Potty training.. Accident every day.

[Rubyroost]

We've come a long way since the beginning of July. My little one is 2 yrs and 9 months. Beg of July he was weeing 20 times a day. He was at first keen and eager to sit on the potty and then he devoloped resistance. Not surprising probably as having to sit on it 20 times a day would piss anyone off!

I backed off a bit. He was in pull ups and I just waited for him to tell me he needed a wee, rather than reminding him. It was going okay. He was doing a few wees on the potty and some in his pull ups.
We carried on with pull ups and he pretty much became bowel trained. I started to put him on potty again and now he wees about 8/9 times a day. He was having dry pull ups quite often, but he has stopped asking to go and relies on me to put him in potty. We put him in pants. He was happy to be in pants. He was clearly holding his wee even though he still want asking to go. He is still asking when he needs a pooh.
He started off really well. First week he probably had 3 dry days and 4 with one accident. Then this week he seems to have declined. He is having more accidents (particularly over last two days) and even had a pooh accident (he's been reliable with this for 4 weeks).

I don't know what to do. He won't ask to go anymore (for a wee), even though in the very early stages. He is usually having one accident a day and has got worse recently. He was there with poohs and now i feel he's getting worse in terms of this too.

His speech has come on massively in the last two days. He's making a big effort to talk to us properly particularly in the last few days. I'm wondering if this could have an impact on potty training.

Any advice?

[Disappointedkoala]

Are you prompting? My DD has been consistently dry since we trained but I still tell/ask her to go if I spot her doing the "potty dance" or before we go out of out the house. She still goes independently and asks to go if she needs one of us to help (if we're out for example) but gets distracted by food or toys when we're at home so sometimes needs that reminder.

[Pepperama]

I'd leave it for a few months, it seems like he's not quite ready and busy with other developmental leaps. Hopefully when he's ready it'll then be quick and unproblematic.

[ittooshallpass]

Agree with PP - just forget about it for now. I tried a couple of times with DD before she got it. Backed off both times. 3rd time, all done and dusted in 10 days.

The fact the training with your DS is going on for weeks is telling you he's just not ready yet. Just leave it for now.

[Rubyroost]

See I was wondering that. But he's increasingly weeing less at night and doing big wees in the morning. Today he woke up completely dry. Surely if he's not weed in the night (he used to often have leaky nappies he would wee that much) then it's a sign I should be training him still?

[Rubyroost]

@Disappointedkoala yes I'm getting him to go, if I forget tho, or don't time it right he can wee himself. Also teaching him to pull up pants and trousers, he's finding that hard as they often stick together if you know what mean. If he doesn't have clothes on he does sometimes sit on potty on own because it's easy.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

I agree with PP, he doesn’t sound ready for full potty training. He does sound ready for training for poo, but not wee. The two are very different bodily sensations and many children can feel one but not the other early on in development. Since he’s succeeding at pooing on the potty, just focus on that. But since he’s not asking to go for a wee, he probably cannot tell when he needs to wee yet. And no one wants to sit on a potty 20x a day just in case some wee shows up.
So back off for a bit, continue with the pull ups.

[Oly4]

He’s not ready. We had a few false starts and the. Tried again when DS was 3.5. He got it immediately.
Don’t stress him or you out by carrying on when he’s not ready. It doesn’t matter what age other people train their kids either

[Disappointedkoala]

Yeah - I ended up buying a load of next size up pants and trousers for DD so they were baggier to get on and off. We did the "oh crap" method so she was commando for a few weeks so it was just trousers to remove and then we added in pants - have you tried that?

[FourPlasticRings]

Yes, kids sometimes regress with potty training when they're learning a new skill. I daresay he's concentrating on his speech. I'd keep going with it and prompt regularly (but don't overprompt- look for cues that he needs it and prompt then). If he managed to ask before, he's capable of doing it now but probably isn't because his mind is elsewhere. Lots of people seem to buy into the idea that if they're doing anything less than begging you for a toilet and pants they aren't ready, but he's shown he's capable of it before- it's a skill that can be learned. Often takes a bit longer if you start earlier but it's so much better for the planet than holding off for an extra year of nappies because it all seems like too much effort. I'd stick with pants for the daytime.

[Biancadelrioisback]

It sounds like you might be confusing him a bit if he's still wearing pull ups during the day.
DH and I took a few days off each so we could keep DS at home for a full week and tackle potty training. Basically he had nothing on the bottom and we had the potty in the room with us all the time. The only time he went back to nappies was for bed. Once we were happy that he knew when he needed a wee and would tell us, we moved the potty into the bathroom.
Have a look at the "Oh Crap" book. It really helped us.

[FourPlasticRings]

Also, I agree with PP- if you've not tried going commando then do that. Also, remove the trouser-pulling step. Do it for him at this stage so that he only has to think about one thing and also so there's less time pressure. Mine went through a stage of saying, 'Potty', freezing and then wetting herself because the thought process from 'I need to pee' to 'I must go to the potty' wasn't fast enough- they don't have lots of lead time in the early phases. So we'd carry her over immediately, pull her trousers down for her (choose ones that are easy to get down) and sit her on the pot, so her only job was to hold it until she got to the pot. Then we celebrated her dry pants. Gradually she started shouting it and going over to the potty to await help and then we started encouraging her to take her own trousers down- first do this in a non-potty situation. Don't attempt at pee time until you're confident they can do it themselves. You want to give him success so make the steps achievable. Now, mine can take herself to the potty, pull down pants and trousers, sit and pee/poo all on her own. She's 2.25 years old- we started at Easter, so she's not a potty prodigy by any means, but we can confidently expect her not to wet or soil herself and she only wears pants in the daytime. Next step for us is wiping to a reasonable standard!

