1 week into potty training dd (2.11) - still doesn't say she needs a wee?

[Biccy]

We have been nappy free for a week, with not too many accidents on the wee front (poo is a different story but I think that is due to constipation). The progress is that when she needs a wee she can do it pretty quickly on the potty as long as I get her there at the right time. Two problems:

1. she is reluctant to go on the potty, and we have to have a negotiation about it every single time (which is tiring both of us out)
2. am I expecting too much to think she might start to say when she needs a wee?

I feel that we have made good progress, so don't really want to go back to nappies (and she certainly doesn't want to go back to nappies), but I'm not sure how long I can continue to find ways to get her on the potty often enough.

Any experience/advice gratefully received!

Hi Biccy, would your DD be happier on the toilet perhaps? What happens if you don't say anything and let her take the lead about when she needs a wee? Does she then leave it too late and have an accident?

I feel your pain
I've been potty training since last Wednesday, so far nothing in the potty and lots of accidents (except at nursery oddly) and now she is refusing to go back in nappies.

Are you constantly asking/reminding her? Maybe she doesn't yet realise when she needs to go.

I'd increase her fluid intake, and stop taking her. Prepare for a day of wet pants, but she needs to realise the feeling of needing to go and make the connection for herself.

DD is not quite a week in, and definitely needs reminding. And sometimes negotiating. If she doesn't want to go back into nappies, then that is your strongest negotiating stance - mine with DD is 'if you want to wear your big girl pants, you have to go and try to do a wee, otherwise you will have to have a nappy on' - especially when we are about to leave the house.

But nursery say she has started to ask, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Whilst out at the weekend I found that any time I went to the toilet she wanted to come too, and would "go" (we have gone direct to using the toilet and bypassed potties altogether BTW) so although I put her in pull-ups for long outings we didn't have a single accident until we got home

it took my dd1 an awful lot longer than 1 week to start to say for herself. i continued to remind her as i thought lots of accidents would knock her confidence but about 5-6 weeks in she started to work out she needed to go by herself. it will come. dont worry!!

i work in a nursery in the potty training room, what we find that works well is stickers, the children go crazy for them, we are able to get the children to sit on the potty with little more than a look, rewarding children is the right way to go and it doesn't have to be anything big, are stickers are tiny but they always really want them, if you little one is like my nursery kiddies she'll be on the potty all the time allthough they only get a reward for performing, it takes them along time to ask to go to the toliet we take them roughly every half hour to hour depending on the child, then once they are aware of what they are feeling we let them tell us, they go just before snack and just before lunch and bedtime, some children get in a week some take months but what i will say is pull ups are to much like a nappy and if you put her back in a nappy if she's doing well it will only confuse her, which can lead to so many problems, although clearly she should be in a nappy at night and nap times, hope this helps

cookielove that is very helpful! I have all the stickers ready to go and it worked really well with ds but so far everytime dd sits on the potty or loo nothing comes so I can't get the whole sticker ball rolling if you see what I mean

Sorry, posted in a hurry at lunch time and have been rushing about since - thanks to everyone for your comments, some really useful stuff - especially to hear that it may take a month or more for her to start making the connection herself and saying she needs to wee. (If I leave it to her, she doesn't say she needs a wee, although she does sometimes tell me she needs to poo.)

I do remind dd a lot, working on the last time she went combined with the last time she had a good drink. Like stealthsquiggle said, I negotiate using the 'I'm going to get a nappy then if you won't even try' and this so far has worked every time, although I think I'm bothered by the possibilities fo this backfiring (i.e. we end up back in nappies, which would feel like a backward step now), so think I will hunt out some special potty training stickers, and see if that works.

I don't make her stay on for long if nothing is happening as it seems to happen pretty quickly now if it's going to. My theory was that she needed to get used to the feeling of going on the potty. But there have been quite a few accidents, so she knows how it feels if she doesn't make it to the potty and gets wet. Also, she instigated this herself a week ago, and I've not been in a position to have a day just at home letting her get on with it (work & family committments), but I may be able to do that bank holiday Monday, if we are no further forward.

