Where do i go from here? Desperate advice needed, please!

[flowerfairy]

Began pt dd about a year ago. We've had some ups and plenty of downs. But despite being a bright and articulate little girl, we are still having daily accidents, mostly poos. So in afit of pique last week I threatened nappies. After 2 days of managing to go to the toilet for a poo at my suggestion, she then pooed in her pants so felt I had to follow throughwith the nappy threat. The thing is now i'm not sure where to go from here? DD is 3.5 yrs and we are due to go away in a couple of weeks camping and not sure how I will cope with constant washing if this continues, at home is one thing! Please, please help, dd is extremely strong willed and we have endured constant power struggles over the year to get her to sit on the toilet and some days have been at breaking point by the end. Pt ds with very little trouble so feeling a big failure because she just doesn't seem to get it! TIA

It took him about 6 days to pass his £ I think.

Thanks will keep looking then.

Had another poo today, which she was just about to deposit (in pants) on DS's cabin bed. HE would not have been happy, had we not intervened and whisked to the potty. She then did do it on the potty. Why oh why will she not go of her own volition??? I just don't understand her!!

Will there ever be a day in the near future when we will be able to laugh at these events?

Erm, no flower. No we will not!

I agree with TheGoop - it is mainly luck. DS2 is a month shy of his 3rd birthday and I didn't even try the potty training till this week (just call me lazy!.) Day 1, plenty of wees on the potty but also a poo in the pants. Day 2, just one accident but also a poo in the potty, Day 3, everything in the potty (despite a two and a half hour trip to the shops.) Not saying this to be smug (honest) as I'm not doing anything different to what I did with DS1 and that was a much more painful experience. I do think leaving it a bit later can help, after that its luck and also perhaps disposition (DS2 is much more of a people please than his big brother.)

In what respect is it luck? I don't think I understand and I'm wondering if I should be offended. Is it luck that you might have a child bright enough to grasp the concept straight away or that they have a personality that makes them more susceptible to the many persuasive "tricks" that are employed during this process. This is surely a life skill that we are teaching here and as such it's surely about the method and or approach rather than luck.

My boy knows what is being asked / expected of him but he is choosing not to do it and I believe it is a response to my actions, attitude and ability to teach him. I'm not trying to sound like a t**t here but I'm more than a little jaded by this process now and I want someone to tell me how to fix the mess I've made.

I think the luck aspect of it, and there is an element of luck, is whether or not a child wants to play ball. My son only ever did 1 poo in his pants, and that was with a tummy bug. My daughter just doesn't care. Sometimes she will take herself to the toilet, sometimes I have to take her, and sometimes she flat out refuses. In my experience (working in nurseries for 8 years) there is no special trick to it. The same process can be applied to different children and have wildly different responses.

I personally think that I had to find a way to get my daughter to understand, without me getting cross. And that has made the last 2 weeks easier. It's not perfect, but it works for now. If the accidents continue (to say, 2 years past starting pt, and dd will be 4) I will ask the docs as there can be medical issues stopping her from getting it.

"In what respect is it luck?"

what I mean is that some children will be ready to learn within a week at 2 and some will not do it until they are 3.

When I was potty training I heard so many people here (and in 'real' life) say they had done the whole pants off in the sunshine in a week thing and their children got it straight away. I stupidly assumed that method would work for everyone and ended up getting really stressed out when my son took months and I stupidly didn't stop but kept on trying.

Anyway - what I meant was please don't take 'it took my child a week when he was 18 months old because we did it this way' as gospel. Every child is different and I think a lot of frustration can be created by thinking that all kids can perform miracles in a week.

and northyorksbelle, it is a biological thing too... your son may know what the words you are saying to him mean but he may not be biologically ready. That doesn't mean he's not bright.

I found potty training really frustrating because you're supposed to be all 'never mind, next time we will do it in the potty darling' but inside you are thinking 'oh for fuck's sake PLEASE just stop pissing on the floor'.

I REALLY REALLY wish I had stopped and tried later but I felt pressured both by the nursery and by other people telling me their kids were geniuses at potty training.

My child is torturing me. He wants to see me broken, perhaps in a heap on the floor or perhaps shaking at the back of a cupboard I'm not sure. Why is he doing this to me? I'm not a bad person. Honestly I'm not. He starts school in a week and we are totally screwballed.

I'm back northyorksbelle! The coin has passed through a 1p after all that. Some improvement but not much. She's just laid on the floor this afternoon shouting me, then eventually telling me she'd done a wee in her pants!

How has school gone so far northyorksbelle? After a fairly good holiday with hardly any accidents we have just reverted back to how we were before we went away. Soul destroying!

Hello everyone! I just wondered how we had all been getting along since the summer? Here we have more good days than bad, but the bad days haven't disappeared completely...

Hi ticklemonstermummy I think we're pretty much in the same boat as you. Still!
We have had "incidents" at school and luckily they have been really calm about it but the last one he must have had underpants full of poo for ages because his bottom was red raw. Even once cleaned it was so sore you could feel the heat coming from it! How can he bear it? Wet underpants are admittedly fewer and farther between but certainly not gone.
Also, fantastically of late his younger brother has started to notice when he has pooed in his nappy (he comes and "tells me about it) so hubby thinks he is gearing up to start PT too. I can't even think of words to describe how giddy that thought makes me. I mean hooray and hurrah!

Have a look on www.eric.org.uk/ they have lots of advice about toileting, and they also have a helpline. They might be able to offer you some professional advice. I have had a read, and got a couple of ideas for the next few weeks