Should I stop?

[jb1305uk]

I’ve started potty training my daughter aged 2 years 4 months. She’s been stripped off from the waist down. Started on Fri afternoon, had a few accidents but managed to use the potty a couple of times. We had to go out Saturday morning so she had a pull up on, when at home in the afternoon stripped her off and she was doing well, going to the potty herself. We’ve got a sticker chart and she’s been so excited at getting a sticker. Yesterday was the same but then got to around 3pm and she just kept having accidents, didn’t want to go near the potty etc. This morning she was upset when I put her on the potty when she woke up and is showing no interest in it, asking to have a nappy on.

I’m not expecting her to be trained within days, but at the same time I don’t want her to be distressed and do more harm than good if we continue. She’s tried wearing pants but has more accidents, won’t pull them down or let me pull them down for her.

Would appreciate any advice,

When we potty trained DS1 on days 2/3 I was convinced he had a UTI as wee was just dribbling out almost constantly! It was weird because day 1 had gone really well. We took him to the GP and he tested his urine, all was fine. Apparently it's quite normal, and day 4 onwards he was absolutely fine. I'd maybe keep with it today, and just deal with the accidents. No drama, just let her be and stay calm. See how she is tomorrow. Good luck xx

...just a thought, is she maybe holding in a poo? She might be scared to poo in the potty and that's what is putting her off. That's pretty common too and would explain why she's having more accidents.

Thanks for the advice.

I think she might be holding it in. We had 1 in the potty on day one but that was more luck than anything and none since. She’s not had one in over 24 hours which is very unusual so I’ve put a pull up on her for now to see if she goes. We’ve had a couple of pees in the potty this morning although she’s just made it in time, a few accidents too but she runs towards the potty when it’s happening.

She goes to nursery for half of the week and at the moment there’s no way she’d be able to go without a nappy or pull up. I think we’ll maybe just try her stripped off from the waist down when we are at home / in the evenings so she gets used to it then try again properly when I’ve got some time off work in a few weeks’ time.

Does that sound reasonable?

Just to add, we aren’t making a deal at all when she has an accident, just calmly reminding her it goes in the potty next time. I don’t want to build up a negative association! To be fair, until Friday she’d never used a potty at all so I think she’s doing pretty well.

Is there any rush to train her? DS2 is 2.2 and we are just having fun with the potty, he sits on it before bath to do his teeth. Sometimes he wees and we all tell him how clever he is. But I’m not going to potty train until he’s well over 2.6 months. He will need to be trained by 2.10 for the pre school we’ve chosen but I’ll wait till much nearer then to start. Sounds like your DD likes the sticker but not really ready?

It does sound like poo might be the issue OP, as otherwise she's doing well. Running to the potty is a good sign as she's getting to know the feeling of needing to go. We managed to go cold turkey with both of ours but only because we arranged it so that we had a week of not having to leave the house! It's not always possible to do that so I think your plan is fine. Speak to nursery, I'm sure they can help as they must deal with this all the time x

With my boys I really struggled with the potty they both hated it and didn't eggs up toilet trained till quite late. My dd is 22 months and has been going on the actual toilet for wees since before Xmas. She says wee wee now when she needs to go. We have stuck with pull ups only because she's reluctant to do a poo on the loo yet, but she's taken to whipping it off and running around without anyway! Would your dd prefer to go on the toilet maybe?

End up not eggs up obviously! Lol

We’ve tried the toilet and she’ll sit on it but then wants off it quickly whereas she’s normally quite happy to sit on the potty.

There’s no rush to train her to be honest, she was telling us when she needed changed etc and taking an interest so thought we’d give it a go.

She’s maybe not quite ready yet. I think we’ll keep the potty out and encourage her to use it, can see how things progress from there. I’m quite happy to go at her pace, I was just surprised how it was going so well then quickly changed- but it makes sense now!