I am so frustrated - anyone want to join a "my 3 year old won't potty train" support group?

[Nettee]

DS is 3.3 now and I went cold turkey with the pants again yesterday. Tried a new method of stickers for every half hour with clean dry pants. DS sat willingly on the toilet for long periods saying that he needed to do a wee. I was also a bit harsher when he had accidents than I have been in the past - not cross just dissapointed. Accidents all day, nothing in the toilet. I thought I should keep going today and was all set with the pants this morning but DS said that he wanted to wear his nappy, that he can't wee in the toilet and that he was sad and wanted to go to bed so I caved in and he is back in his nappy. I think it is just going to be a waiting game and I am sure that one day he will train himself in no time as all but it is so frustrating and I suppose I am worried about what other people think. I am probably nagging him to much about it and thinking about it too much myself. I wonder if there is some great psychological reason why he doesn't want to do it or if I am not trying hard enough. Anyway really just wanted to let off steam and hear stories from people in the same situation. Any stories about 3 year olds suddenly cracking it are very welcome!

I love the links - I'll definitley try them on dd!

Hi all,
How is everyone doing? Thought I'd just check-in with a progress report.
Things aren't going too badly- reckon we have about a 70-80% success rate. Am still not convinced that DS is aware when his bladder or bowel need emptying, so it's still a case of sticking him on the potty. However he obviously seems to be able to hold and release as 9 times out of 10, he'll wee within seconds of sitting down. Poos are still a different matter and we're still going for the 'grunt and catch' method! .
Luckily he seems to have quite good bladder capacity and can go for hours between wees, so, if we catch him at the right times, the chances of an accident on trips out or at creche/pre-school are minimal.
An interesting point is that in the last week he's only woken up with a wet nappy once. Am wondering if we'll get the 'double-whammy' of dry days AND nights by the new year.
Watch this (slightly damp!) space.......

Can I join please?

DS2 (3.3, very late talker, just joined two words together in late September, now understands and uses 3-word sentences about the present, but only just getting an idea of how to talk about the future) is still in nappies.

He sits on the toilet for a minute or so once or twice a day, though perhaps I should be stricter about making it regular? He likes the loo, likes DS2's seat on the loo, adores flushing the toilet (does this for fun/if bored) likes it when a fresh poo goes down the loo (from the nappy, sadly, not from his bottom).

We've tried training twice. The second time (a month ago) he held in the wee then dashed off into the corridor to wee alone, evading our plans to get him on the potty. he didn't wee at all in nursery. And he held in his poo for 3 days. So clearly he is physically aware but anxious/reluctant to make the change.

Psychologically, trailing after him with a potty is disastrous for DH and me. It transforms our nice family life into a nightmare and distracts us from the most important thing which is helping him get more confident with his talking (you can't do that if you're tense, it just doesn't work). Bssically we hate potties in this house!

Any ideas what I could do next? I'm thinking maybe
(1)Sit on loo three times a day and have a specific piece of music that I play all the way through while he sits so it's always for, say, 2 minutes.
(2) concentrate on successions of events as my next language target ie "First X then Y" so I can transition to "first poo in toilet, then flush". And finally, "first Ds2 wee/poo in toilet, then flush"

Please tell me we'll get there one day!

lingle - we have had a real breakthrough using the toilet rather than the potty.

We had another weekend of continous accidents and refusing to wee in potty although she would sit on it - and for quite a while too. But she would refuse to actually do anything in it and get off if she felt she could hold it!

I did start to get cross by the monday as she was clearly deliberately choosing to wee on the floor/sofa etc rather than the potty. I stopped being so OK about the accidents and explained that 'real accidents' were OK but it was totally unacceptable to CHOOSE to wee on the floor. Then I put myself in time out in the kitchen to cool down! Definitely not in the PT manual but this was all about wills - I felt I had to get tough to stop her preferring to wee on the floor.

Then I said we could take turns. I would wee in her potty. Then she would wee, then we would both get chocolate. And that's what we did - she chose to wee on the loo, then we both ate chocolate. After that, we have had hardly any accidents at all and she is very pleased with herself going to the loo.

Poos are another matter. She holds on until bedtime pullup and I often change it while she's sleeping. So that's our next project. I have a nice spiny dinosaur in a drawer waiting as a reward for a poo in the loo!

Have DS 3.4. Gave up a few mths back as he was refusing to wee or drink despite my v laid back approach to being weed on or cleaning pee off the persian rug. Am worried because he is 4 in August and then has to start school. That is the only thing which makes me think I have to do womething.......

Well so much for the progress. Dd refused the loo or potty and chose to wee on the kitchen floor and agreed to clean it up herself in preference to using the loo. Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!

I must remember not to get complacent and get my hopes up - we are so not done yet.

Nell - it is worrying as they approach 4. Dd is 4 in July. I'd like her to go to playgroup and dance classes - it all needs PT though. I read that if they get to 4 you should get help from HV/GP although I musty say our HV was totally useless.

