Desperate plea for potty training advice

[Pud90]

Hi
i was hoping to some words of advice about our current potty training situation .
Daughter born early December 2022. Almost 2.5. Started potty training 3 weeks ago. I had done a lot of reading on ERIC website and read that you should start before 30 months for bowel and bladder health. I’m also on maternity leave until July with second baby and it’s summer so thought I would give it a try. She didn’t show that many signs of readiness but ERIC website said that’s common and doesn’t mean they aren’t ready. Friends also told me same.

Initially she did really well, barely any accidents, all wees and a couple of poos on potty. I thought we had cracked it. After first weekend she started holding her poos big time and was only passing hard boulders in her knickers every few days and complaining of tummy pain. I took her to GP and was given movicol laxative. Gave her this for three days and she started soiling with mushy / runny poo in her knickers multiple times a day. There was A LOT of poo. She now seems to have cleared out but is still only pooing in her knickers.

I got sent home from nursery today with 8 pairs of dirty knickers from wee/ poo. She weed in her car seat on way home and then three times before bedtime. She seems to have majorly regressed.

Iv tried no knickers. Iv tried stickers and charts, I read to her in potty, have let her watch her fave shows. I sit her on potty after meals. Iv tried bribery with chocolate, nothing seems to help.

what would you do? Should I give up and try again in a few months? I don’t want to confuse her but equally feel her bowel and bladder health is still very much worse than it was pre potty training and feel bad for the poor kid always being in dirty knickers.

Is she definitely not constipated now? Because if she is you might be seeing overflow in her pants and it also plays havoc with her ability to tell if she needs a wee. Did you do a decompaction program with the movicol? You basically want to get to poos that are water with bits in when you first start and then reduce the dose.

I would then start again with bare bum at home and reteach her. Sounds like she did brilliantly until the constipation so has the understanding and control, it just went a bit wrong medically.

Go back to the GP because it doesn’t sound like the constipation is fully resolved. Also, be warned that even after treating it can sometimes take a while for the feeling to fully come back so it might just be a case of being patient.

Thanks both. I was wondering this about constipation and disimpaction and whether this was the reason.
we didn’t think she was impacted just a bit constipated. So we didn’t do full disimpaction regime but I did give her 2-3 sachets a day which is more than I was told to : I was reading about waiting until the poo goes watery if disimpacting.
probably a stupid question but I assume if doing this you go back to nappies for this time ? Because given my experience at the weekend it would be carnage otherwise! My carpets would not forgive me haha

As she's pooing in her pants at the moment anyway yes I would, and then start afresh once you're sure she's got it all out. It's pretty urgent when it starts to move - my three year old had been out of nappies for ages and was super reliable and still struggled to get to a potty in the same room in time.

in my experience movicol can be quite traumatic for a child as tends to be lots of 💩 and often diarrhoea and wouldn’t have put her in pants whilst it was clearing the constipation as it would have been very upsetting

id say 2.5 is a bit young for a child who hasn’t shown signs of potty training before. Not sure where the whole 30 months thing has come from but I’ve potty trained 3 kids and 3 of them were 36 months - the older they were the quicker they picked it up actually

id have a break for a few weeks and try again closer to age 3

I would trust your gut. You can put her in pull ups again and try again in a couple of months, or keep going, with lots of pressure free nappy free time at home. I think either way will be fine, It sounds like she was doing really well. Both my kids had 2 gos at potty training and it didn’t confuse them at all, just do what you feel works best for you.

Don’t despair OP. She is really little still.

It's not a bit young though when the OPs daughter had got the hang of it. If she was totally oblivious then maybe, but she was doing well. Then it went wrong because she got constipated. I'm the other side of the coin to @eustoitnow though and potty trained both of mine as soon as I was confident they could understand what was required, which was 20 months and 16 months. So don't think she's too young if she understands @Pud90 .

Back in nappies for her peace of mind.

My grandchildren. were all three when the penny dropped. I think what others at nursery are doing helps. The youngest just refused to wear nappies marching off to the toilet, wouldn't use a potty even.

Thanks for all the advice. I’m so torn about what to do . It’s really hard because like people have said she did so well but then got constipated and it all went to shit (quite literally). I think my instinct is see how she does this weekend, pressure off, try and be really supportive and if still the same we go back to nappies and try again.

