failing my boy with this potty training - 18 months in!!!!!!!

[Curlysoo]

So yeah, we're 18 months in and still no joy. My beautiful, beautiful little boy is 4 years 3 months now with a will of wrought iron and with each passing day I feel more of a failure and I know that I am letting him down massively. He will be going to school in September and I fear that we will still be having these issues, he will be bullied and I will be sent to prison for a very long time when it is discovered that I have dismembered whichever one of his peers was stupid enough to laugh at him.

If Jesus were to appear in front of me now I could honestly say without fear of holy retribution that I have tried everything under the sun to make this boy go to the toilet. We were both crying today when I snapped and shouted that I would be putting him back into nappies tomorrow because that's what we do with babies. I know I am disgusting but I am typing this as something of a beaten woman. I was previously an articulate and non-ridiculous (except for that one strange week in the month) person before this chapter in our lives.

Many people have told me that he will "just get it" one day and I have had to bite down on my tongue so hard I thought that I may have bitten through it on more than one occasion. I am a stay at home mum by choice and it has to be said that most of the folks that enjoy imparting their nuggets of wisdom upon me are those that have gone back to work after maternity leave. More power to them I say but what I would also say is that this means the tricky potty training has been dealt with by a child minder, nursery nurse or family member etc when the time came... basically they haven't had to fucking do it themselves but feel the need to tell me how easy it was for them!

I cannot believe how mad I get or how stupid it seems at the end of the day but I have no more answers and I don't want to fail him like this. I start each new day afresh but the nasty knot in my stomach is back at the end of the day because I know I am an awful parent and I cannot get this right for him. HELP

What stage exactly is he at and what have you tried?

have you been to the GP to rule out any physical issue?

have you tried just backing right off and letting him take the lead?

Can I join your beaten, terrible mother club?! Bad day here today too, also with unnecessary and pointless frustration on my part. We have ongoing poo withholding issues at four. Came on tonight as worried about school though tbh I doubt she will ever poo there!!!

Hi Bob, Hi Spotty. Thanks for such a quick response. I think his mission is to see me broken, he just doesn't seem to care when he has one of his accidents as he calls them and I have honestly tried everything that I would think is humanly possible.
I have let him take the lead as suggested (this includes giving him the responsibility of putting soiled clothes in the laundry bin and getting new)- saying nothing to him, just letting him go when he felt the needed to. I have prompted him every 30 minutes, every hour, every 2 hours. I have shouted at him and smiled at him, I have ignored the accidents and just cleaned him up without mentioning it. I have tried to talk to him about it, I have tried bribery by way of chocolate, sweets, toys and money and anything else he considers to be treasure that week. He didn't respond to reward charts so I took things away from him and stopped him from watching TV. I offered him trips to the park and swimming pool etc for even one day of toilet use but nothing!

I know that they can become engrossed in play and sometimes they just don't realise what has happened but I know that he can do this because he has done it before on the odd occasion and has even told me that he was going for a wee in the past but there is no pattern to it to give me that scant glimmer of hope to carry forward. This is properly taking over my consciousness, really it is all I think about and I feel as if it's blighting my life (I know how dramatic that sounds) so who knows what his brother (now 17 months) can be thinking of me.

Put him back in nappies.
Let him tell you when he wants to wear pants.

How often does he use the toilet successfully without promoting?

i'm leaning towards bike's suggestion too... i'd be very tempted to put him back in nappies!

i'm assuming there are no learning difficulties or anything?

i do think that it has maybe become such a big "thing" now that he can't (or feels he can't) do it even if he wants to? I know I was like that as a child- if I knew a big fuss would be made over me then I didn't want to do it, even if it was going to be a positive fuss iyswim?

have you asked him what he thinks you should do?

DD1 sigh

Google resistance to potty training. The only way I could 'train' her was to leave her to it. Toddler Led Toilet Training (TLTT) is was coined on another thread. I'd tried most of the general advice over several months, no halfhearted attempts but it didn't take.

It involved not talking about it or reminding. Clearing up any mess without comment or cross words. I had to take the fight out of it as I was losing. I would just lightly remind her of the toilets general location. It took a few days but we cracked wee.

Poo took another 6 months and we talked about how Mr Poo had to go to Pooland to see all his friends. There's an online book someone linked me to. We didn't really follow the book and just made up our own stories (!). I think the book was a colouring one and I don't have that many brown crayons

Starting with DD2 (3.6) now. We were getting there at Xmas but then there was chickenpox.

