DD can't relax on potty.

[FoofffyShmoofffer]

My DD (2.8) has excellent muscle control and can hold in her wee until she is in real pain.
She will willingly sit on the potty/toilet but can't relax to do her wee.
If she could learn to relax she would have toilet training sorted and she loves her big girl knickers.
I just wondered if anybody had experience of this and any tips that might help me to help her [busmile]

Have you tried giving her a book to read while she is there (The Potty's the place' - Little Princess range worked for us). It might engage & distract her enough to relax.

I should have mentioned that we have tried books, small toys and bribing with a treat [bublush] turns out none of these work.

and we have that book poogles and another one with stickers in but to no avail.

Sing to her? I used to sing mine the wee wee song - it goes "wee wee, wee wee, wee wee wee wee wee wee" - works like a charm...

I love the wee wee song. Does it have a particular tune or can i just wing it?

We had this exact problem!

I'm not sure anything I tried really did anything, I think she actually just got it herself in the end...

But I used to try tickling or making her laugh on the potty, and giving her really cold drinks while sitting on it, that sometimes worked.

Aha. Thanks all.

Checklist so far reads:

Books
wee wee song
tickling
cold drinks

It does have a tune but I am buggered if I can work out how to tell you what it is - I guess you could try it to any tune - baa baa black sheep?

You could try running the tap while she's sitting there? My mum said it helped with me and my brother when we were little.

clariel my mum used to do the same. DD thinks that is her cue to jump off the toilet and wash her hands!

teenyweeny thanks. I can add some variety depending on my mood.

DS1 AND DS2 used to do this exact thing!

It took ages to get DS1 out of it, though DS2 wasn't quite so bad.

With both of them, if they wouldn't do it on their potty or the toilet I just used to say OK, we'll try later and take them off. Even if I knew that they desperately needed to go, then just tried to ignore it. If they wet themselves, again, I didn't make a huge thing of it, just said nevermind and try and do it on the potty/toilet next time.

With DS2 this worked really well. DS1 I only thought of this after nearly 6 weeks!! of potty training and worked in the end too. With both of them they came in and out of nappies a couple of times before they were fully trained. Maybe its worth putting her back in nappies for a week or so and taking all the pressure off her then trying again soon.

I know its hard to do, but just try and stress as little as possible about it and try not to make them think you are making it a big thing. Harder said than done I know.