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Potty training

Is your child ready for potty training at nursery? Here's the place for all your toilet training questions.

We started too soon and it's all gone wrong

3 replies

kenobi · 23/05/2011 15:26

DD is just 18mo and has started showing just about all of the signs of wanting to train. Her nanny said that it was time and my mum was sure it was time too. Ah, listening to other people, that's the way madness lies sometimes...

Somewhere along the line, DD has learned that poo is dirty (she says 'bleagh' to it, as she also does to rubbish on the street, food squashed under her highchair and so on). I know this stemmed from a period she went through when she would try and grab the poo in her dirty nappy. However when we started to train, she transferred this 'bleagh' attitude to her bits and it happened incredibly quickly - within a day she was highly anxious about her pooing and weeing. It happened SO quickly and completely I was totally taken aback by it. She is now in a situation were she doesn't really want her nappy on or off, both freak her out. I have tried praising her, showing her that I do it too and telling her it's all ok but she's clearly worried by her bodily functions now.

She understands what the potty is for - she sits on it when she wants to do a wee or poo, but get this: she will only sit on it WITH the nappy on. If you ask her to sit on it when naked she gets upset.

I am very convinced we started too soon and I've stopped and asked the nanny to stop. However what's my next step? Do I hide the potty and pretend it never happened, bringing it out again in 6 months? Or do I leave it out and just have it as part of the furniture?

Also how do I get her to realise she is not dirty and neither are her bits? I am really kicking myself over this, she's quite an intense little thing and I should have realised that her saying 'bleagh, bleagh' every time she pooed was a bit pathological.

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
tiger66 · 23/05/2011 19:19

We had a similar situation. I would take the potty away and forget it for a bit. WE now have successfully trained my little boy, so it can be done at a later stage.

Hope it goes okay but you really are not alone

kenobi · 24/05/2011 07:36

Thanks for replying tiger. So he wasn't traumatised by the first experience when you did it properly?

OP posts:
tiger66 · 24/05/2011 12:48

No, not at all. Actually he has chosen to use the toilet rather than the potty which I don't know whether this is due to his big brother using it or not wanting to use it because of before. Either way, it doesn't matter as I ma quite happy with him using the toilet.

He is sensitive to anything said about his toileting habits though so have to be careful about talking about it with him around.

It will be fine.

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