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.

Ok I did this - almost the exact same timeframe except mine turned 3 in July and school September. It's stressful so I feel you. Let me ask some questions if I can before making suggestions

What is he into? His favourite things/toys to play with

Have you tried standing wees?

Favourite foods (as in treats he doesn't get a lot of)

Have you ever had a successful wee on the toilet/potty?

How is he verbally/his understanding of words etc?

Does he understand when he has weed/pooed himself? In nappy or pants does he tell you or just ignore and carry on

Is he generally demand avoidant?

Would it even be mumsnet if someone didn’t bring up those pesky fat people on a totally unrelated thread 😂

Bribery

bigtime bribery. I got a shoebox filled with little prizes - the sorts of stuff you’d get in a party bag, hot wheels cars, bouncy balls, shiny stickers. Every time dd successfully used the potty or loo she’d get a prize.

We also had an all-or-nothing point when the nappies “ran out” but I had some lovely pants with Peppa Pig on that I needed her to wear instead.

good luck

(Oh, and when she’d finished the box she got a trip to the farm park with ice creams for everyone. That’s how I’m not still having to give her hot wheels cars 10 years later)

I never used bribery either, but you’re the one who claims to be the better parent and not using lazy techniques, so the least you could do is impart some of your wisdom! Anything less looks like laziness!

I would let him be wet for a minute each time so he feels how uncomfortable it is.

A minute? Mine couldn’t have cared less. Wet himself and carried on playing!

In your situation you need to make using the toilet more attractive to him than having an accident/using a nappy. How you do that will depend on what motivation works best for the individual child. A lucky dip box of treats, sweets, stickers basically whatever it takes to lure him into trying. At the same time making changes and cleaning up accidents as boring as possible. No punishment, no crossness just boring and time consuming. Staying in is usually easier bur if you can't then you still have to have the same approach. Take treats and spare clothes with you. A plastic bag and towel if you are worried about accidents in the car or on chairs. Good luck

I'd consider skipping to the commando stage especially with boys. My DS while doing the bare bottom stage would just wait until no one was looking and then wee on the floor. He didn't make any progress until he was wetting his trousers. Definitely have a pile of clothes and wipes to hand wherever you go.

Why does it matter if he pees while you're out? Take a bag full of clothes for changes and nappy bags for dirty clothes. There will be lots of accidents and maybe it'll be a few months before he cracks it, but he'll get there :)

We used to have to run into Primark with my DD covered in pee all the time 😂

He's a cars and trucks kid, although we already have way too many of those. Otherwise he just loves playing outside and riding his bike.

We've tried standing wees a couple of times but not successfully yet.

He has had successful wees on the potty. There was one day the last time we tried when I managed to get him to sit on the potty every 20 minutes and when he finally did a wee I gave him a Smartie and he suddenly managed to do lots more wees and even a poo before his nap. Then the nappy went back on for his nap, and then in the afternoon he was climbing the walls so we went out to the park but he wet himself. We've never managed to replicate that morning. This time we had one wee on the potty on Friday morning, again from forcing him to sit, and I don't think he realised he'd done it until afterwards. Then last night I got him to sit on the potty for about ten minutes before his bath by letting him watch an episode of Fireman Sam on my phone (which my husband was furious about because we have pretty much avoided screens) and we were encouraging him to fart and he did a tiny poo. Then today after he had a couple of drinks of squash he started to pee on the carpet and I stuck him on the potty and he finished the pee in the potty but it was through his pants which he had on. When he is naked from the waist down he tends to touch his willy constantly and then he started complaining that it was sore so we put the pants on.

His verbal understanding is very good but he is bilingual and I speak to him in his minority language. That's a whole other issue really. He might respond better if I spoke to him in his main language but I don't want potty training to fuck with his bilingualism.

He does understand when he has done a pee or a poo. If he's not wearing a nappy he finds it very distressing. If he is wearing a nappy he will sometimes tell us when he's done a poo but not if he's really engrossed in what he is doing.

He is generally pretty well behaved for a three year old. We can usually get him to do what he is told, other than the odd nap refusal. This is a bit of an anomaly.