[Rubyroost]

Thanks so much for your responses. Yes, this is my dilemma is he ready?!

I'm not quite rameady to give in the towel and go back to pull ups.

1. Because he was totally dry last night and has been doing bigger wees in the. Orn and has been moving towards this for some time.

2. As @FourPlasticRings noted he's told me he has needed wees before. When we stopped and went back to pull ups last time. He started to ask for wees again.
3. He has gone on quite a few 2/3 hour trips in the car and has clearly held his wee whilst out and then done a wee on returning. He wasn't able to do this before.
4. He wants to wear big boy pants.
@Biancadelrioisback he's not in pull ups, he's been in pants for two weeks now. Pull ups have actually worked really well for us and it was because he wasn't soling them and he was keeping them dry that we moved back to proper pants.

I am not over prompting. I wait quite a while before asking him and putting him on potty. I learnt the hard way last time. It's just sometimes when he has two wees in close succession or one when I'm not quite expecting it he will have an accident, rather than tell me.

I guess I'm in a bit of a dilemma as to whether to stop and start again or whether to plug on for now.

[BlusteryShowers]

I think you should drop the pull ups altogether.

I found with my son that the progress wasn't always linear; we'd think we were getting somewhere and then he'd slip back loads. Really frustrating. I would say it took us from April (2y10m) to July to be fully accident free, including dry nights.

I was really sceptical but a sticker chart did work well for him.

[FourPlasticRings]

Oh, also don't put pressure on. Most resistance comes from overprompting or feeling pressured.

[Rubyroost]

@FourPlasticRings thanks so much for your response. Everything actually seems far less urgent now, I don't feel like we need to rush to the potty anymore. That's why I'm confused why he's having accidents etc. That's also why I thought I'd try teaching him to pull up and down his trousers. Bhe can kind of do it, but gets a bit frustrated. More because it takes a bit of time and concentration.

[Rubyroost]

Thanks @BlusteryShowers that's what I have done. But such a mixed response on here. Some saying not ready and some saying don't go back to pull ups!

[BlusteryShowers]

@Rubyroost I tried not to read so much (it was hard not to!) and just went with my gut feeling. He was so often dry with a nappy on so I knew he had the control, it was just about getting him to use the potty.

Our main problem was communication as he would just never say that he needed it and we had to go off body language. He doesn't tend to say now but he does just take himself and then proudly announces after the fact!

[Rubyroost]

Yes that's the issue I'm having he won't tell me, but he did before when he was struggling big time with potty training!

[PlanDeRaccordement]

With mine, it was that they couldn’t tell me, not wouldn’t.
They asked for the potty frequently when it was new and exciting based on wanting to do the potty ritual, not because they actually felt the urge to wee. Any successes then were just coincidental/luck.
Once the excitement of the new potty game wore off, they stopped asking and thats when I realised the above. They didn’t yet know what the urge to pee felt like. They’d often announce they were seeing as it came out.
That’s why there can be false starts in potty training. So I backed off and in time they were able to go from no notice wee to some notice. And after that it was simple, it was just a matter of transferring them to using a toilet.

[Rubyroost]

Thank you @BlusteryShowers

[Rubyroost]

Maybe the novelty has worn off and that's why he had stopped asking. But he was recognising the urge previously as he was saying I need a wee wee several times a day and going each time. He is also holding his wee in. This is why I'm confused.

[HildaOgdensLipstick]

My DD was regularly dry at night from around her 2nd birthday. I assumed this meant she was ready for day time dryness too so we tried it but she had loads of accidents. She could hold it and would do a wee on the loo when prompted or I noticed the signs (we had to go with a loo seat as she hated the potty) but she’d get distracted when playing and not realise she needed to go until too late. We ended up abandoning it for a couple of months until the nicer weather when she could run around with just pants on. That time we cracked it in a week.

[Rubyroost]

Just updating, my toddler has now been dry for 6 days, almost a week. He is almost dry at night, I go in at 12 and he does a wee on the potty and he's up at 9.30 and does a big wee in the morn. He's started to kind of ask, by either walking in the room and doing a whiney grunt, or the potty dance. He's obviously holding his wee even better, as today I've put him on the potty 6 times and each time he has gone. I think he will slowly start to ask me. He didbthe grunt think once today, but its progress. I'm glad I didn't give up.

[Cutesbabasmummy]

Take the pants off. His muscle memory will remember pull ups and nappies. Buy or borrow a copy of " Oh Crap its potty training" and follow it. My DS was trained in week using that method. I think he was about 3 years old possibly a tad younger.

[Harrysmummy246]

yeah Agree with @Cutesbabasmummy

Take pants off
they feel too similar to nappy or pull up. We had to have DS commando in trousers for weeks before we could do pants

And he wears a nappy for a long car journey just in case (and delights in telling us if he does pee in there)