We've been laid back (we also have persian rugs - how foolish is that?). We've been tough. We've bribed. This is the worst parenting gig so far - even worse than the sleepless first year (I think - maybe my memory is foggy....)

AAAAaaaaarrrgggggghhhhhh!
We were doing so well......

Really thought we'd had it cracked, DS was having a lot more successes than accidents, up until the day before yesterday when we seem to have majorly regressed.
I reckon he's got bored with this whole PT thing and gone back to his old ways. He even seems to find it funny to walk around in wet, stinking pants, or to leave a puddle (or worse on the carpet.

He will 'perform' when told to sit on the potty, but I'm still not convinced he recognises the physical warning that something is imminent.

Really not sure what way to approach this now. Like you, Acionyx, we've tried every approach in the book (and a few that definitely aren't!) and nothing seems to be all that effective. But we can't go back as DS refuses to wear nappies.
Am trying to stay positive and hopeful but I fear that the forecast is for a brown Christmas in our household.

And very wet Xmas in this household.

Had themost amazing meltdown strop standoff yesterday. Exhausting.

So today we went shopping for new shoes and Xmas tat. Dd loves this kind of thing and cafe stop. Dd bouncing and holding on. Went to cafe toilet and put her on potty. Refused to let it out. Offered to take her to sweet shop after wee for any treat of her choice. No dice. Continued shopping and of course dd wet herself [fmm]

Me: Do you like being wet?
DD: Yes.

Now she's on the sofa bobbing about holding another wee in. She can't play or do anything - she's too busy holding wee in.

Me: are you bouncing because you are holding a wee?
DD: No I'm just dancing

Me: It has to come out dd.
DD: No it doesn't.

I truly despair.

And the next 3 days she will go to her CM and wee in the potty and CM will carry on talking to me as though I am the most imcompetent, imbecile parent on the planet.

Anyone want an extremely stubborn 3 yr-old, slightly soiled.....?

hi everyone, just joined mumsnet in the hope i would find some advice about potty training. Lo and behold i find this fantastic thread my DD is 2.10 and have tried PT several times over the last year with no success. Well the last time had some success with wees but regressed big time. it felt like a control/attention seeking type thing more than inability, as she can hold on to wees for hours.been back in nappies for several months now and was about to try again (cold turkey/reward system stylee)but now i have been reading this thread and not sure.what do you guys think?

I'm bumping my thread because I have exciting news about DS2 (3.6, receptive language delay - means his understanding of language is more like that of a 2-year-old).

I saw him wee in the toilet today!!
And we're pretty sure he did a poo in the toilet last week!

Both times he did it when he was alone on the loo. The first time, he told DH to "go away". I guess he wants his privacy.

I've been sitting him on the loo 2/3 times a day for several months to get this far.

I think if I went straight to pants now and "pushed it" there's a risk he'd' be stubborn and go backwards. When we tried before, he held in his poo for 3 days and dashed out of the room to wee on the carpet elsewhere. I think it's psychology not neurology that's the issue IYSWIM.

Do you think instead I should get some chocolate buttons at the ready for next time he does it? I'd eaten the last pack of chocolate buttons myself in despair at ever hearing that tinkling music!

My DS1 was 2.8 before we started the potty training, since his little bro' had only just arrived on the scene 4 months previously, and we were warned that there would be regression issues if we attempted too close to DS2's arrival. Anyway, the wees were easier to sort out than the poos. There were many little wee accidents - even ruining a lovely pair of shoes (I had to throw them out because despite repeated washing, they stank) - but he managed to conquer bladder control without too much difficulty. However, it has taken from April 2008 to February 2009 to get him to poo in the potty or toilet. For those 11 months, I have been driven crazy with soiled pants, and I could not see how this would resolve itself. A toy bought as a reward for poos in the potty gathered dust on the kitchen shelf from July, and neither threats (to send the toy back to the shop) nor promises (of any kind) seemed to work. He just wasn't ready and needed us to be patient with him. When he did decide to poo in the potty, it just happened one evening - I could see that he was straining and I casually suggested he try going to the bathroom and sitting on the potty, to which he agreed. On all previous occasions, this had been met with a polite but firm refusal ("later Mummy"). I sat on the floor of the bathroom with him, he complained about the potty being cold, and I assured him that his bottom would soon warm it up. We leafed through a CBeebies magazine together, and hey presto, it worked! You can imagine how pleased and proud I was. And he was so pleased with himself, and got to claim his toy (at last!). Since then he has always used the potty - he is such a star! I am sorry I got myself into such a state over it, and I hope I will be a little more relaxed next time around. I just wanted to post this to give other mums some comfort, as I often trawled through mumsnet looking for suggestions to the poo problem. My take now is that if all else fails, patience must be employed, and it will all sort itself out in good time.