Day 1 of potty training and I want to give up already

[Mudonstairs]

My son is 2 years and 5 months. Started trying to potty train him today. Trying the oh crap method. Took all morning to get him to behave normally as he doesn’t like having a bare bum and legs. He has basically held his wee in all day and only peed when he’s woken up from his nap. Peed a bit onto the waterproof bed protector and then finished it in the hallway and when I tried to pick him up and take him to the toilet he has laid flat on the floor kicking and screaming saying he doesn’t like the toilet. I have tried him with a potty and the toilet with a step. He doesn’t like either of them.

Is this normal? Is it supposed to feel like you are torturing them? How is this stress going to teach him good potty training skills? I’m reluctant to give it up on the first day but how long is this stubbornness going to go on for and is this going to be damaging for him? I was hoping he would at least have grasped the concept of using the potty by Christmas but with perhaps a few accidents still. I wasn’t expecting complete defiance at the mere idea of it tbh, but he is a pretty headstrong boy so I don’t know why I thought it would be any easier!

I agree with this. We waited until DS was just turned 3, then went cold turkey on nappies. He was fully toilet trained within 2-3 days and apart from a handful of accidents at nursery in the first few months when he didn't quite make it to the toilet in time, he's been completely dry ever since. We also never used a potty, just a seat for the toilet with a step. Dragging the process out for months on end is just miserable for all involved, as you're finding.

He hasn’t been running around naked the last two weeks that was just the first few days. I have been putting trousers on him so he does know what it feels like to be wet. Putting pants on him just seems like another barrier to getting him onto that potty on time, another item of clothing to pull down. I had hoped to introduce pants once we were successfully making it to the potty for most wees but we aren’t there yet. If I introduce pants now surely it would be yet another item of wet clothing I need to wash and pack and change him into or out of when we are out for every.bloody.wee!

But my ds was born in 95 , and quess what they said the same thing about quality of nappies back then!
DS was 2 yrs and 9 months, then DD was 2 years 3 months.
DS was dry at night before he was dry in the day and DD was over 4 before she was dry at night.
In fact she had an operation taking a skin graft from her inside thigh and i was told not to potty train her until it was healed, she had different ideas, climbed on toilet and said she didnt want nappies any more!

I stopped and went back to it a year later! He won't remember this time. He'll be fully potty trained in a week if you leave it. He's clearly not ready.

Yes, as previously, if you read the link up thread the potty train ws done at 12 -18 months - so by 1995 the nappies were better quality and the training was later in age

https://eric.org.uk/why-are-children-potty-training-later/

here is the link

Try putting a pair of little pants on him, with a nappy or pull-up on top. Then he will notice the wet feeling, but you won't have such big clean up job

@mudonstairs it really does sound like he isn't quite ready, it's causing both you and him and awful lot of stress and as other posters have said, if he was ready, it wouldn't be taking weeks.

Stopping and starting again in a couple of weeks is not a problem and won't set him back at all - instead, taking the pressure off both of you might make the process easier.

I potty trained a child with similar issues a few years back - a very bright, articulate 2.2 year old, on paper she was absolutely ready to train but we were met with such resistance from her about sitting on the potty. We persisted for 10 days but we weren't making any progress and it was really stressful for the whole household so she went back into nappies. We tried again a few weeks later, same story. Then, a few weeks after that, she just decided she wanted to wear pants one morning and was dry within a couple of days with no stress and no real training on my part. Although she had seemed physically ready on the first two attempts, she just wasn't emotionally ready. Waiting until she was made the whole process so much easier.

Yes, this. Sometimes they just aren't emotionally ready and that's why you are seeing the resistance you describe OP.

No shame or failure in quitting while you're behind with this. You can't force it and forcing it can cause children to go the other way and withhold, which brings more problems. Would you have been a failure if he was a later walker or tanker? Of course not, you would just have accepted that children develop and get new skills at different rates - this is really no different.

I think walking and talking are slightly different though. Children don’t usually show defiance and refuse to talk or walk when they know exactly what they should be doing, and if we did would we just say oh well maybe they aren’t ready to talk so we won’t encourage them just yet? I think we would still encourage it if for whatever reason they weren’t picking it up straight away wouldn’t we?

Seems a bit of a shame to go completely backwards and take the potty away completely and put back in nappies full time. As I said, he has made progress albeit very slow! He does say he needs a pee pee but usually when it’s too late and he likes to use the potty on his own terms.

DH and I have had a chat and we agree that the current situation is very stressful for all of us and we need to take a more relaxed approach, and not follow a ‘method’ as such. All these books and methods aren’t going to work for everyone after all. We will keep him in just trousers and encourage potty use when we are at home but if he puts up a fight we won’t be forcing or doing too much coaxing. If he were himself so be it, we will just change him/clean up. When we leave the house we will just put a pull up nappy on him so we can enjoy whatever activities we have planned without stressing about public toilets/bringing a potty and whether he is going to fight us about using it and having this fight in public!

