My son is four this summer and we still haven’t cracked toilet training.
He is hearing impaired and has a kidney problem, but these do not impact on his ability to go to the loo and he has exceeded all of his expected developmental milestones apart from toileting. He has had a rough start as he was seriously neglected until 13 months old. So this obviously brings challenges. He goes to nursery four days a week, which he enjoys as there haven’t been any changes to our routine since my partner moved in in November (by which time he had known him for 9 months).
Home life is very stable, my partner and I are splitting up, but there are no arguments, our routine is the same, we’re still having sex, so I don’t think there is really anything stressful he is picking up on as we’re not stressed, we don’t argue. We were planning for him to move out in September (when we are both buying new properties), but I’m worried if we crack toileting training before then he’ll regress when Alek moves out, so would it be better to bring that forward?
I have attempted toilet training four times, for the first 4-5 days he is completely dry in the day and pooing on the toilet, each time he succeeds he is praised, any accident is ignored. After day five he typically goes back to going in his underwear every single time he goes. The longest we have gone without nappies and constant accidents is three weeks, as it is very stressful for him and so I haven’t wanted to have him urinating and pooing himself for longer than that in his pants.
We have done the whole, choosing new pants (i never say big boy pants as i don’t want him to think he is a baby for struggling), rewards, verbal rewards, we announce when we go the loo etc.
I just don’t know where to go from here, he starts school in September and I’m genuinely worried he won’t be ready.