Potty training - is peeing every 15min normal?

[PurpleFleece]

Hi. First day of potty training my almost 3 year old ds. I have waited for so long since he hasn't shown any signs of readiness and no interest but now that he will soon be joining preschool I feel massive pressure to potty train him. It went much better than expected. He was willing to sit on the potty whenever I asked him and he managed to pee out a few drops at least as soon as he sat. So he knows I suppose what to do to make pee come out. He didn't last time we tried.

I'm concerned however at how many accidents we had. About 7 or 8. It would have been more if I hadnt started asking him to sit on the potty every 15min. In the beginning after he did a big pee I thought his bladder would be empty for an hour or so at least but he seems to pee out a few drops at least every 15min. Is this normal?

He also didn't ask to sit on the potty even once but maybe it is too early for him to recognise that he needs to go before he starts peeing?

Every 15 minutes seems extreme but it is very early in potty training (not as in he's too young for it, but it's day one or two of you trying) so perhaps he just needs to learn to hold it a bit.

My son is a similar age (33 months). We’re about a week into successful potty training (very very infrequent accidents, self initiating potty use) and he goes around every half hour or so. When we're out and about this can be several hours, but at home he's definitely thinking about the potty more and going more frequently.

For our first day, we did naked from the waist down all day and I think that really helped with recognising the feeling of needing to go. Having the success then meant adding in pants and going less frequently was easier. We did also do a LOT of talking about how happy and proud we were when he went on the potty, and although we mentioned briefly that accidents are OK, we were disappointed to clean wee off the floor. I think before we were telling him accidents were OK too much, so he didn’t see the need to try.

To achieve true continence your son needs to be able to recognise the sensation of needing to go to the toilet and then initiating it. By you asking him to go every 15 minutes, you're just training him to wee on your command. This will only lead to more accidents because he's not listening to his body but just relying on you telling him when to go. It will be much better asking him no more than once an hour if he needs to go or taking him to the toilet with you when you go. But bear in mind you're on day one and lots of accidents are expected! Initially there's going to be more wees on the floor and in the potty, and that's ok.

We had this issue where he would go and pee and after 10 mins he would wet himself and turned out he had phimosis but this was after several infections and being prescribed steroid creams. GP said he needed circumcision. After the procedure, he never had any accidents nor any pain while peeing or infections. I appreciate this might not be relative to your experience but this has been our experience.