t. Every child is different. Her DGS is starting school this year and she’s been working with him. She said she’s certain one day it will click for him, so she will just keep doing what her and her DD do and if it dosnt she will cross that road then. I do love this woman, my older 2 were very lucky and had her in class for 2 years each, my youngest only 1 year. The type of woman that makes a school a good school.

We never owned a potty either. We waited until they were 2 years old,one took a few months longer. We then explained why there was to be no more nappies and properly introduced them to the toilet with a full explanation. They never looked back and I could count on one hand the night time accidents.

Have a look at ‘secure foundations’ on instagram.
she has amazing online courses

Just 3 years old and you're already thinking about school.

It's sad. 😰

Relax, and enjoy his young years and don't start him at school until he's ready, although surely by the time he's 5 he will get the potty/toilet thing.

No wonder a lot of children in Europe don't start school until they're nearly 7. By that age they have mastered the basics needs....they are toilet trained, have mastered basic social interactions and are ready to start learning.

The UK schools children too early.

Is your other child younger?

What worked for us with our reluctant pooper was to quickly hold the baby over the potty when he started to poop and then bought 'the toy' for the baby for filling the potty.

It was enough to get reluctant pooper on to the potty. Prior to this he would ask for a nappy to poop in, so 'feeling' was there, just needed help with placement!

we have twins - I put together a bag of cheap tat and EVERYTIME they used the toilet they were allowed to choose something from the bag. Two weeks later we were done. I think he is too young to equate him going in the toilet with paw patrol….. eventually his rewards need to be immediate.

Don't listen to the numpties posting on your thread!! I had three difficult to toilet train children! They did my head in! I can reassure you that, in their 20s, they are all toilet trained!

My two girls pee'd everywhere devotedly but thankfully were toilet trained when they went to school. My son was in pyjama pants at night until 9 or 10!

My elder two are both graduates and my younger is halfway through a uni degree too. Keep the faith. Some kids are just harder than others but they all get it in the end!

My daughter wasn’t potty trained until the summer before she started school. I tried everything, she just wasn’t getting it. In July I told her that if she didn’t start using the toilet that she wouldn’t be able to go to school as they don’t allow kids to wear nappies. She was fully potty trained within 2 weeks, day and night. Maybe try explain this to him, tell him how much fun school will be. She really wanted to go to school so this was incentive enough for her to use the toilet

You asserted that 'potties are just for babies', you then contradict your first statement with 'toddlers sitting on their potties together' ?? Which is it?

You don't think that just maybe it could 'seem' that late toilet trained children appear to be more common now due to online interactions, and social interactions where parents are being honest with each other, as opposed to parents who used to hide the fact their child couldn't manage their poo's because when they did speak up they were shamed into feeling like useless parents?? There's also the fact that children weren't rushed into nursery places and pre-school in the past either, so it wouldn't have actually been a major issue if not sorted by four.

Personally I wouldn’t take a child out of nappies before it can function on a lavatory. To me the nappies come off and you get pants when you’ve mastered reliably using the loo.

I’m weird though, in that I did poos before pees with all of mine as that’s what really bothered them and me.

Id add lots of bulk roughage to his diet so there’s lots of easily passed soft poo in his system. (Carrots are good but whatever he will eat and lots of fluids). Get his mealtimes very scheduled and lots of trampolining/swimming core strengthening exercise. (Put a pipe up the stairs and give him a ball or cars to post so he’s stepping up and down or slides at the playground). Play near the bathroom or sit him on the loo when you think it’s likely to come. After a bath can be a key moment so you could dry him and sit him on the loo to “try” while you tidy the bathroom.

Things can change quickly - not saying don't get advice - but DS took a year, I was worried about him starting nursery, but in the summer holiday period before he started nursery he got it. And he got weeing on the potty the first day we left him without a nappy on - it was the poos that were the problem, particularly when out of the house.