I would be interested to hear from anyone that has used a similar approach. Has anyone else done this and it worked?

I'm not sure what you've gained from this thread OP when you seemingly plan to carry on exactly as you are, and are only looking for advice from parents who've had success doing the same thing you're currently doing (unsuccessfully)?

Obviously he's your DC and you can choose to train him however you like, but I'm not sure your current plan of allowing him to keep soiling himself, wearing neither a nappy or pants (which replicates no real life scenario), but then put him in a nappy when it's convenient because you want/need to go out, is going to be anything other than completely confusing for him.

I don’t think it’s ‘defiance’ that’s stopping him doing this when you’ve decided you want him to…I think you’re going to go your own way on this, and fair enough. All of us are just parents and caregivers trying to find our way. Plenty of replies have said he’s not seeming ready, posters who have backgrounds in childcare and lots of experience.
Good luck with your method, but best to not think of him as ‘defiant’ if he’s not doing it as you hoped. As a previous couple of folks have said, in all likelihood he’s just not emotionally ready.

Way too young. You'll
Know when he's ready. Pretty much 4th birthday for mine and no struggle- literally transitioned In a day or 2.

He's not ready. You're ready, he's not. You can view it as giving in and going backwards and "defiance' or you can help him when he's ready.

Your choice. He doesn't know you've both got the first week of January 2025 off, because it's absolutley nothing to do with his developmental capabilities in the first week of January 2025.

This is not the last of the potential parenting stand offs, you need to decide how you're going to approach them really, you can definitely make things very stressful if you choose to.

It’s not really what we are currently doing though is it? I didn’t start this thread knowing I would be wanting to take a more relaxed approach. I started it wanting to follow the oh crap method but since my OP 2 weeks have passed and haven’t been going the way I expected. I didn’t expect it to be such a power struggle.
I reluctantly put a nappy on him on Boxing Day, not because I wholeheartedly wanted to but we were all getting so stressed and we needed to go out! On one hand I regret it but honestly it was the first proper family day out we’ve had in nearly two weeks while we’ve been off work, and we enjoyed it.

I am looking for advice so that’s the purpose of my thread. As you may be able to tell I am incredibly stressed and just want a way forward with all of this.

If you have tried this method
of using nappies during the day and it confused your child then I would of course be interested in hearing about that. Surely having the option of using a potty is less confusing than taking it away altogether? What will I tell him the next time he says he wants to go pee pee? The potty is now gone away darling and you have to wet yourself. Surely that will be just as, if not more confusing than having the option? I am genuinely just asking as I don’t know. Hence asking if anyone has tried doing it this way. I don’t see how stopping and starting later on is any less confusing so if anyone could explain that to me I welcome it.

Both of our kids were still reluctant to potty training at 3. We followed the advice of one of the nursery assistants to put on their pants then a nappy. As she pointed out, it feels uncomfortable to have wet or soiled fabric against the skin but it avoids constant accidents. It worked with both of ours within a couple of weeks (faster with dd than ds). There was also potty charts and a fair bit of bribery involved.

Oh and he used a potty but she absolutely wouldn't and we had to get her a fancy toy toilet thing. They both moved onto steps and the regular toilet fast. Sorry you're going through this - I know it's incredibly frustrating. We tried several times without success before the pants trick. Both of them were incentivised with rewards for using the potty/dry days.

My DTs have just turned 3 and I haven't cracked it yet but I notice that the days they're at preschool (around children, some of whom are potty trained) they are more likely to use the potty and they are asking to use the toilet at preschool. They're boys too and I am told it does take longer.

It’s less confusing because he’s so young and they don’t follow time the way adults do, he won’t think to himself hmmm that was odd - we did a fortnight of the potty and now it’s gone? Perhaps mum and dad don’t have a week off in January anymore? They’re just so young, time and events are much more in the moment.

Will he genuinely ask for the potty or where he should do his wee with no suggestion or coaxing from you or his dad? If mine did, I would get it out and encourage them to pull down their trousers and pull up to sit on it. Just like they will when they’re potty trained and wearing pants and clothes. But when mine weren’t developmentally ready they just didn’t ask for it, despite spending a week or so with it in their lives. They just returned to nappies. When they were ready for training then they’d look for the potty or toilet as it was normal for them almost from day one. Have to say nursery were a huge help as they saw other kids using the loo in their environment and copied.

Honestly OP, your main aim here should be reducing the stress for you and your DS.

