ideas for moving a reluctant child from nappies to loo?

[namechangetastic]

This child is just 4.

Does not wear nappies during the day or night. But when they want to pee/poo, they ask firmly for a nappy, or go and find one and bring it along to parent. Child ALWAYS pees/poos standing up at present.

Parent has offered the loo/potty intermittently, and does plenty of talking about how "I go in the loo... Granny goes in the loo... your friend Tabitha goes in the loo... Nathan who you completely hero worship goes in the loo..."

Idea of child going in the loo/potty is met with complete screaming abdabs.

Knickers, either just like parental ones, or with favourite cartoon characters are rejected with disgust.

We want to avoid bribery. We certainly don't want to force child to sit on loo/potty (even assuming we could do the necessary gymnastics)

Does anyone have any splendid ideas not involving bribery or forcing? It's certainly a psychological barrier rather than a physiological one.

Yeah just throw away ALL nappies. Put her in knickers, if she takes them off just ignore her. Plan to stay home for a week. Tell her as soon as she gets the hang of the loo you can go out and do the fun stuff again. Make being at home really boring. Get her to clean up accidents too. At four with this boot camp attitude it will probably take less than a week. S'wat ole GF reckons anyway

why no bribery?

I had this with my first. I resorted to forbidden sweets (haribo iirc) and when she asked why they were on the bookcase I told her that she would get one when she used the potty/loo.

She had two accidents I think, total. Oh and the bribery fades natually after a week or so.

We had this with ds (3.8) who has been potty training for a few weeks. It was a psychological barrier with him too. NOthing physical.

He would tantrum going 2 minutes without nappy.

First day was hell. Rest has been fine (mostly).

Take away the nappies and hide them. Let her go naked if she refuses to wear knickers.

And, you may not like this, but for us ds responded very well to bribery.
We got him big present for first wee on the loo (a small toy) and then he gets chocolate buttons at a going rate of (for every visit to toilet)
2 for dry pants
2 for asking for the toilet
2 for doing wee in the toilet.

Shouting is a no or getting cross cos they've weed on the floor for the 15th time.

At first we took him to toilet every 10-15 mins but he hated that. Now I ask him roughly every hour and he tells me when he wants to go.

We also pulled in everyone he knew for praise. Phoned his gps up the first time he went to toilet etc etc. Overwhelming praise from us as well.

Ds hated special seat on toilet or potty, so he just has step. I read in there to him for a bit, but now he likes to be left alone.

TBH I didn't think he would do it, but he did quite quickly.

Still asks for a nappy every 5 mins though

I swore I would never use bribery, despite witnessing enviable success of child psychologist friend who got her dd out of nappies in a few days with the aid of smarties.

Dd was proving very resistant to potty use, so in despair we gave in about 10 days ago offering a small chocolate chicken (which happened to be on offer in Woolworths) for each result. Chickens no longer necessary after a few days and dd now seems to be using the toilet completely reliably. I am amazed by how well it worked. I think it's worth considering.