Please help - we're at breaking point!

[RugbyWidow7]

My son is nearly 2yrs 5 months. We decided to start potty training him just before Xmas at 2yrs 4 months when he started showing the signs, so have been trying for a month now.

He is brilliant at home generally and can even take himself, so we've made real progress. The problem is out of the house. At friends' homes, soft play or pre school, he totally forgets, getting distracted and unless we physically drag him to the loo he will have accidents. Three at pre school this morning!

It has been such hard work to get to this point so I haven't wanted to give up, however now, I'm more or less thinking we'll have to go back into nappies. It's so disappointing.

Has anyone been in this position? Any advice, thoughts, recommendations welcome. Thank you.

I should have said, I'm concerned that we wait and start again in say, 6 months time and have exactly the same problems, then regret giving up. He's come so far it seems a real shame. I'm also expecting another baby in 7 weeks, so expect that would lead to regression too. Urgh.

He is completely normal.
You have only been trying for 4 weeks - he probably isn't quite ready.
When you are out and about you need to physically take him to the toilet because he won't ask, due to being distracted as you descibed. This is normal.

Yes - he may well regress when the baby comes, it depends how you handle things, how he reacts etc.

How are the preschool staff managing it? Do they know they need to be proactive in taking him to the toilet frequently?

Completely normal. It took us 2.5 months to be completely trained with DD who was 2.4 when we started.

She was brilliant at home within a couple of weeks, and as long as I took her regularly when out (once visiting the loo in Tesco 3 times doing the big shop!), but regularly having 3 accidents a day at nursery. I was in tears with frustration, BUT, we got there in the end.

Keep doing what you're doing. We did regular trips to the loo, sticker chart in the loo, and tried the same at nursery. It just clicked in the end.

Pants at home and pull ups when out. He just needs a bit more time.

He sounds quite young to me to be potty training, although it's been a good few years since I was at that stage and I gather people generally do start at a younger age now. Some boys especially just don't physically seem to have the ability to recognise the signs/bladder control until they're a bit older.

With my DSs (DD trained herself) I left it until they were 3. The rule is that at 3 you get a party and presents and cake, but nappies are banned - they all just accepted this completely.

I spoke to pre school again today and said they had to actively take him, not just ask as he'll just say no, but not 100% sure they didn't just Ask him.

Pull-ups when out now seems like a really good option now - though I know that's not Gina's advice. Perhaps it is a good half-way house for us until he is feeling more ready / confident.

Thanks so much this is really helping!

I didn't use pull ups when out, my own view is that they confuse the child. Luckily the nursery they went to had very pro-active staff, it was the manager suggested to me when ds1 was 26m that he was ready for potty training. She said just put him in pants to bring him to nursery, bring a bag of spare pants and if he has accidents he has accidents.

He was there 3 days per week so the other two days and weekend of the first week we just stayed near home, went out for a visit to the park and took a potty just in case but he was fine.

He was dry days within a week and nights the week after.

Same with ds2 although he was 23m.

I think the attitude of the nursery/preschool makes a massive difference, I'm sure it would have taken much longer if we had them in and out of pants, pull ups and night nappies depending where we were and what we were doing.

You can't make him do it if he's not ready. My DS is 3.4 years and not ready! Yes I feel like the worst mum ever but I've tried and tried so many times. He's still very young. If I were you I would wait until the summer