Ok so it sounds like you're very stressed over this & I don't blame you. Im a childminder for over 24 years so I've trained many many children including my own 2.
Here's what I would do;
I would leave it for now. Because your stress is causing him to be stressed & that's not helping anyone.
Sporadically mention the potty over the summer. But not so much that he feels under pressure. Keep him in nappies.
Explain to him that when he starts school it will have to be in a pull up & all his friends will be in big boy pants. If he's not bothered by that then fine. Let him start school in the pull ups. I guarantee by Christmas he'll want to use the potty/toilet like his friends. Nothing like a bit of peer pressure.
The school can't stop him starting there so take a breath & stop beating yourself up over it.
I know that's easier said than done.

My DD has SEN so I know it’s slightly different but I remember the pressure once she had turned 3 very well! Maybe I’m in the minority but I hate that ‘Oh Crap’ book. To be honest DD is very stubborn & preschool really helped us in terms of reinforcing potty training there. There is lots of good advice on here but I’m hoping the school would assist with it despite what they say. In my daughter’s reception class at age 4 children were regularly still having accidents & needing support.

Yeah I read the Oh Crap book and I was unconvinced by it from the outset. It seems to me like it's a method that might work better for a family with a garden and a stay at home parent and no younger siblings.

But keeping my son cooped up indoors with no pants on, not allowed to go outside until we've got through the mythical "stage one", with literally no idea how long this is going to take but needing to book specific days off work in advance, like, that is only going to work for working parents if your kid actually does get it in three or four days. Which mine hasn't.

I remember when I read it thinking it sounded horribly impractical but that I would give it a go over the summer because I was at home on maternity leave and there would be no big stretch of time between then and him starting school when I would be able to stay home. Plus he was in that magical 20-30 months window when it was supposedly going to be easiest. Well, he was absolutely traumatised by peeing on himself and my baby daughter needed constant attention and I quickly realised that it just wasn't going to be possible with her at home unless my husband was also at home. Then I came on Mumsnet and saw all these people saying that they just waited until their child was ready and it was easy and took 3 days. And my husband and mother in law and nursery were all telling me to relax and wait until he was ready.

So that's what I did.

And now we are out of time, we cannot wait any longer for him to be ready.

Honestly I'm horrified by the idea of sending him to school and letting him just shit himself in front of all the other kids who can already use the toilet, who will be in his class for the next few years. I can't help but think that whatever I have to do to force him to use the toilet before then would be less traumatic than that.

At nursery they have a little toilet, the same as he will have to use at school. I want him to have a month practising using that in a familiar environment, with caregivers he knows and accidents happening in front of kids he will mostly not see again after July.

Ah fair enough. Well keep trying so. Kids will train in a couple of weeks so you might be surprised over the summer when he just suddenly does it.
You will probably look back & wonder why you were so stressed.
Very best of luck with it. I know it's extremely hard with a resistant child but he will get there.

Great advice from alsonification! Just wanted to add my first attempt at potty training failed. Put DS back in nappies for a month and tried again and it worked. I did nothing; total non-event, so no real advice to give other to say things can change very quickly with toddlers/preschoolers.

@AsMuchAsICanTellYou Not all incentives and rewards constitute bribery. We work for money. We treat ourselves if we have tackled a challenging task. Giving a chocolate button to a child who potty trains is not bribery. It is an effective reward system, encouraging them to associate development towards adulthood with pleasurable results and responses from others.

I used a chocolate button system on my DC. They potty trained in a few days. They rarely got sweets so the incentive was strong. The reward system doesn't last for ever. They are in their twenties now and I don't drop around to their homes to offer them a chocolate button every time they use their bathrooms.

You know what, even if I have to give him Smarties every time he sits on the damn potty from now until the end of August, at least he'll know what to do when school starts.

I have a specific question.

If I suspect that he's withholding until nap time when he knows I will put a nappy back on him, should I take the nappies away for naps as well? Just stock up on plastic sheets and let it happen?

I got a big bag of m and M's and made a big song and dance about eating one every time I went to the toilet. My son got jealous and I wouldn't give him any, just told him only people who go on the potty get one. 1 for a wee and 2 for a poo.

Yes, you have to fully commit, tell him the nappies are going in the bin. Let him see you throw them in.

What about night time?

Yes silly me. I guess just tell him they are only for nighttime now.

Does he have underwear he likes? Can you tell him fireman Sam or whoever gets sad when he gets peed on? Haha.

So no nappies for naps, but still OK for bed. Got it.

His younger sister isn't sleeping well at the moment and I think two children waking up multiple times a night is more than we can handle right now.