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?

If he is at all constipated, he will have trouble feeling the signal to go. If you don’t feel a GP trip is warranted, at least consider making sure his diet has him moving well. We added some prunes because dd enjoyed them as a snack anyway.

some children don’t like the feeling of sitting on the toilet, even with a child seat. Are you using that or a plastic child’s potty?

I would actually consider scattering a few plastic potties throughout the house. Make it easier to get to. Then do pants free time on the weekends. Again, easier to get to the potty in time.

Then immediate reward if poo makes it to the correct spot. I know some people do small candies, but with dd who has asd candies did not work, so we had a prize shelf. Just little trinkets. Often taken from birthday party bags or from sets that were broken up. Stickers, a toy car. We started with yay, one poop, then after that was successful for a while, switched it to every other poop, then every 3, etc. I used a chart and when it was full and I printed a new one, it would just happen to have more squares on the row that had to be filled until a prize got earned.

I never did no accidents because failures are going to happen. Reward success and just be matter of fact that accidents happen and move past them.

preschool will be used to the occasional accident. You have 5 months. You will get there.

One of mine would not poop anywhere unless stood up in a pull up until the April they were about to start school - so well over 4 years old. So always went after nursery and after tea. We did make them go to the toilet and do it and help us wipe themselves etc but honestly I wished I didn’t stress. One day they came home, said they needed a poo. I got a pull up and they said ‘no mummy - on the toilet’. And that was that. Keep encouraging - honestly most people I know have had issues with pooing in the potty/toilet.

What a crock of shit...

It’s because we’re many months down the line and I’ve already tried these. I’m not an idiot (I know you’re not suggesting this but honestly if it was as easy as chocolate buttons!)

One post where shit is entirely appropriate!

There are all sorts of reasons why some children are later to potty train than ‘parent neglect’.
OP, I’d visit your GP or Health visitor to check that theres no physical reason for this before you try anything else. mainly though, dont panic!!!

I can completely understand you.

My son will be 4 in August and will start school in September.

We've been potty training for ages - he's good with wee now, but still has frequent poo accidents. I wouldn't even call it an accident - he just squats down and does a poo in his pants. It's really frustrating.

Today he peed in the garden and he giggled because he thought it was funny.

I’m an early years teacher, it’s absolutely fine if children aren’t reliably trained when they start school, especially pre-school. Some children just aren’t ready or don’t get it by 4. Dealing with pee and poo accidents are part of teaching early years. Please don’t stress it, you still have 5 months to try and crack it during which time a lot can change but if it doesn’t his school will be used to accidents.

School nurseries are very used to taking kids who are "almost" trained. It's not ideal, but not always a deal breaker.

That being said, it's only mid-April, and in little kid terms, September is an age away. Think of it like a percentage. In September he'll be like 13% older than he is now. That's a lot! To compare to us, say you're 30 years old, if we made you 13% older, you'd be nearly 35! That's a lot!
A lot can happen in 5 months with little kids - but don't stop working on it.

Mine didn’t potty train until they were nearly 4 (3y 10m). I’d tried on and off with it from 18m, but it just didn’t work! DS just decided one day that he wasn’t wearing nappies, DD followed suit a few days later. Sure, they had the odd accident, but they got there.

They just skipped the potty and went straight to the toilet. Does your DS know when he’s going to poo? And do you have the kids seat on the toilet? We had one with a little step and seat with handles, my two loved it.

They were in a pre-school nursery setting, and the workers were ok with them still being in nappies.

I don’t think it’s gross or that there’s something ‘wrong’ with your child, I think some just take longer to get it. It’s no biggie!

So he isn’t starting reception in September, he is starting pre school? Will there be younger children there? If so I don’t think it’s such a problem as there will staff there who change nappies. The issue with school is that there isn’t. You could try taking a week off work and going nappy free for a week, and hopefully he will ‘get’ it in that time.

Ignore everyone who’s just here to try to make you feel like shit: this happens to a lot of children, it happened to my niece in fact. The difference is that in the country they live in children start school at 6 so it’s way less stressful for the parents. I agree that booking an appointment with the GP to rule out any potential health issues is important, otherwise just keep going, he’s going to get it soon. You’re doing everything right, some children just take a little bit longer than others.

OP, my daughter "got" poos a lot later than wees. I totally understand your frustration. She was over 3.5 and even then, any stress or anxiety, and she'd have accidents. I remember being really panicked about how school would handle it and they were super reassuring, especially about how much growing up small children can manage in 5 months.

For us, what cracked it was sitting her in the potty in front of the TV 10 minutes after eating, for around 10 minutes. It wasn't perfect, sometimes 10 minutes was too late! But it started to catch more and eventually she made the connection (with very little warning mind, "mummy, need poo" meant right that second!).

It was a lovely locum GP who suggested this, after I'd gone to check re impaction etc.

