Hanging onto wee for hours?

[livsmummy]

Hi

Am trying to potty train my 2y3m daughter these past two days. She has been showing all the right signs of readiness for ages now, but the problem is that she won't actually let go of a wee and can hang on for literally hours.

Today for instance, since getting up at 8am she hung on until 12.15pm despite having said since about 11am that she needed to go. She'd been sitting on potty and toilet at regular intervals all morning, but getting off saying she didn't need to go any more (in spite of pulling all sorts of straining faces!). Eventually she couldn't hold on any longer and weed on the carpet when my back was turned!

The same thing happened yesterday except that I managed to usher her onto the potty after she had started weeing on the carpet and she finished it off on the potty. I made a big deal about her finishing it on the potty (rewards and praise), and she seemed really chuffed. I therefore thought that once she realised that weeing on the potty was ok, the next time would get easier but given her continued resistance to going on it today I'm feeling a bit anxious.

Has anybody else encountered this aversion to letting go of wees? Poohs aren't a problem as within 10 minutes of piddling on the carpet today, she'd done a pooh on the potty. So every cloud has a silver lining and all that!

I'm reluctant to give up with it, but she gets really upset from the pain of holding onto it and it can't be good for her either. Any advice anyone?

hi, im toilet training dd at the mo. shes 2ys 8mths. if i were you i would put a nappy back on her and try again next week/month. its sounds like she is physically but maybe not emotionally ready. do you let her follow you to the toilet? maybe she will become curious and want to be like mummy?

Mine is a holder-on too! Although she has been trained for nearly a year but she still holds on sometimes. To distract her, sometimes I sit her on the potty while I sit on the loo and we have a race to make the quickest or noisiest wee. (Classy bird me) Sometimes I make my hand into a 'spider' on the wall who is watching to jump on her head when she does her wee, which she thinks is the HEIGHT of sophisticated humour and lets go. Sometimes I read her a book or just chat about something else and this distracts her and she goes.

Otherwise, Nailpolish's advice is good!

mornpaper - you made me lol. sounds like great fun (and great advice too)

We started toilet training our 3.7 year old ds last Saturday and he was like this for the first 3 - 4 days - would hold on to his wees - knew he needed to do one but then would sit on the toilet for ages and couldn't seem to 'let go'. We were almost at the point of giving up but all of a sudden he seems to have got over it and can now wee almost immediately!

Maybe keep going another couple of days? Hopefully she'll get used to the feeling. Ds being older was able to express himself very well and said it felt "odd" at first, but now it's easy!!

me again - have just remembered some advice someone else gave me - when dd is on the toilet turn the taps on full blast

Me again. Yes she comes in the loo with me and is very curious. I do like the sound of the game playing - noisiest wee LOL! Will have to give that a go.

Have also tried the taps trick, but it prompts her to get off the loo/potty as she loves washing her hands!!

I'm heartened to her dot1's experiences - I will certainly persevere a couple of days to see if it falls into place. If not, back to the nappies.

dd had this problem and it was the main reason she didn't train until 2 yrs 8 months-ish. She just couldn't voluntarily let go despite knowing she needed to go and was able to hold on for hours.

We tried a couple of times, as she'd shown most of "readiness" signs from before 2, but each time she got demotivated very quickly with accidents and became stubborn about even trying to go. I don't think there is much you can do to force it either - extra fluids may make her go more often but also increase the frequency of pain and upset.

We found ds1 could let go easier if we weren't in the room - so even though he sometimes protested, we'd go and sit on the stairs/landing outside and then it would usually come!

LIZS, sounds exactly the same situation - I'd tried before but she got to the point where she wouldn't so much as sit on the potty. This time I followed her lead as she started taking her nappy off and walking round naked.

How did you get past this stage?

tbh we just waited , think it was a maturity thing. She was so advanced in other ways but is a diddy little thing physically.

She turned 2 in August and even before then had taken nappy off, was happy to sit on potty and be cheered for success etc so we'd had lots of barebumm times over the summer. Tried properly in October when we had a clear week, then left it until after our skiing holiday in February as couldn't face the palaver of accidents and needing to take off so many layers but still no consistent success. Finally succeeded after Easter but even then she was always dry out, happily using toilets, but had accidents intermittently at home for a while.

hmm i dn't have any good ideas but i was the same when i was little!

i used to just not go to the toilet EVER! ok.. wll i went sometimes... but not often.

the result? very strong pelvic floor!!! lol i only ever go to the loo twice a day!

Thanks for all the advice.

She's just drunk a big cup of water, so will wait and see what happens this time.....

Yaaaayyy!

She had been hopping from one foot to another for a few minutes refusing to even sit on the potty, so was just about to give up for another month or so.

Then without me even saying anything, she suddenly sat on the potty and just did it! Even she was delighted - we both spent 5 minutes whooping with excitement and even phoned daddy at work to tell him herself!

Now she's sitting on it trying to squeeze out another!

And another!!

This time she just went off on her own and did it, called me after the event.

Don't like to speak too soon, but I think she's cracked it.

Never thought a bit a urine would bring me so much joy!