Potty training - would you give up or keep trying?

[lucasnorth]

DD is just over 2yrs old. She has been sitting on her potty first thing and last thing for a while now, and usually does a wee or a poo, but had been wearing nappies during the day.

On Monday she declared that she wanted to wear her knickers, and point blank refused to wear a nappy. So I thought we'd give it a go (despite not having planned to instigate nappy-free time for a while yet).

Monday was accident-free. Tuesday one accident. Weds one accident. Today three accidents.

All the accidents were urine. Monday and Tuesday I was asking her frequently if she wanted to use the potty or the loo. She would always say no, but a couple of hours after she had last gone I would insist, sit her on it, and she would quite happily do a wee.

Yesterday, when I picked her up from her half-day nursery, they said she hadn't gone to the loo so I tried to insist she went before we left. She got hysterical very quickly, so I gave up and took her home. At home she again got hysterical but I put her on the potty anyway (maybe a mistake?) and she did a wee.

After yesterday's hysterics I decided I would stop asking if she needed to go (as we are in a bit of a "no" phase at the moment); when I think she might need to go I will either bring the potty so it's in sight or say to her that I'm going to the loo, to try and put it in her head without prompting a "no". But today was a disaster - three accidents.

It seems to me as if she has the control to let go when she sits on the potty, but doesn't yet recognise the need to wee until its too late. Yet she is very insistent that she will only wear knickers.

So - would you carry on trying with knicker-wearing? Or give up, and try again in a few months?

Sorry this turned into such an essay; thanks to those who have got this far

Anyone?

You have done such a good job up to now and she seems to be doing really really well for her age - keep going with it.

Have you thought about keeping a reward chart. I did this with my DS and it worked really well. He gets a star everytime he used the potty and at the end of the week if he had at least 2 stars each day - he got a treat - something small like a book.

She's very young yet to be completely dry, so she's doing so well.

I did the same with dd and lasted a month and then gave up, she was 2.6 then.

We recenntly tried again and she was dry within a week ! So I think either way it is not wasted time.

My suggestion is carry on with the hands-off attitude (which I think is the right one) for another few days, after which she may very well get it. Basically treat today with the three accidents as day 1.

I think it's totally normal that when you're not reminding her she won't at first recognise the need at the right time - that's the learning process.

However, if after a few more days of not mentioning the potty she's still having a lot of accidents, then maybe she's not ready. Likewise if she gets hysterical again.

This happened a bit with DD - although we weren't reminding her very much to start with, after a couple of days the pressure seemed to be getting to her and the best thing to do seemed to be to back right off (except to say 'hurray' etc. afterwards) and just leave it up to her to decide when to go. It seemed to work, and a few days later she was OK.

It sounds like she is doing brilliantly. I have to say with both my DDs (who were 2.3 and 22 mnths respectively when I trained them) the initial phase was more directed by me than by them - i.e. for the first 2 or 3 weeks I would simply put them on the loo at regular intervals and they would let go and it was only once they were happy and confident doing that, that I started leaving it to them to tell me (at which point we had a slight increase of accidents whilst they adjusted). You need to have some idea of the time interval though - i.e. both my girls had good bladder control so I'd leave it at least 2.5 or 3 hrs before saying 'right, let's go to the loo'. If i tried taking them too regularly they would get cross. In the very early weeks I didn't give a choice, we just went. I also used rewards and bribery (yes I know.....!!) - two chocolate buttons as a reward for a success and that really helped to overcome any resistance / hysterics (which I think is something they all do go through a bit).

After about 2 weeks of being accident free I stopped reminding (only insisting on loo visits if we were going out and I knew we wouldn't be near a loo for a while) and we had no problem switching from me controlling it to them taking control as by then they were so used to using just the loo.

Regarding the choc button rewards, initially I would say 'if you do a wee / poo you can have a choc button', after a week or so I stopped mentioning it and only gave it afterwards if they remembered to ask, another week or so after that if they remembered I'd say we could have one after tea if there were no accidents for the rest of the day, so the rewards were soon phased out.

Looks like there's a consensus that we should keep trying for a while

Thank you all for your reassurance, and suggestions. At the risk of jinxing things, today has been accident free so far...

yes, I was wrong to suggest there was only one way, but what I mean is don't beat yourself up about three accidents if you've just changed
approach, because I'm sure that's normal.

Good luck!

(Nellie - we've had it the other way round! I was getting a bit frustrated that I couldn't remind DD, but now after that same period of 2-3 weeks she's suddenly amenable to being reminded! Which makes life much easier re. going out etc.)