My 4 year old constantly wees himself

[joeybg12]

I started training my (just) 4 year old boy at 3 and it was on and off for a while. Since January (apart from the odd accident) he goes to the toilet for a poo but will not go for a wee. Have tried all the usual tricks, bribes, stickers etc. but seems to make no difference. He wont say why he just says he forgot ! Im washing 4-5 pairs of trousers/pants daily at least! He starts Reception in September. I have an 8 year old girl who was trained in 2 weeks from 2.5 years! Please help!!

Hi Joeybg12,

Sorry to hear that you've been having a hard time with potty training. I am in a similar situation to you I think. I don't have a solution but I can share with you what we are trying at the moment. DS is 3.5 and has been out of nappies for almost 6 months. Poos are no problem but wee's have always been tricky. He never says that he needs a wee and never goes if I ask him. He usually has a small accident at which point we take him off to the toilet where he does the rest. We tried asking him frequently and then just taking him when we thought it was probably 'time' for him to go based on his fluid intake. Recently, I have been reading a bit about toilet training resistance which seems to describe our predicament. If you google someone called Roger Knapp, there is advice on how to deal with toilet training resistance. It suggests that you should NEVER remind them to go to the toilet, giving them responsibility for their wee's and poo's and thereby eliminating any power struggle which may be causing the toilet training resistance in the first place. Coincidentally, (before we had heard about this method) this is how we started toilet training him 6 mnths ago and it actually worked really well. However we somehow lapsed into reminding him and pestering him to go and, well, here we are. So we are trying the method of not reminding him again and have been at it for 5 days. He is definitely having less little accidents but still won't tell me if he needs a wee. He just does a small wee in his pants and carries on as if nothing has happened at which point I take him to finish his wee, make him take his clothes to the laundry basket and get himself into his clean clothes. He is totally capable of going to the toilet before he gets wet as he has done it before, he just chooses not to. He is dry all night and has been for six months so I know there is no physiological reason for this.

Anyway, maybe you can take something from this and have some success with the method. Good luck with it all :)