To ask how to potty train a resistant 3 year old?

[MissScarletInTheBallroom]

Yes I know there is a topic for this but there's next to no traffic and people who have already cracked this and moved on probably aren't looking at it.

My DS turned three a couple of months ago. We have tried potty training several times with no luck so far.

He is starting school in September and HAS to be trained by then. There is no other option. I have taken tomorrow and Tuesday off work so we are on day 2 of a four day window dedicated to cracking this and it's getting worse, not better. I don't have any other holiday other than the last two weeks of August which we have booked off to go on an actual holiday and will be completely ruined if we have to spend it hanging around the holiday accommodation doing potty training.

I'm at my wits' end.

He doesn't want to sit on the potty.

He withholds for hours on end.

He gets increasingly angry and fed up and wants to go outside and play. Eventually I give in and we go outside and it's only a matter of time before he pees or poos in his pants.

Please help.

DS3 is so much like this.

Sounds like yours is doing so well. Keep going with it! We have been doing more nappy free time at home as well and prompting to try on the toilet. We are getting more dry nappies so I might look to push the idea of pants/trousers with no nappy. How did you get to this stage in the end? Currently mine is very resistant to this - the other day he did put some trousers on with no nappy and seemed happy and then suddenly realised and wanted one back on again. But he is now happier with being totally bottomless, which is something.

We don't have naps any more so that is a blessing at least. He has his 3 year check up next week so I'll see what they say.

I absolutely hated "oh crap" trying to make it work on twins is one my biggest parenting regrets. It's absolute bullshit. "Oh if it didn't work you didn't try hard enough" bollocks, either your child would have got it anyway, or they wouldn't. That book brought nothing but misery into my life. so don't beat yourself up about that.

What ACTUALLY worked was leaving a decent gap to de-traumatise them from the last attempt at "oh crap" then following the advice on the NHS website. It's really good. Just go gently. I won't lie, the twin that really struggled with withholding poo still struggles with it at 5. We use Movicol sometimes. It is a long journey and you have to be really, really patient. But they will get there. They want to do it too!

OP I'm not bilingual but a lot of my friends are, and I loved living abroad. So you are right to hang on to speaking to him in English.

However reading your posts you sound really stressed and angry about the whole thing, and I get that, I felt the exact same way too. It is SO annoying!!! And it totally depends on the child! I literally have twins and one of them just got it straight away and the other one still struggles!

But honestly you have to let go of that tension. They sense it and it just makes them hold it in more. I would just put them back in nappies til 2 weeks before school, and try then. Because all you'll do now is pile stress on stress. And if they're not ready by school, well, you have to talk to the school 🤷‍♀️ they will have seen it before.

As a wise friend said to me when I was in my own personal hellscape with this, you can get them dressed, you can carry them, but you can't have a poo for them. My advice would be to step right back, work on keeping yourself calm (I know!!! I know!! I'd be throwing my phone now too!!!) and try again after at least a month back in nappies. Sorry.

Great progress!

@MissScarletInTheBallroom hope potty training is going good for you guys?

My toddler had a few accidents and after coming back from the childminder on Friday decided she wants to sit on the toilet with the toilet seat and a stepstool. She even did a poo in the toilet today (yesterday). Although she seems to have taken it to the extreme last night, as she woke up four times to go "pee other toilet". I hope this is only temporary. So far she hasn't woken up tonight. Best of luck 🤞

Hi @VladimirVsVolodymyr glad you're making progress!

We haven't tried to tackle naps or night time yet although at bedtime after I put his nappy on DS has started telling me he wants to pee. I feel like this is probably just a getting out of bed tactic!

DS went to nursery on Thursday and lasted until almost the end of the day when he had a double pee and poo accident. On Friday he was at home with us and had one pee accident, the rest in the potty but no poos all day. He usually poos twice a day so this is unusual for him. But yesterday we had a great day. No accidents at all. We played outside in the morning, he used the potty before and afterwards, then in the afternoon after his nap he finally managed to do an enormous poo in the potty, so we judged it safe to go to the playground. No pee accidents at all. Today we are going out a few times but we'll bring the potty with us. Fingers crossed.

You're making great progress, well done to everyone.
Yes we've also had the stalling for time by wanting to use the toilet when it was time to go to bed. We didn't even attempt to night train, she just woke up by herself. Last night she didn't wake up to use the toilet but was awake at 5am this morning with a dry nappy according to DH.
I hope they both build on the progress they have made so far.

Just thought I would come back and update this thread.

He's done pretty well with wees, I think because he has such good bladder control now so the main thing to learn was how to relax his muscles and make himself pee when he sits on the potty. As long as he is prompted regularly enough, he doesn't have any accidents. If we have a day at home on a weekend we might try not prompting him just to see whether he self initiates or wets himself. But because we tend to go out a lot it's much easier to prompt him to go beforehand and then know it's probably safe for a couple of hours.

Poos are proving to be more complicated. We think he is much more anxious about pooing in the potty or the toilet and so he is withholding. He's gone from reliably pooing once or twice a day to every other day, and often has an accident in his pants. This is usually at nursery when he's busy playing and then when it comes along it happens too quickly. When he is at home, if he hasn't done one for a long time we will try and get him to sit on the potty in the hope that he manages to go, but often he has to sit for quite a while.

We have two months to try and get better at poos and self initiating before he starts school.

That's great progress, we're at a similar stage with the poo as well. They will get there.

Poo usually takes longer, DC2 was doing all wees in the potty but we had another 2 months of poo accidents before we cracked poo in the potty. I think it's because wees always feel the same but poos can feel different depending on what you've been eating so learning the signs that you need to go takes longer.

Well done OP, he seems to be getting there. I would encourage him to try to have a poo for a few minutes before nursery as this could build up a habit and there’s every chance he’ll get it cracked before September.

Just thought I would come back and update this thread again. We had about three weeks of nursery when he had almost no pee accidents but was either having one or two poo accidents or not having a poo all day. Then one Friday afternoon towards the end of July I picked him up from nursery and they said he had done a poo in the toilet. Since then he has not had a single accident. It was just like a switch was flicked in his brain. We usually prompt him to pee in the toilet when there is an opportunity, and he tells us when he needs to poo. It's remarkable how suddenly he went from being resistant to potty training, to just getting it. He still needs some help dressing himself afterwards and wiping himself after a poo, but I'm no longer stressing about school. We are halfway through our holiday and have had 100% success on holiday so far, including on days when we've done some very long drives or been out riding bikes all day.

Hurrah!

DS3 is also doing much better. When he finished nursery for the summer holidays we decided to try just letting him be naked in the day and he has basically been totally potty trained since then. It took a week or two to get him to wear shorts/trousers all the time (originally we only got him to put them on if we were going out) and we had a bit of a blip with letting him sit on the potty in front of the TV when we thought he needed to poo (he then wanted to sit on the potty for the entire day) but this has now improved as well.

That's fantastic news! So glad to hear that it's has clicked for him. My toddler has come on but if she's distracted or playing, she seems to hold it in until she can no longer hold it and ends up with a few dribbles in her underwear. She great for taking h herself to the bathroom for both poos and pees.
At least you can relax and enjoy your holiday 👏👏👏

I found this thread while searching for help and I'm so pleased for you (once I got to the end)!

What do you think helped to crack it in the end?