3 year old has no interest in potty training 😫

[PeppermintTeaThenBed]

Hi Mumsnet,

My son will be 3 next month and has shown zero signs of being ready to use the potty - I'm looking for any advice on what I could do to get him interested / getting started. We have had a potty both up and downstairs for months now and I ask him several times a day if he would like to sit on it to try do a wee or poo. This is met with upset "no mummy I don't like my potty" and he runs off. I don't push it at all as I don't want it make it a major thing which might cause him to push back against it even more.

Over Christmas we tried using chocolate at bribery - he got some mini Christmas chocolate lollies and I told him each time he tried sitting on his potty, he could have one. Of course I was getting through about 10 chocolate lollies an hour 😂. Sadly every time he sat on there, nothing happened. I could only keep him on there around 5 minutes before he insisted on getting off it. I then decided to stop this tactic as I felt he was (Obviously) only concentrating about chocolate lollies and not thinking about doing his business. Maybe I should go back to this? In the hope that one time he sitting on the potty it just happens and something might click? We have also brought (but not given him) a Paw Patrol tower - we've shown him pictures of it from online and explained when he does a wee or a poo in his potty, you can have that for being such a big grown up boy! He understands this and often says "when I use my potty I can have a paw patrol tower!" But even this seems not enough to persuade him to give it more of a go 😮‍💨

I was hopeful that we might be making some (tiny) progress as he started telling me when he had done a poo and he wanted changing. This has stopped again now and he will point blank deny he's done a poo (even when he clearly has 😂).

Twice he has shown an interest with sitting on the toilet, so have gone with it, he then says he's done a wee (he hasn't) but gets really sad when I gently tell him 'oh not yet darling, nothing has come out yet, let's wait a little bit longer' he then gets a bit tearful saying 'but I have done a wee mummy'.

He is such a lovely sweet boy and has excellent communication, I just don't know how to get the penny to drop or what the correct tactic to use to encourage him

This is probably something I should have started strongly encouraging a few months ago, but we had our second baby who is now 7 months old and potty training with a newborn just seemed a bit too much at the time!

Any advice will be greatly received or indeed just any reassurance that I'm not the only one with a three year old still in nappies 😣😫

Sorry if I missed it but have you actually taken off his nappy for extended periods (ie not just to sit on the potty)? What happens when you do that - does he get upset, have accidents, hold it in?

Have you tried the toilet, with one of those seat things that go on the toilet?

Signs of being ready include being able to communicate needs, pull trousers up and down, know when skin is wet eg wet from washing and know when he needs a poo. Being able to wee on command is not a sign of readiness but something they clean through potty training.

Both my DSs were late to stop wearing nappies. We started trying to potty train first one when he was 2 and a half but had no success. By the time he was 3 we were no further forward. We thought he was just being stubborn. Then we realised he was just late to gain any control, so we just stopped trying. We let him keep nappies for another 6 months. Then, at age 3 and a half, it suddenly happened. We tried again and he was almost instantly trained. He hardly used the potty, and went straight to the toilet. We left DS2 until he was 3 and tried, with no success, left it and tried again at 3 and 3 months. He got it instantly and like his brother moved on quickly from potty to toilet.

I would just give it a go, he's old enough.

No nappies, have him naked from the waist down and keep a close eye on him so as soon as he looks like he's going to wee (or starts to) you can get him on the potty and reward him with a chocolate button.

You'll need to spend a few days at home and expect some accidents but ime the best thing to do is just get on with it.

I have 6 DC and never used a potty. Always gone on the toilet ( with a little trainer seat. ). Summer is admitting the best without a nappy but doesn’t have to be. Get him some big boy pants like his Daddy and put them on him. Nappies are so good now that children struggle to feel wet when they do it in the nappy. With pants he will and will hopefully then ask and go.

I would buy the Oh Crap Potty training book, put the potty away and leave it a few weeks. Then follow the routine the book suggests.