GP is worth seeing if nothing takes this time.

I feel as if we have tried to "reboot" the program a number of times and it does make sense but I find myself pretty jaded by it all. I didn't apply the rose tinted spectacles and imagine that we would have it licked within a week as some of the books try to tell us but I did try to approach it as simply another thing we would be doing together - does that make me sound mental? We have had a number of false dawns if I can put it like that where things have appeared to work for a period of time and then we have gone backwards.

Recently we were doing not too badly and so I decided to grasp the nettle and see if we could attempt night training so we took him out of pull-ups. I can sense everyone's eyes rolling now but it seemed like a good idea at the time and he was quite eager to do it too. I could not have been more wrong about a thing ever though. Numerous weeks passed with him waking twice in the night because he had wet the bed and needed changing, he was very upset when he woke each time and took some time to calm and get back to sleep. Everyone was tired and we knew we couldn't carry on so I suggested he went back to pull-ups at night and he went nuclear. The only way we could get him to wear them again was to leave it until the moment we turned out the light before putting them on so he spends as little time as possible in them - as far as he is concerned that is. We persevered for so many weeks because I knew that the backward step into pull-ups would have a knock-on effect on his day training and how right I was.

I do have to wonder now if I should cease resisting as suggested because I don't have much fight left in me now anyway. He has done before so I know he can do it but we seem to be locked in a power struggle. I cannot even say that he doesn't know what to do because he has seen me go to the toilet more often that is probably decent. Actually I can count on one hand the number of times I have been to the toilet by myself in the past four years...

If anyone is interested but the way I think I am now at such a low ebb I would be willing to pay someone to come to my house and do this for me

Visit your GP.

So when it looked like it was working you took him out of pull-ups both night and day straight away?

It sounds like he was ready to be dry in the day, but not night and the upset of the night-time accidents has set him back.

I'd put him back in pull-ups and let him take the lead. Each morning he gets to choose pull-up or pants. If he chooses pants, he gets one accident where he can have pants again. Second accident into a pull-up.

Lots of praise everytime he goes to the loo. If he has an accident, a gentle telling off ( you daft banana, we do wee wees in the toilet, remember). In the morning ask him where we do wee wees and poos, say bright and breezily "are we going to do all our wee wees on the toilet today?".

When you get to the point you were before where he is reliably dry in the day, keep him in pull-ups at night. Use the Huggies ones with the dissappearing picture. Make a big show of checking his picture each morning, but don't take him out of them until he has woken dry for at least a fortnight.

Dd1 was dry in the day before she was 2, but was not dry at night until she was 4!

Would you consider putting him into creche a couple of days a week Op?

I just ask because seeing other children going to the toilet would be useful I think. Children do watch what their peers do. Plus childcare workers will have so much experience and can probably model some useful techniques...?

It will also be less of a transition for him when he goes into school.

I am annoyed at myself for trying to force the night-time training as I had always said when we started that I would deal with day and night separately. The tiny glimmer of hope derived from improvements in day training got me giddy I guess and I could really kick myself.

He does attend a pre-reception playgroup/creche setting which I also thought would only be of benefit too because he wouldn't want to be the one who didn't go to the loo... no! He doesn't care, remains unfazed by it and will happily continue to lark around with his friends sporting a growing dark patch on his crotch. The setting has a laissez fair attitude on the matter. No encouragement to go to the toilet, the door to the loo is left open and the kids are allowed to wander in an out when they want to. I can't speak badly of the setting otherwise because he has come on in leaps and bounds in so many other ways mixing with other short people.

As regards going back to nappies and pull-ups in the day time I am loathed to force him back into them, which is what I would have to do, as I don't want him to develop any toileting complex. Whenever I mention nappies or pul-ups he tells me he is not a baby, he is a big boy who wears pants. Also, I think he has to take responsibility at some stage. I know he is only 4 years but we have been at this long enough now for him to know what to do and what is expected of him. He has no learning difficulties and is articulate as I think any 4 year old is or should be but this feels like it is out of hand and I should be able to sort this out for him.

It sounds like he was ready to be dry in the day, but not night and the upset of the night-time accidents has set him back.

That's my theory too.

OP, night time dryness is a different beast entirely. You cannot train night time dryness. It all relies on a hormone being released that halts urine production at night. And you can't rush that.