I've trained 2 DDs. First DD turned out to have an irritable bladder and bowel issues which meant she didn't train to be reliably dry until she had medical intervention. She was wet at night until she was 11. She was and nursery and school with changes of clothing. I feel awful about the amount of stress I put her and me through.

Second DD trained within a week at age 3. It was entirely stress free. She had one wee accident and was dry at night within a fortnight of being dry during the day.

Do what you want with the potty, have it around for him to use if he wants, but as others have said, he'll train when he's ready. It's not a race.

You need to join in if it's to be a power struggle, he's 2 not Mussolini.

I don’t see how stopping and starting later on is any less confusing so if anyone could explain that to me I welcome it.

You might say, Hey love, I notice that you're maybe not quite getting the whole potty thing so I'm thinking we will leave it for a bit and try again in the summer. Would you like some toast?

If something is feeling so incredibly stressful and there's another way, then it's usually a good idea to go the other way. Nothing will set on fire. You won't raise a bank robber, he won't be in nappies when he's 16 because you didn't crack it during your Christmas break.

What might happen is that he will pick up that you're both pulling your hair out but you all had a nice time the other day when you put a nappy on him......

Thanks. Yes, I do think he would initially wonder where the potty has gone. When I take him to bed I put a nappy on him and sometimes while we are lying in bed waiting for him to sleep after his story he will say I need a pee pee, and he gets up and looks over at the potty. He does know that’s where he is meant to go. This is why I would see it as a step backwards. I believe he is developmentally ready for it but emotionally for some reason he isn’t fully embracing it but he has grasped it somewhat. That’s what I mean in terms of going backwards. Surely having the potty there as an option but without the pressure is a gentle way of saying he can use it when he is ready. He also uses it for almost all poos. We can usually read his poo cues a lot easier than his wees and with poos we find we have enough time to encourage him onto the potty in time.

I think people are reading my reluctance to go back to nappies full time as me being pig headed but it’s not, it’s just because some slow progress has been made and I have no problem continuing this way if it wasn’t for the distressing outbursts we get when we are trying to guide him to the potty and he isn’t in the mood. Just trying not to traumatise the child but also want him to carry on with the positive progress he has made. Ideally I’d like a way forward that isn’t just giving up because he is so proud of himself and high fives us when he gets something in the potty. It would be a shame to just say nope he’s not ready and so take away an opportunity for him if there is any way we can support him in carrying on at his own pace.

I don’t think you’re being pig headed, I think you’re a worried and stressed parent trying to do the best for their son.

My point was, if he is asking and using it independently and happily then by all means crack on. If however the potty is being pushed on him and it’s causing distress then take a step back and return to nappies. If he’s in a pull up and keen to use the potty without an issue he can absolutely do so. But it sounded like at least at points he’s getting very upset which is not a great thing for any of you.

For what it’s worth re: the looking over at the potty my DD completely understood the concept of the potty and toilet from two, she knew it’s where you went, she knew we wanted her to do it and she saw us on the toilet all the time. It was never lack of comprehension, but emotionally it freaked her out. She was scared, or distressed and it wasn’t worth the trauma pushing her. She was 3.5 before she was ready in both comprehension and emotion. And when they were both there, no tears, no drama she just did it. And is now a very happy 6 year old with no toileting issues!
He’ll get there, just be kind to yourselves while you do it.
Ps it remains my least fave stage of parenting and am not looking forward to round two with my second child 😂

We did oh crap when dd was 2. Same issues as you. We used nappies overnight and for naps and persevered with the rest. Just stuck at it and she got there eventually.

Tbh I think that 'ready' = 'easy' and parents delay until it's just zero effort to potty train. If you had five kids, three in nappies and they wore terry nappies that you needed to wash without a machine, you'd find a way sharpish. That's why kids used to potty train earlier. Because it was less work than nappies. Women working outside the home more now probably plays a role too.

We got DD to help clear up accidents, not shaming her but making the consequence of not using a potty that she'd have to stop playing and clean up, so it was more boring than using the potty would be.

Thanks, you have been so helpful. Yes, just want to do what’s best for him so if going back to nappies is best then that’s what we will have to do 😔 feel very defeated. Now need to persuade DH that it’s the best thing to do as he is of the belief that it is normal for a toddler to resist the potty. DH is stronger than me and can usually pick DS up kicking and screaming and just stick him on the potty. Once DS is on the potty he sits there and is fine, doesn’t always wee/poo when we think he needs to though. I think I struggle because I don’t have my DHs physical ability to pick up a squirming child and I find it more traumatic.

This is the worst part of parenting I have experienced so far 😂 I say that even when I had a colicky newborn with tongue tie, breastfeeding and latch issues and slow weight gain! This feels way worse!