Complete refusal at 3.6

[seaoflove]

I'm at a complete loss as to what to do with my DD (3.6). She has never in her life done a wee on a potty or toilet. I first tried removing her nappy at 2.11, only to find that she would hold onto her bladder for hours and hours and hours, to the point of pain, but never go. Same story seven months later - she's perfectly happy to sit endlessly on the potty, but won't release her bladder. She won't wet herself either. Sometimes I can see her trembling with the effort of holding her bladder.

So, what do I do? She understands perfectly what is required, she has excellent bladder control (clearly!) and is completely impervious to bribes or any sort of incentive

I'm so embarrassed at her being one of the only children in preschool in nappies (and certainly the only child of her age still in nappies) I've been considering going hardcore cold turkey over the Easter break. She chose to wear knickers last week and ended up withholding for eight hours, only doing a huge wee and poo when her nighttime nappy went on. Now I'm not sure whether to go cold turkey starting tomorrow or not. Not only do I find it massively stressful, I find it incredibly tedious and frustrating too. I fantasise about wringing the urine out of her like a flannel. I try gently massaging her tummy to force her to stop withholding. She is so stubborn I would weep.

Obviously I don't show my frustration. I try very hard to act like I don't care whether she goes or not; whether she's in pain or not. I just feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads and don't know whether it's worth trying the same thing over and over, knowing the end result is always the same.

I'm also 32 weeks pregnant, riddled with SPD and rather hoped not to have a newborn and a nearly four year old in nappies. Ha

stubborn children, There is very little you can do, it's the one thing children have complete control over. There's no way you can force this.

I'd be inclined to select points in the day where i'd slip a pullup on her so she can pee and poo, as holding wee for over 6 hours isn't good.

So i'd take the nappy off in the morning, put one on her around 3pm, change her with as little interaction as possible, get her to do her share of cleaning herself up. Then have knickers until bedtime.

Make a big thing about rewarding yourself for using the toilet too.

My nearly 3 year old will get up at 9am and won't go to the toilet till 6pm at the earliest.. Why? He goes nursery and won't use her toilet. Albeit he goes when he's at home but he won't use anyone else's toilet or public toilets.

If it was me I'd make her put All the nappies in the bin and tell her she's a big girl now and needs to go on the potty.

Completely bottomless and wait it out. She'll have to go. Completely cold turkey

I completely feel your pain, and if nothing else I can certainly assure you that you're not the only one dealing with this. My dd is a little younger, nearly 3, but has had control issues (as in too much control!) over her bowels on and off for a year. Since we started potty training a fortnight ago, she now has the same problem with her wee. She has just gone nearly 22 hours without a drip. She also sits there sweating sometimes with the effort of holding it in. It makes you want to shake them and it sounds like you are doing a far better job than me of not showing your frustration (I have sobbed twice in the last 2 days about it all - I am also 31 weeks pregnant and not feeling entirely in control of my emotions!!) - although my new tack was going to be not to show any frustration so it's not good that even that's not working for you! The thing with my dd is that in the past 2 weeks she has done some wees on the potty without issue. She has even managed some poos, albeit with a bit of angst. But sometimes she will outright refuse and will start holding on again - which results in a terrible mood for everyone. I don't know what's worse - your dd never having done it and refusing, or knowing that my dd CAN do but refuses to a lot of the time.
I have googled this stuff and the only consistent thing I can find is people talking about how helpful the charity ERIC have been in helping with these types of problems. They have a helpline on their website - I'm going to give it a try, maybe you could too?