I would put him back in nappies. Relax & see what happens.

You are not an awful parent.

What about using padding underpants instead of pullups?

At four he is either not physically able to do it or is choosing not to do it. Either way, you can't force him to be potty trained.

If he goes to nursery and isn't bothered by being wet there then I would take the path of least resistance. You should be able to have a discussion with him about it at this age, tell him he can't do wees all over the floor at nursery so does he want to wear pull ups/training pants or does he want to do all his wee and poos on the potty? Then let him stick with his decision for a few months. Make it clear that he can choose where he does his wees but he is not allowed to do wees on his clothes or on the floor, so if he has accidents he will have to wear pull-ups but it is okay to make that choice.

Back right off for two months (so no attention, negative or positive at all) and then reassess. Take the pressure off you and off him. You are not failing him, you are helping him through something he is finding hard for whatever reason. Be confident in your decision, you are a good mum. You are not being lazy or not caring about your child, you love him enough to listen to what he is showing you that he needs at the moment.

Don't panic about school yet, if he is physically capable of being potty trained he will be able to get it in a matter of days and you have loads of time. If he isn't physically able to hold his wees in or doesn't feel the urge then no amount of upset, tears and stress will change that.

As regards going back to nappies and pull-ups in the day time I am loathed to force him back into them, which is what I would have to do, as I don't want him to develop any toileting complex. Whenever I mention nappies or pul-ups he tells me he is not a baby, he is a big boy who wears pants.

It certainly sounds like he is choosing to wet himself rather than lack of control. This is where the two strike rule comes in handy as at 4 he is old enough to understand. If you give him the choice in the morning and he chooses pants, just clearly state that pants are ok, but he must remember to use the toilet.

After the first accident, help him to get changed (into pants again), but tell him, very clearly, that if he has another accident, he will have to wear a pull-up. It may be helpful to hide his clean pants so that there are only two pairs in his drawer in the morning - that way you could partly use the excuse that he has to wear a pull-up because there are no more clean pants.

If he says that he is a big boy who wears pants, then you counter it with big boys who want to wear pants need to do their wee wees on the toilet .

He needs to see wearing pants as his reward for staying dry, so there needs to be consequences e.g. wearing a pull-up if he doesn't.

I definitely wouldn't go back to nappies though - at least with pull-ups he can still go to the toilet himself if he chooses.

So we were implementing the two strike rule which I thought was epic and I couldn't see that it wouldn't work because he only wants to wear pants! However, he just had one of his "littool aksidents" and as per the rule I told him that we would have to put him in pull-ups hoping of course that the threat would convince him to go to the toilet but instead he rolled his eyes and got some pull-ups from the drawer.

What do I do? I can't even look at him because if he sees me crying that will be like some sort of emotional blackmail won't it? I've had to leave the room because I'm so overwhelmed. I mean what will his pre-school say? Social services will probably want to take him from me for being crap and I'll have to run away or something. How did I get this rubbish?

so why won't you take him to see a doctor?

Have you spoken to your HV?

He is at an age now where he will be referred to a continence nurse which will help you, get you free nappies (if needed) and will work with you to get him trained / diagnosed.
Maybe i have missed something but why are you avoiding going to your GP?

A GP appointment?? Ha, you have to be 75 to get one of those at my surgery.

In all seriousness what could be wrong with him? He's making a choice not to go to the toilet here. For example, we were just reading a story and I smelled something, asked him if he needed to go to the toilet and he flatly told me that he didn't, he said it must be his brother who has done a poo in his nappy. 2 minutes later when the story is finished, I check the pull-ups and find the tell-tale smear of the beginnings of a poo! Can he understand what a lie is? I am waiting for him to finish now... his brother's nappy is clear!

It feels like a game that I don't have the proper skill set for and I'm being beaten at every turn.

n all seriousness what could be wrong with him? He's making a choice not to go to the toilet here.

Nothing most probably, but a continence nurse will help you train him. Eventually they will probably suggest drinks and timed visit based on how much he has drunk.

It feels like a game that I don't have the proper skill set for and I'm being beaten at every turn.

They can help with this too.

I check the pull-ups and find the tell-tale smear of the beginnings of a poo! Can he understand what a lie is? I am waiting for him to finish now... his brother's nappy is clear!

You didn't put him on the toilet, even with the nappy on you could have put him on the toilet to do it?

Buy a small size nappy, try to get it on him, and then tell him he has out grown nappies.