Potty training a resistant three year old, is this pattern normal?

[CynicalSunni]

I am trying for the umpteenth time to potty train my 3 year old and am determined to crack it this time.

She has been resistant to it from the first attempt when she was about 14 months i think. All the advice said was stop and start again in a month etc. We cant really keep doing that.

We started again on Saturday and there has been less resistance but i want to check a few things.

The first pee of the day she holds for an age before finally letting go. I have to keep taking her to the potty even though she is dancing around.

Then after the first pee she does take herself to the potty but doesnt completey void her bladder. Its a small dribble but then wipes herself etc.
Then after 10 mins I have to bring her back and she does a full pee. Is this normal?

So far one poo in the potty. But rest have been on nappy we put her in for bed. For example last night she cut her bath short because she wanted to poo im her nappy

There might be some autism she is on a waiting list and she is having speech therapy.

Mine's similar... he can do it, but completely refuses to. We thought we'd cracked it one weekend, then he went to preschool and had nothing but accidents.

No advice, just solidarity

I don't know of its anxiety or stubborness with mine. It's so hard to know what to do isn't it?

Do you have any idea why yours refuses?

We have tried soany methods now. She does refuse to pee on the floor at least.

He's said he's scared of the hole in the toilet 🙃 but also wont go on the potty, so I dont really think its that.

He likes to only do things on his own terms... he's a spirited little bugger with such personality. He'll happily just say " I don't like to do that" 🫠

@ShouldIStaySelfIsolated Yea mine likes to do things when she wants to as well.

I mean everything else has been fine, stopping breastfeeding, then the bottle, the dummy, leaving her to be babysat, travel, floghts all pretty easy with her.

Then potty training we have hit a wall.

Same here!

Im just trying to find the right encouragement bribe to convince him he wants to ditch the nappies.

My elder 2 were similar, although not as vocally reluctant, and the both just literally woke up one day, declared they wanted to wear 'big boy pants' then they were done!

Yep i have resorted to bribes too.
This is my first, i fell for the advice that you have to wait for 'signs'

So annoying too, she loves to brush her teeth and hair. Washes herself in the bath and mostly doesnt mind getting her hair washed. Like I would take a little difficulty with those if it meant she would potty train.

I told mine last night that he wont be going back to preschool after the summer still in nappies

"I dont even like preschool"

He does 🫠🫠🫠

I believe they now do some washable training pants that contain wet but allow the child to feel wet rather than wicking all the wet away like a nappy. Could be worth using for a while to help your child feel the cause and effect? I have read that the missing cause and effect sensation is a major factor in difficulty with toilet training.

Tried those... he didnt care 🤦🏻‍♀️

Think my other two did 1 wee in them then they were done... this one was going through then at a rate of knots

@ShouldIStaySelfIsolated
Oh wow 😅
Like what can you do?
Mine starts nursery in sept.

I tried the umderwear underneath the nappy trick. It didnt work.

She knows she needs to pee and poo. She just wont in the potty until mow She will gp tp a corner in the garden etc but never imside

Currently in the midst of potty training my 26 month old. I keep having to explain that if they wet themselves, it will mean having to stop whatever fun thing they are doing to clean up, change etc; and that a quick wee before we leave/start playing is better. Not sure how much success I am having, I had to pull over in a layby yesterday so my child could wee by the side of the road having assured me they didn't need to go and refusing to even try :S

DP bought some poo emoji stickers for toddler to encourage pooing on the loo, not in a nappy. We also have toilet seat converters and steps upstairs and down. This has helped, nursery are also using the same system of stickers for trying and bigger better stickers for results.

Sounds like you're doing really well.
I wouldn't worry too much about the poo for now, if she wants to do a poo in her nappy at bedtime for the time being then go with it. You don't want her to start with holding poo.
For the wees I would try massively upping her fluid intake, give her squash if necessary while training, so that she has lots of practice at knowing what a full bladder feels like.

Sounds like you’re doing everything you can.

We had the same issue with our little girl. Picked up everything else really quickly then did potty training and hit a wall!
she is under speech too and awaiting assessment for autism too.

we tried several times. And actually did a stint of 8 wks with a massive fail and preschool asking us to go back to nappies.
then all of a sudden about 2mths later they were like can you bring her in pants as she goes to the toilet there! No where else, just there. We waited couple of months after this just to see if she would enable going by herself at home/grandparents and nope.
so tried again and she finally started weeing on toilet/potty elsewhere but freaked about poo’s and still insisted on putting a nappy on for poo’s no matter what we did.
she thankfully went dry at night around same time then about a month ago she started to get less freaked and we started talking about giving nappies to the babies she knows (she loves babies and mothering them) and that’s she’s too big for them now and then she finally cracked it! It’s been a long journey of a year I would say.
she’s turning 4 in a couple of weeks and starts school in September. So was getting quite stressed about it.

we did bribing of small toys to begin with each time she did it and then weened off that until the poo bit and started again.
it also didn’t matter if she used potty or toilet as long as she went.
stickers did nothing for us.

we also tried pants which make them feel wet but don’t leak as much and this was better than pants under nappy.

each child gets it in their own time and it does suddenly click and they learn when there body needs wee’s/poo’s better.

