2.5 year old not interested in toilet training yet: a problem?

[Caththerese1973]

Hi
I only started trying to train my dd, 2.5, recently, as everyone else I know seems to think I ought to. But she just isn't very interested. The only thing she likes is 'morning wees': she will sit on a potty when she gets up first thing, and WON'T get off until she does a wee. It's absurd, really - sometimes it takes her half an hour before anything happens, and her little bot looks quite sore from sitting for so long. I have gotten into the bad habit of letting her watch tv while on the potty - now it is a ritual and she gets upset if I try to put her on the potty away from tv, or take the potty away before she has done a wee. She is a long way from being able to predict when she needs to wee and tell me to put her on toilet/potty, I am sure.
I have tried training pants but she refuses to wear them anymore, since, as she puts it, 'they do wee on me' (lol).
As for poo, she just doesn't seem bothered by it that much. Sometimes she will tell me if she has done a pooh, more often not. If I suspect a pooh and ask her if she has done one, she usually denies it because she dislikes being changed. It is winter and the baby wipes are 'too cold', she says (lol). On the other hand, there are numerous bogus 'pooh calls' at night when she is resisting going to sleep.
Yesterday she surprised me by saying 'I have a pain, I wanna sit on toot toot' (her word for toilet). So I got out the potty but she actually insisted on being put on the toilet. But by the time we got there, the deed was done. She still wanted to sit on the toilet though and 'do more pooh' (she was all poohed out by then, sadly).
Anyway, amusing scatological anecdotes aside, should I just leave her alone for the time being or try to get more proactive with it? I guess they all get there eventually....

get a seat for the loo .. get rid of the potty and start to use the toilet

that's if you are sure you are ready for it .. waiting a month or do won't be a killer but personally I think its self-defeating doing the half and half approach

set aside a week when you don't have other plans and let her run round with no pants on and take her to the toilet every half hour or so

i have a two year old (three in oct) and he is a nightmare when it comes to even sitting on the potty, he just cant relax i tried everything even buying a toddler seat for the toilet and still nothing am tearing my hair out! he even went through a stage where if he poohed in the night he would take his nappy off and proceed to decorate his room with it!! not the nicest thing to be faced with first thing in the morning, any advice anyone could give would be great

Don't take any notice of when anyone else thinks your dd ought to be ready - she'll only do it when she is both physically and mentally ready for it. Many children aren't dry until they're three, and if your dd is, as you say, a long way from being able to tell you when she needs a wee then I would think there's not much point in trying to train her.

TBH, I found a lot of books said to start at 18 months but when I talked to parents, a lot were leaving it till 3, big discrepancy! But your dd does sound as if she's slowly getting there. Disposabel training pants are a waste of time and money, I've hardly ever met a child who didn't use them as a nappy! Maybe washable trainer pants might be better?

If she's not ready then wait. There are physiological reasons for being ready, and you can't rush it. Ds was nearly 3 when he got out of nappies, and couldn't possibly have done it earlier (we tried), but once he got it, it was really quite painless. Every child is different - don't feel pressurised by anyone else.

a friend's wise old grandmother told her 'never learn to cook .. or give oral sex ... as you'll always be doing one or the other'

now that's the kind of granny I like

Chipmonk, the washable training pants ARE the ones I have been using. Can't see the point of disposable training pants. Like you say, they are no different, really, from a nappy.
My dd, as I mentioned, say she doesn't like training pants because 'they do wee'. She must be teasing me. Surely she can't actually think that it is the PANTS doing the wee?
Maybe, as one other poster, suggested, she needs to spend some time with no pants on at all so she can see what's what. I suspect disposable nappies probably delay the training because they absorb the wee so well that the babe probably hardly notices it.

If she says they do wee on her, perhaps she means they don't absorb as well as a nappy - I presumed that she meant she could feel the wetness on her and didn't like it.

Definitely recommend going "al fresco" Catherese! Maybe she doesn't realise its her doing the wee, not the pants!

We use washable nappies and ds still doesn't get it.

she sounds very much like my dd who is the same age. She realy wants to wear knickers (or 'knickeys' as she calls them) and I have explained to her that she needs to use the potty when wearing them yet I don't think physically she is quite there yet as the wee really takes her by surprise! It's annoying because she wants to be a big girl (I think it's the pretty knickers rather than the notion of being dry) but she's just not there yet. I want to take advantage of her keenness but am not sure how to go about it - today we have 4 pairs of wet knickers already.
(her brother took over a year to potty train and he wasn't really dry till he was 4 - a total pain of a year which I don't want to relive and so am being very cautious this time round).

I totally agree with WWB, ignore everyone else and be guided by your child. Who needs more stress in their lives??

Keep encouraging and reinforcing morning wees - she seems to like this, and she'll get there in her own time.