When to give up potty training?

[KMC92]

Sorry for the long post...

We started about 4 weeks ago with our now 22mo. Got poops straight away, nearly all have been self initiated. But he doesn't seem to get it with wees.

We've never really had fights with him to go for a wee, if I prompt he'll go. Or if I take him as a toilet buddy and bring the potty sometimes he'll self initiate and sit on the potty for a wee without me asking.

If he drinks a decent amount, he'll tend to go after an hour. But has been able to not wee for 2 hours. If I'm focused, I'll spot his sign which tends to be grabbing and looking a bit uncomfortable. If he wees in his trousers, sometimes he'll say 'hold it' as I said that once aha. And if I do catch him mid wee, he can stop and hold it to them finish in the potty. He knows when he's weeing, so if he's having an accident he'll look down and tell me he's weeing for example.

But generally, his wees aren't self initiated. It's me keeping an eye and prompting. Did I start too early? His speech is great so he can communicate. He has a potty book and he told the boy 'next time potty' when he had an accident.

He had a fairly positive weekend of self initiating a couple of times, but he's still having at least one wee accident every day and today was chaos with 3 wee accidents and 1 poo accident (it was a busy day and I wasn't as on it with the prompting). I did loosely follow the Oh Crap method.

I don't feel like I can go out for long or far!

[CadyEastman]

I'd give it a break for now. Back to nappies and try again in a couple of months

[Goldwakeme]

Keep going! Yes you can't go far for a little bit but soon you'll be so relieved not to deal with nappies anymore! He's practising and learning, we all need to make mistakes to learn new things, and we all need support to learn (in this case prompting). Imo it's easier at this age as they are keen to please. When they get a bit older they can say no!

[Mossstitch]

Your doing well that he got the poops straight away, I had three sons and that was always the hardest to get. I'd persevere, he'll soon catch on from the sounds of it especially as he is able to stop half way and hold it. Just keep praising him and make nothing of the accidents🤩

[Tatonka]

Don't give up, 4 weeks isn't long and that's great getting poops straight away. Usually that's the hard part. I'd up the rewards.

[AndyPandyismyhero]

Difficult as everyone will have their own idea about this. FWIW, with DS 1 I felt very pressured by others and began to try at about 22 months. Although we had some success, I felt it was more luck than judgement and decided to take a break. Tried again at about 26 months and cracked it within a week. Night time took about another 4 weeks or so. Definitely all sorted by the time DS2 was born ( DS1 was 29 months at that point). DS2 I was more confident about my decisions, again, waited until he was about 26 months and he got both day and night sorted in about two/ three weeks. DIL did similar with dgs1 and had very similar outcomes. Less pressure was definitely better for the adults and the child IME.

[bakewellbride]

Why so soon? With ds we didn't even think about it at that age. Did it at 2 years 9 months and he picked it up really quickly and easily.

[Beginningless]

i think oh crap can give you the fear - I like lots about it but she gives some mad messages that make you feel going back the way would be utter disaster! So I can understand your dilemma. That said, I think I would persevere but go back to basics, do a run of pants off days at home if you can? Make life simple and focus on it. I think one of the hardest but most important bits is like pp said, not reacting negatively to accidents. I found that very hard when you’d just asked if they needed, or they wet right beside the potty etc.