Don’t focus on the pooing for now as some kids do freak about this and just need time, we had the child and development team give us useful resources/ ideas for that which we were just about to try. Maybe worth speaking to health visitor when weeing is ok.

Keep going you’re doing really well

You might not like this OP but I wasn’t successful with my son until age 3.5 and even then we didn’t master poops until a few months later. he just didn’t like change and screamed for a whole day when we took them off.

all of the stopping and starting will be confusing for her however.

try not to worry about the societal pressure. I’m sure she will be out of them by year R.

You’ve got to take the pressure off and I would suggest stop attributing any particular intent to a 3 year olds actions. Not that you stop the process with the potty but don’t put any pressure on the process by asking questions or talking about it lots and lot. There is a charity that has a lot of useful information here

https://eric.org.uk/

We had a lot of trouble with poos and nappies which I won’t bore you with but in the end we got there with a lucky dip bag of those little foil wrapped toys that you can get. You could mix it up with something a bit cheaper but obviously of high value to them. We had done reward charts and spoken to health visitors and all sorts of things but low key consistency won through. Check out the Eric help sheets though just to see a process and hopefully you’ll avoid our issues.

one of my son's was like this. Every day I ask him are you going to
use the potty today and the answer was, I can’t like that, so I just left it. Then one day he said I don’t want to wear this anymore, took the nappy off and never wore one again. Not even for night time. He was just turned 3. If there no special needs it will come when they’re ready.

Yeah, I've got no advice either OP, just hang in there.
Mine were both reluctant but got there in the end. Actually I'd say dc2 was resistant rather than reluctant... Its her way or the highway!
The pooing in a nappy rather than the loo is very normal though.
Mine are both teens now and toilet independently so there is light at the end of the tunnel

Look up the oh crap method. Works a treat.
biggest thing to remember is consistency.

OP I'd probably get in touch with the GP around the issue of not fully emptying her bladder each time she goes for a wee. They night say it's not important but best to check. Combined with the pooing in a nappy it might point to a bit of constipation?

Might just be us, but I have two ND DC and the oh crap method was definitely not the right approach for either of them.

Eldest had poor interception so wasn't recognising he needed to go, so we had to set a timer and take him on a schedule, gradually increasing the time until he started to take himself off in between.

Youngest is demand avoidant and we had to leave a potty in the corner and not react at all if he used it as too much fuss/praise upset him.

Also don't give up too early. The attempt where we successfully trained DS2 (age 3.5) we had 10 full days of accidents before he got anything at all in the potty. Then suddenly I think he just got fed up of having wet trousers.

I dont think its constipation she just doesnt want to use the potty. (She did poo in the garden yesterday to avoid the potty)
We are mostly focusing on pee atm. Was just using the pooing in nappy ( and anywhere else other than the potty) as an example that she knows what to do but doesnt want to. As she doesnt want to go on the floor or in the bath.

Yea the we tried the oh crap method too. It was not good for us either.

I think you are right about not giving up. I can see her sort of gearing up to use the potty. She realises she needs to pee and sits on it then doesnt go. Then next time its a dribble, then she lets go after i bring her back.
But she holds on for so long too i think she tenses.

@CynicalSunni the ERIC website mentioned upthread has some good stuff about withholding wee (and also for poo), would be worth a read if you haven't already. They have a helpline as well which is meant to be fab, though I've not used it personally.

I found chatting everything through on the phone with the Health Visitor very helpful, though it can be a bit luck of the draw as to who you get on the day (unless you have a named HV).

We had the same rush to get potty trained before school, and at 5yo our DD was diagnosed autistic. I think it’s common for autistic kids to be slow with potty training.

She did make the deadline, just! - but we skipped the potty in the end and went straight to the toilet.
Good luck!

You cannot give up. For your sake and hers.

This happened with my DS too (he's now nearly 5 and no issues since 3.5 ish!). We're in ROI and here they have to be potty trained for preschool so it was very stressful. Since then it's become clear he has lots of sensory issues so think this is what was causing the struggle. If you're suspecting asd this might be her issue too? We tried lots of things but the thing that helped the most was when we introduced a "daily poo" where he sat on the toilet for 20min everyday and got a reward for a poo. This practically sorted everything out as was holding doing a poo and then having wee accidents. Just keep telling yourself that this too shall pass!!