Deep breath @whattosayy You have got plenty of time.
Two potties downstairs and no clothes on lower half worked for my dc.
Does he enjoy say, porridge or wheatabix or bran flakes? Does he eat fruit with skin on, like apple slices. Healthy fibre and fluids.
Is he nervous of the big toilet, does he have a trainer seat and a step stool in the bathroom?
Bribery works well. Chocolate buttons or box of raisins, whatever gets him engaged and excited.
Sorry if I have missed if you have already said.

Do you think he might have additional needs? You haven't said. If your child does have AN then school have to take him and have protocol in place for changing, the Equality Act could be your friend here.

Any SEN suspicions OP? The 2 boys I know who struggled with potty training both have autism. They both did get there eventually during their reception year. Neither had accidents at school though but tended to hold in their poos til home time

He sounds like my DS. He got wees fairly quickly at the age of 3 but poos were an absolute nightmare. He just did them in his pants for literally months and months. He's nearly 4 and much better but still has occasional small accidents where he starts to go in his pants and realises that he's not meant to.

Things that helped to turn the corner were:

• Keeping an eye out for him going behind the sofa then whisking him to the toilet really quickly.
• Sitting him on the toilet for as long as we could keep him on there and sometimes he would go. For ages he hated the feeling of actually doing a poo but if you were there anyway and he had to go, sometimes he would do it.
• A much better treat than chocolate buttons.
• Reducing the amount of fruit he ate. This actually makes a big difference - more than one piece of fruit a day and we will definitely get an accident.
• Giving up on the potty. He never once went in there.
• I didn't tell him off but he did see me get upset at times when there was a lot of mess and I think that did actually help. I told him that I really wanted to him to use the toilet - so a positive of what I did want him to do rather than a negative of what I didn't want him to do, which also helped a bit.

I think for some children it's a really slow process. My DD we toilet trained at the same age in the same way and cracked it within day. My DS was a completely different experience. Just keep trying and be consistent. He won't be going to high school still going in his pants so it's just another trial to get through. He will get there.

It's April. Keep up the trying.

I think you need to have a back up plan in case he hasn’t got it by then

but it’s no biggie generally. Mine didn’t get it properly until nearly 4 but once he did we never had another accident. There is a good chance you can get it nailed between now and September. Where does he go currently now and can they help?

My son had a dummy (several) until 4. Near impossible to persuade/bribe/coerce. One day we offered him a new DS game for all the dummies and he said yes. That was it. Think about what would bribe him.

He absolutely was not bribe-able re dummies until that moment. You will find the moment.

We had no idea how to go about it so followed 3daypottytraining.com to the letter and it worked.

We did it over a bank holiday weekend and that was pretty much it. Our DS hasn’t had a single accident since following this when he was just turned 2.

We may have been lucky but definitely worth a try as the results we got were amazing.

I feel for you - it took ages with my oldest child to get the poos sorted. Wees we’re fine, got those dealt with relatively quickly, but the other…I thought he was never going to be potty trained! He was about three, and I had a newborn, so I was at the end of my tether, but the main hurdle seemed to be that he just didn’t associate the feeling of needing to go with what it actually meant. Eventually, after a lot of accidents, and lots of explanations, he just seemed to get it - out shopping one day he yelled “mummy, I feel the feeling!”, grabbed the potty and..success. I didn’t care where we were by that point, the main thing was that he recognised what “that feeling” meant and after that he was fine.

Don’t give up, but try not to stress out too much about it. Sometimes it just takes however long it takes. Luckily you’ve got the summer months coming up and it’s easier when they’re not bundled into lots of clothes. Do you know (or can you ask) if he gets a recognisable feeling that signals he needs to go…?

My daughter is 4 and only recently stopped pooping her pants on a regular basis. It was honestly so so stressful, if you’ve never been there you have no idea. We did ‘oh crap’ and bought the poo solutions course, which is essentially using suppositories which stimulates the butt opening and then they poo. Not enjoyable for any of us, although it did mean we could get a poo at a ‘desired’ time but not an experience I liked. Googling one day I realised she was constipated. Contacted ERIC who have loads of helpful advice and we saw the GP who prescribed laxido. She has one sachet in a yoghurt every other day.

The laxido has worked wonders but the biggest thing is focusing on encouraging sitting on the toilet after a meal. 5-10 mins after they usually will get the urge, screen time is how we get her to sit there, plus one of us going in after 5 mins or so and reading a story/having a chat and she’s been much more consistent about going! It’s been a huge improvement. I wish we had gone sooner.

Today she was at a cafe with her dad and said ‘I need a poo’ and did one. No drama. This is maybe the 3rd time since potty training 1.5 years ago she’s ever said that!

When you are in the middle of it then it is tough. Mine was really easy to toilet train, not because I was a wonderful parent but because that just was the way they were and I considered it pay back time as they were a horrendous sleeper! I had friends who had a tough time potty training and I really empathised with them. All children are different. I read something ages ago that really stuck in my head and it was "nobody ever walked down the aisle wearing a nappy or sucking a dummy", so basically it will pass, no matter how challenging it is at the moment