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Potty training

Is your child ready for potty training at nursery? Here's the place for all your toilet training questions.

Help! - 2.4 year old refuses potty for wees

5 replies

Bambinoway · 23/06/2024 22:04

Hi all

Would love your help. We started potty training our now 2.4 yr old in early May, seven weeks ago. Followed the 'oh crap!' method, spending the first day naked and she seemed to grasp it really well, v quickly asking to go to the toilet with enough time for us to get her to the potty. Persisted with keeping her commando for the first four weeks, and she has done super well at nursery, where she now will pass four days out of five without any accidents, and refuses a nappy at nap time.

However whenever she is with me and my partner (her dad) she seems to have totally regressed. Refuses the potty whenever we prompt her, and if we try to take her to it she really fights to get away from it, and wets herself every time - sometimes a couple of minutes after we've offered her the potty. She seems upset by the idea of using the potty. Strangely though, she seems to find poos a bit easier and is more likely to let us know when she needs a poo and will go on the potty.

On a couple of occasions lately we've relied on pull-ups, when we've had long journeys/occasions inside when we can't risk the kind of accidents we have usually - she once soaked through me four times in a day, so going to a wedding in a brand new frock I couldn't take the risk! I realise the ideal advice is to be totally cold turkey and not rely on pull-ups, but after seven weeks we have had to return to some normal activity that requires it until she's fully trained.

I'm really torn about what to do - I basically have scope to take three days out with her this week and just exclusively focus on the training with her, staying at home for as long as she needs. But I'm also worried it's just all a bit intense for her and she'll end up more freaked out about it - so we should go back to nappies and try again in six months (although leave her in pants at nursery where she's perfectly happy to use the loo?!!)

Eek - your help and advice much needed!

Many thanks

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
BarnacleBeasley · 23/06/2024 22:12

My DS did similar but at nursery rather than at home. We realised it was resistance to feeling over-prompted (think there's a bit in the Oh Crap) book that talks about this. So we got the nursery staff to back off a bit and he eventually stopped having the accidents.

goldfinch73514 · 23/06/2024 22:46

Seriously you don't need to potty train. They do it all by themselves before the age of 4.
The problem is modern nappies are too good. Cloth nappies feel wet so they're more likely to start earlier with them.

goldfinch73514 · 23/06/2024 22:46

Try the toilet? Maybe she doesn't like the splash back!
I used the toilet seats with built in toddler seat and stool

Bambinoway · 24/06/2024 21:25

thanks so much everyone. I'm going to try again for three days this coming weekend and really focus on it with her (while trying not to apply too much pressure!!!). If I don't get anywhere we will park it for six months...

OP posts:
ColourByNumbers88 · 24/06/2024 21:31

I second scrapping the potty at home and using the toilet with an adaptive seat. But like someone above said - she'll do it when she's ready. My daughter also trained herself. She started removing her own nappies and just knew what to do.

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