I tried potty training with my DTs a few times with zero success. When DS was 3y 10m he just decided that he wasn’t going to wear nappies anymore, and that was that! DD followed a week or so later.

Have you got the seat for the actual toilet? One of mine hated the potty and would only use the loo, the other would use it but wasn’t a massive fan.

I know most kids toilet train way earlier than mine did, but leaving them until they were ready in their minds for it made it an absolute breeze.

You'll get mixed views on this but my (bitter) experience is that once a three year old has indicated they're not ready - for whatever reason - you're best off waiting a couple of months. Just drop the subject entirely, use nappies, try again in ten weeks or so. Much as it is a big deal (for you), do everything in your power not to give your child the impression it's a big deal. Only try again when you think you can pull off being casual and relaxed about it. When he's ready, as pp said, he will potty train in about three seconds flat. I know it's difficult if he's at nursery though.

I don’t have any advice really, but my ds2 was like this. I couldn’t make any headway with him at all. Then one day when he was about 3.5 years old, he announced that he wanted to wear pants instead of his nappy. He only ever had 2 small accidents, and he also asked to stop wearing nappies at night about 2 weeks later. Wet the bed once.

ds1 started potty training at about 3 but had several accidents most days for months, wasn’t dry at night for a couple of years and was generally very hard work.

I know which was less stressful!

so I wouldn’t worry if I were you-just wait until he really wants to do it.

Don't use potty, try toilet sear instead. My son is 4, he left nappies at 3 and half then for six months he was doing only poo in his nappy, So basically used to go to pantry and asked us to put one. Couple of months ago, he just started using toilet with normal seat without any faff. I would say , he will do it until he is ready. i have two older daughters and they were potty trained from 2.

Mine was like this. We took a break when he turned 3 as his baby sister came a week later. At 3.5 he declared randomly that he now only wears pants. Almost zero accidents since, only when extremely distracted (less than 1 per month including 2 recent d&v bugs). No problems out and about. He was the last in his group at nursery, but I know now at age 4 that a few of them have regular accidents, where ds doesn't. Honestly when he was ready, it was ridiculously easy, he just did it himself.

Mine still has fortified milk at night (low weight, feeding issues) so he's stayed in pull ups at bedtime, although today he has refused them completely. To be fair it's been months since he's been wet overnight, he does have to get up to wee once or twice though.

Oh also, mine was successfully bribed with chocolate (once trained) to poop on the toilet, which he now does automatically. But he prefers his potty for wees. A work in progress...

I have 5 DC, 4 potty trained and 1 about to (she's 2 years 9 months). The older 3 are mid to late teens so I honestly can't remember exact ages but it was over the age of 3 for all. I didn't stress on it at all, waited until they were ready then switched to pants, they were reliably trained within a few days.

Eldest 2 used the potty, the next 2 preferred the toilet with a training seat on and a stool to get up. Not sure about DC5 yet, but have both at the ready.

She sees us use the toilet plenty and I do ask before she gets in the bath whether she wants to try the toilet. She's had a sit on the potty and like your DC announced she had done a wee (she hadn't) but I just said well done, what a big girl etc (understand you may not be able to humour them if they then expect their paw patrol tower )

Ultimately, I'm not expecting anything for a good few months, she'll get there eventually.

Have you tried reading him Poo Goes to Pooland? It worked like magic for my initially reluctant 3 year old.

I didn’t wait for my son to be ready, I just did it one day. I bought a special soft toy to give him some new pants to wear and to take the nappies away (that captured his imagination) and had a couple of days at home in pants. Chocolate button rewards for using the potty, they eventually became stickers and eventually nothing. He cracked it in a couple of days.

This. He sounds like he’s ready for it but isn’t getting the concept because the nappy keeps him dry - I’d try for two weeks and if not give it 3 months and try again.

Oh and before I started, he’d always refused point blank to even have a sit on the potty.