Is anyone else's anally-retentive dh getting in the way of potty training?

[ellesabe]

Dd is 2.9yo and we tried potty training 2 months ago. Dh was really stressy about it because he was paranoid about her weeing on the sofa. She picked up on this and ended up holding her wee in all day because she was worried about going.

We went back to nappies as it was all getting too stressful but we need to try again at some point.

I have managed to get dh to understand that she WILL wee on the sofa and he is just about coming round to it. However I have no idea how he's going to deal with the poo.

The other day he was changing a dirty nappy and just as he'd finished and dd rolled off the changing mat and onto our bed, he spotted a minuscule speck of poo on the back of her thigh. He told her to stay still as he needed to give her another wipe but she started to try to crawl back onto the mat. He started shouting at her to stay still as he didn't want her to get poo on the bed and she started to cry

I have tried explaining to him the problems that might happen if we give her issues about poo and if she starts withholding but he just can't see past the mess. I know he just needs to chill out a bit but it's just his nature.

I don't know how to get around this.

Could you put an old towel or throw over the sofa? Should minimise any damage. Clean up any messes quickly. If you hold off potty training until she is really ready you shouldn't have too many accidents anyway.

I'm a bit similar to your DH, and found it hard not to bring stress into the situation. It helped me to have a strategy for dealing with accidents, so I didn't have that 'aah, what do I do' feeling. Rugdoctor do a spray for dealung with wee on carpets and upholstery. Ds is now toilet trained, woohoo!

Ooh the rug doctor urine spray will definitely come in handy! We will use a picnic blanket on the sofa too I think. And I think I might just have to do the first few days of potty training midweek so that dh is at work. Which is a pain because I also have 10mo dd2 to look after... Grrrr!

We are the same as your dh. Fortunately we have wood floors. We put all rugs away and ds wasn't allowed into the rooms/ on beds. We now still use pull ups in case of accidents! Poo is really difficult to clean off carpets!