Help please - potty training at 3 + years!!!

[Mingle]

I haven't posted much before but I am desperately after some advice regarding ds who is now 3.6 years. I have "gently" tried to potty train at various times since he was 2 ish and have had no success. He will use the toilet occasionally, when he wants to.

He is a bit of a sensitive chap so I have tried not to be to pushy about it, but I am now getting nagged by nursery about him still being in nappies. Therefore, I have tried really hard over the last 4 days to introduce him to the idea of pants and potties - with no luck. I am lucky if we have one success in a day, the washing machine has not stopped running

I have tried everything that I have been told, sticker charts, bribes, pants on, pants off, sitting him on potty regularly etc etc. If he poos or wees in his pants he just does not care but continues, playing, running around etc.

Am I being too pushy now, have I not been pushy enough, am I expecting too much too soon, will he be going to school in nappies? Developmentally he seems fine, mentally and physically, but just not with his toilet habits.

All suggestions will be gratefully received. Thank you in advance.

Mingle

I hope u dont mind me giving my thoughts , as I am a mum of only 17 weeks!!!I am also not sure if u have managed by now to sort it out.

I saw a great DR PHIL episode exaclty about potty issues and this is a suggestion for trouble free, (ie less screaming/less accidents), training . In all cases where mums had tried, it had been 99.99% successfull. The only problem is that it seems to pertain to a girl only.It is supposed to only take 1 day to do so here goes:

1. Buy a dolly that wees (may be there are boy ones!!!!)
2. buy lots of party stuff ; blowers/cakes/glitter/hats etc
3. Make ds lots of drinks this day , so he has no choice but to wee.
4. The technique is to show ds how to teach the doll to go to the potty , so he is empowered himself and made to feel independant.we all hate being told what to do!!!!
5. Tell your ds that we are going to have a party for the doll every time he succesfully wees on the potty. This way he will see that someone else is rewarded for the efforts and therefore may want the same.
6. Every time doll wees make a BIG fuss and get the party stuff going. Let ds feed dolly cake etc.
7. when ds starts weeing himself also make a BIG fuss ,(well done / what a good big boy etc)and continue to do so throughout the day.

Let me know how it goes

My sister partialy did this and she has the most stubborn awkward child I know & it worked!!!!!

Good luck

Wow, thanks Melsy, even if it doesn't work, it sounds more fun than everything I have tried!

Not much help for you but our DS1 was a very late starter on the potty training front. They way we got him trained (with only a few accidents) was let his Nannie (grandmother) have him for a weekend. This may seem like it was the "easy" way out, but he just wasn't interested before when I had tried. It was also the same when it came to night training. She had the kids for a week and when they came home DS1 and DD were going through the night with accidents few and far between!

If your DS is anything like our DS1 & DD then they will happily do things for other people, but no matter how much you tempt them, they won't for you!

Sorry not much help, but good luck

Hi Mingle. Oh, you have my sympathy. I'm only just making headway with my dd and she's just turned 3. Until a week ago she was exactly the same as your ds - she just wasn't bothered. Tbh, now that she's making progress, it really feels that I just had to wait until she was prepared to do it, but then she is a very independent, stubborn child and is like this about everything. She'll do it when she is ready and not before! My ds1, now 5, is a different character: very willing to try/learn new things, keen to grow up, so although toilet training him (at 2.5) had many more accidents than I'm now having with dd, he was much more responsive to incentives, praise, peer pressure etc. These days I feel it depends on the personality of the child. If he's naturally independent you might as well give up and wait til he decides to do it (give it a go every now and then and he may make sudden leap), but if he's more easy-going maybe you just need to go cold turkey, and tough it out.

Sorry. I know it's really frustrating, particularly when you're being nagged by outsiders and your child seems to be the only one untrained, but sometimes that's just the way it is. I know two boys (brothers) neither of whom were trained until about 3.5, but on the plus side, they both did day and night all on their own within a week, no accidents. HTH and good luck.

mingle I sympathise -My 3.4 daughter will not wear knickers oreven contemplate toilet/potty. I am at my wits end too . Various attempts have just ended in upset and tears ( both of us )

Any advice on how to get her to try knickers gratfully received

Sorry I have not responded quicker, have only just had time to sit down today and type!

To get ds into pants we brought him 3 small toys that he really really wanted (and some Thomas TTE pants). He got one toy when he gave in and started wearing pants and the other toys were put on top of the dresser for when he had collected 10 stars for each of them.

He now wears pants and will not wear nappies, but he is still having accidents all the time and he really does not care about it. If he is not "busy" he will use a potty, and he happily walked up and told me that he was pooing in his pants earlier Even nursery admitted defeat yesterday and put a nappy on him (he only goes part time). Their reasoning is that he is too intelligent - personally I think he is just bone idle!

Anyway we tried Melsy's suggestion today which, although not 100% has certainly made him think about it more and we have notched up a lot more successes. (He even breast fed the doll and put it to bed tonight)!!

Sooo - the washing machine is still running and my carpets need cleaning and so did dd when she managed to crawl to the potty first and dip her breadstick into it

Thanks for all the suggestions, I will perservere and resist my dh's suggestion of glueing the potty to ds's bum!

Just to add that the Dr Phil method that Melsy suggested is here