How do I deal with my 2.4 year old who is quite literally taking the p*ss and manipulating situations with his weeing antics? End of tether nearing!

[bohemianbint]

Since going dry 3 weeks ago (really well, to be fair, very few accidents at all) DS has realised that saying "need a wee wee" can get him out of all kinds of situations that he finds really boring. For example this afternoon, we went to someone's house to visit for 20 minutes; he didn't like it and repeated "need a wee wee" non-stop, even when he'd just been taken. If we go shopping, in the car, anywhere, literally every 30 seconds he repeats it like a mantra, even the second he gets off the loo/potty he's asking to go again. He often specifies "weewee upstairs", which means that he actually wants to go upstairs to play with water in the sink.

The only time he doesn't do it is when it's just me and him here, and I put a potty in the corner and leave his pants off, so he knows it gets him nowhere.

Crap - I hadn't finished! Hang on....rest of post coming...

anyway, obviously we can't spend our whole lives indoors waiting for wee and am getting to the point where if I hear that bloody phrase one more time am going to bang my head into the wall.

I'm now telling him to hold onto it, and that he can't always go, but worry this is sending mixed messages. TO further complicate things he will not poo on the potty at all (he would to begin with) and waits until he gets his nappy on at night then instantly poos his pants, and charmingly often starts messing with it and smearing it about.

Am at my wits end. How on earth are we supposed to deal with all this?!

its 'just a phase' and most of them get bored with saying it very quickly!

perhaps when you know its just for attention if yuo make no eye contact and dont talk to him and just do what you have to do to help him sit on the loo, he will get bored quite quickly.

Yes its a phase.
Both mine did it.

When in the naughty corner 'mummy I need a wee wee'
Put them in bed and they use it as an excuse to keep getting up and wandering around. If you ask them what they are doing 'need a wee wee mummy'.

Children often take a lot longer to poo in the potty/toilet. Ds1 did it straight away but ds2..... we had pooey pants for several months.

Stick with it. They don't learn how to do anything else overnight, just look on it as another lifeskill that will take a little while to get the hang of.

Thanks! I think it's just soul destroying because it started so well. Am I doing the right thing ignoring, because I'm on my own all day with two children and can't keep stopping to put him on all the time?!

Message withdrawn

I think you are doing the right thing ignoring the constant demands to 'wee wee'. He using it as a way of attention seeking. How old is your baby, could it be something to do with taking your attention away from him/her? You can use your judgement as to when you think he might really need a wee and take him then. my dd would only poo in nappy at the same stage of potty training as your ds is at but soon got the hang of it. I put an open nappy over the potty and she pooed into that and then eventually she didn't mind just doing into the potty. You are still very early days in potty training and it sounds like things are going great to me!

I think it might be an attention thing, baby is only 4 months, and as I say, when it's just the three of us at home he doesn't do it so much as he gets no mileage out of me. DH takes him all the time though so he knows he can mess him about. I think we need to allign our strategies...

Ignoring it might not be the best option, you'll end up like the boy who cried wolf when he'll wet himself because he actually needed a wee and you thought he was messing with you.

Maybe when he actually needs a wee, instead of taking him to the toilet you make him wee in a potty in the corner of the room. Then every time he "needs a wee wee" you just pull his pants down and sit him on the potty. I'm sure he'll soon stop it.

Its just so hard when I'm also tending to a 4 month old, and if I did as he wanted I'd never do anything else!But yeah, he has weed once I think, after saying, but we were on the motorway so there wasn't much we could do! Fun fun fun...

my 4yo does this to get out of sitting at the dinner table for long meals. Get him sat down, dinner served - need a wee wee mummy, I used to ignore, but now since he doesn't need assistance, he goes and comes straight back to eat, if he asks again, it's "no, not until you've eaten your dinner".

However at 2.4 not sure how I would deal with it to be fair as they can need to go very often and at that age I was definitely still putting pull ups on him for motorway journeys as couldn't expect him to hold for long.

So no advice other than, yes it's 50/50 trying it on, testing boundaries, mixed in with actually needing to pee every half an hour.