Anyway, thank you all again, I think really I was looking for some reassurance that we should stick with it, which I have got, thank you! I feel refreshed for week 2.

compo, that is a toughy what we tend to do with the children when we are introducing the potty to children is when we change their nappies we pop them on the potty every time, sometimes they perform sometimes they don't, but its worth a shot, also if u make sur they get lots of fluids they are more likely to go, some parents do reward their children when they just sit on the potty but that just turns into a game with the children, so i wouldn't suggest it, good luck i hope she performs soon

also i'm not an expert, but the reason that most nursery hate pull ups, is its basically a nappy that rips half the time when you pull it up or child pulls it up, it is not as asorbant as normal nappies, and the child is unable to feel what its like to be wet, there is a major difference to a wet pull up to wet knickers, wet trousers, wet socks and shoes, some children really need to feel what that is like to understand the process, however a poo in knickers is much like a poo in a nappy so i feel much harder to combat

thanks, she sometimes sits on it and then wees about 10 minutes after getting off it
she also is starting to get bored of sitting on it
she says she doesn't want nappies though

Hi Compo

What about Disney Princess pull-ups?

hiya NNB, as you can see i'm still going! getting more and more demoralised though! I thougt pull ups were a big no no?

They are for the old 'Boot-Camp' Brigade (If you do a search on this you might find some of Cod's potty-training threads)

I think that if oyu've got a dc who's wetting all over the place and you're battling to get them to even sit on the potty and they're refusing a nappy, then a pull-up is a good bet

ah I see, I'll have a search thanks

i am potty training dd on week 3 now, i found if i asked her did she need a wee she said no, if i took her every half hour she sat there and did nothing and then weed 5 minutes later, this was all in pullups.

what i did was waited for easter so we had time to stay in and started with dd bare completely, showed her where the potty was, kept it in the same room as her at all times, and never asked her if she wanted a wee, i just reminded her she was bare and if she needed a wee she should use the potty and if she didnt she would get wet. if she had an accident i said you are wet as you didnt use the potty and she helped me clean up.
after 3 days she was using the potty mostly so i put her in pants and told her they were special for big girls etc and if she wet them they would have to be changed. she wet them and watched a couple of times to test if they were nappies, got wet, hated it and used the potty again.
3 days later i dressed her and took her short trips out like the park, no nappies/pullups, she was fine.

before these 3 weeks though i had left the potty around, let her sit on it clothed etc and offered it at bathtime to get her used to it.
just wanted to say what is working so far for us

See, now I've had the experience of dd2 taking herself out of nappies in 1 day I think we should ditch the whole 'potty/toilet training' idea...

DD1 went on and off for bloody ever. ANd she was 'trained' by us (not very well evidently )

I've had to do nothing with dd2, absolutely zilch

Thanks Ilovetochat, that's useful. I've heard so often 'oh, when they're ready they just get it like that', that I was worrying that she wasn't ready and wondering how to deal with that alongside her insistence that she doesn't want nappies during the day. It seems I've probably been led astray (either by people with different experiences, or people with bad memories!). Will stick with it and wait patiently for brain to engage with, erm, wee...

i think what ilovetochat did was great, another tip is buying pants with their favourite character on them or let them choose certain ones, to begin with put them in plain pants that you don't care if you have to throw away because believe me at some point you will, then if they have a good day or a good week or some where in between they get to wear them, they most likely won't want to wet or soil them cause they are the 'special' pants

Hmm, I think I will hold onto that one for when I think she is definitely a bit more in control, as a way to reduce accidents. Thanks cookielove.

good news dd has just done a wee on the potty in the lounge so i gave her 2 chocolate buttons and a sticker, she seemed very pleased so fingers crossed we're getting somewhere.

Ah, that's progress Compo! Well done. DD is with her childminder today, so I will find out how she's got on when I collect her in an hour or so...

aw thanks Biccy, she did a lot of grunting on the loo just before the school run and said poo, when I looked there wasn't anything there, but she was touching her bum and I noticed a bit had come out (sorry really gross!) which I think is a massive achievement as she has loads of poo trouble even in nappies.
I was searching the archives for cod's bootcamp threads and found a few with her pearls of wisdom, wish she was still here!

Well, 2 wees on the loo with the childminder, one pair of wet knickers and a poo in knickers (but I'm just happy for her to be doing the poo, as she has been struggling the last few days). Childminder says she's making progress, so I'm happy, dd's happy. So much for 'potty training in a day' though, hey?

lol you sound the same as me
I'm overjoyed that dd poos in her nighttime nappy just before bed because living with a constipated child is so not fun
I'll be happy when wees are cracked, not bothered about poos just yet (probably cos they've all been in the nightime nappy) with ds I hated cleaning his pooey pants, used to chuck them out when dh wasn't looking