WWYD - PT nightmare continues.....................

[Acinonyx]

Dd will be 4 in July and after 2-3 failed attempts started PT again last August. By Xmas she was witholding poo and gp put her on movicol which she is still taking daily.

PT goes in phases - sometimes few accidents then weeks of accidents often/most of the time. She has started pooing her knikers more often which is very worrying as school is approaching.

Another major issue is that her behaviour is different at her CMs. Although she does have accidents there too, she used the toilet rather than the potty and changes herself after accidents. She often poos o toilet at CM but almost never at home - waits for night nappy or has an accident. At home, she is not bothered about being soiled and will stay in those clothes unless I change her.

I am at my wits end. I don't know how to stop the accidents and get her to poo in the potty/toilet, and I also don't know how to get consistency between CM and home. With CM, she tends to just do as she's told without defiance, but although she is not naughty, she is incredibly stubborn and will not go to the toilet or change herself at home. Incentives, stickers, treats - we've tried the lot.

Any advice?

You might need to simply abandon all the incentives/bribes/etc. and just ignore as best you can. She will get there, but if she's being stubborn only at home then the more low-key you can be the better so she can't use it as a way of getting attention iyswim.

You have my sympathy btw, I was a year PT dd2 and she is also on Movicol so I know it can be soul-destroyingly hard.

deepest sympathy but no advice i'm afraid.

my dd is the same age and very similar, she's uaually ok with poo except for the odd accident but wets at least once a day. like your dd sometimes good for ages then bad again and no accidents at all at playschool.

i've reached my limit with her and now am making her clean up after herself as i'm hoping if it causes as much hassle for her to wet herself as to go toilet she won't do it, i'm fully convinced it's laziness... she's told me as much so i'm taking the hard ass approach

rewards make no differance at all.

I think I probably do need to react less (I try but it slides..) but how does that deal with her changing herself? If I ignore it, she would just stay in the soiled clothes - I just don't know how to get her to change herself as CM does.

Just had a heated discussion with CM this morning about achieving consistency between home and CM (i.e. get her home behaviour like Cm's). But dd complies with CM in a way which she totally doesn't at home (She tends to comply with any adults that are not her parents ).

I've also found that the less I react the more accidents she has and even starts saying 'Oh, it's OK' - so I'm really unsure about whether this is a good approach or not. But it worked for you, right?

Pink - how do you actually 'make' her clean up after herself?????

as soon as i notice she's wet i chase her into the toilet and make her strip of the wet clothes and bring them to the laundry. (she also pretends nothings wrong til i spot it)

she hasn't pooed since i've implemented this strategy but if she did she'd be marched up to the shower, made to strip herself in there, rinse out her clothes and wash herself off and get herself redressed into clean clothes.

i know it sounds harsh but i've had her say to my face while laughing 'i like wetting myself mommy/didn't want to squeeze to hold it mommy/wanted to watch tv mommy/was doing my puzzle mommy' and she's tried to blame my potty training ds1 for wet patches on the couch despite him having dry pants and her wet and it's gone beyond a joke now, she does it becasue she knows she'll be cleaned up so if the reality is that she'll have to spend 10 times as long cleaning herself up and miss even more of whatever game she's playing then she might realise it's easier for her to just go to the toilet.

i feel confidant in her ability because she can stay dry at playschool and if we're out and there's no toilets close she's often held it for 1/2 hour or more so it's not ability i her case, just willingness.... you know your daughter though and can judge which is the case with her.

Oh I'm confident that she can do it if she's motivated enough. I know what will happen if I tell her to clean herself and change clothes though - she will refuse and we will have a stand off for hours. She is fantastically stubborn and very capable of ruining the day for herself on prinicpal. I suppose I might just have to do it - but I totally dread it

Cm makes it sound so easy - I wonder how she would cope though, if dd just downright refused to comply the way she does at home.

dd is stubborn too but she's greedy too, if i threaten to take away treats or tv she usually buckles (especially as she knows i'm serious and have taken nice things away before))

OK. So this afternoon dd made a fairy den on the arm chair then weed through it - 2 feather-filled cushions, one bolster, one chair seat cover, and into the armchair. I confess I did not manage to not react.

She just holds on too long. She thinks that she doesn't need to go because the urge goes away - but it keeps coming back until it's too strong. The battle of will is not with me - it's with her own body. I just don't know what to do.

So now she is sitting on the potty and she can get up any time if she just cleans herself and puts on new knickers. I think she's going to sit there all day......

This is driving me insane.