Hi op, how often is she at nursery? Hard to remember the exact time frame as it was nearly two years ago but with ds it was cracked within a week or 2 at home, being out and about took longer but only really for poos. That was maybe a month before he was reliable on trips out, having a carry potty and knowing his physical signs helped immensely. At nursery OMG it was about 3 months of poos in his pants every day! We were all baffled. Wees were no problem.

I think his problem was that it took him a long time to realise he had to stay at the potty for a while until the poo came. At home he would go to the potty, sit, get up, go back to the potty again, get up again on repeat until the poo came. At nursery he couldn't really do that as had to ask to be taken, so would go to the potty, sit a short time. Go back to the room and poo his pants.

I really think you should stick with it. It will all slot into place eventually.

We had a really hard time with our daughter and poos when potty training. She nailed weeing on the toilet very easy although we did initially try her too soon. She was two in the January and we started maybe June or July. Still a lot of accidents and I didn't want to be washing soiled clothes forever so we went back to pull ups and tried again September. At this point she got it straight away and was great but refused to poo without a pull up on.

She would happily poo outside on the floor but never on the toilet. She withheld her poos then would spend hours, sometimes days before she would not be able to hold it anymore. By this point she would be very distressed and in pain. So we would put a pull up on and eventually she would give in. GP prescribed lactulose which didn't help massively so I asked to be referred to child continence team. Their advice was very good. We downloaded poo goes to poo land. Started movicol to keep the poo soft, but not runny and eventually she got the hang of it. We did only use 1 sachet a day. Eventually we stopped movicol and started giving dd a daily smoothie which kept things soft and moving. We also used to get prune pouches from the baby bit in aldi ad dd loved them and they helped a lot too. A warm bath will help as well if getting pain.

@LGBirmingham thanks this has made me feel SO much better! She goes three days a week and honestly I get sent home with three changes of clothes every time. With me she never has an accident unless she needs a poo. I think ur right- it’s because she gets one on one attention with me but doesn’t at nursery and also she is too busy playing etc.

@MrsMAFs this is our exact situation! It is such a relief to hear from other people who have been through it to. I cannot tell you how you how many times we have watched poo goes to poo land this week haha, I’m dreaming about it! And today she was sitting on her potty for ages and clearly really needed to poo but wudnt go, so I put a pull up on her and told her if she would rather go in that she could and she did it straight away. It was very hard though and she got very upset doing it so I think she is constipated . I’m going to start giving her a sachet a day of movicol. Did you disimpact your son fully or just maintenance in a 1 sachet a day regime?

I have decided to perservere . She has done so well with wees it would seem a shame to go back to nappies now. I’ll just have to accept mega washing for a few months until she hopefully gets poos as well.

I didn't feel like DD was impacted so once we got the poo soft it just made all the difference. Basically when it's hard it hurts and they get scared so the key is to make it soft then they soon forget.

If u have to stick with pull ups for poos, I don't think it's a great problem really especially if it's a 10min job. I can't remember how she finally cracked the toilet but I have a feeling one day she sat for a wee and a poo just followed and that was the end of that.

I did worry about her starting nursery but once we got her going every day it was fine, she never pooed at school and even now at 6 never has.

It takes an average of 6 months to potty train. Breathe. DS managed poos after a few weeks. My friend’s DS was still pooing in his pants for months.

I had a similar thread last year, OP! We had two months of poos in knickers every day. One day, i took out the dirty nursery clothes and a turd rolled out of a pair of knickers onto the kitchen floor. 🤢🙈At that point, i told nursery to bin all pants with poos in and i just bought a new pack each week.

I got lots of advice about going back into pull ups, but she was doing really well with wees so I didnt want to do that. We just did huge amounts of positive reinforcement (including chocolate buttons which I know you aren't supposed to do know), stickers, presents. Lots of watching poo goes to pooland etc. The full works. But realistically I think it was just time. Which wasnt what I wanted to hear at the time but really was the case.

Yes nursery is a completely different kettle of fish. Because ds was 2+3/4 when he was trained he was very independent right away and would just take himself to the potty if we had it in the room. That just wasn't possible at nursery as it would be very unhygienic. The asking to be taken just added an extra layer of complication!

We were spending a pound a day on pants that had to be chucked away (thankfully he was only 3 days a week too) as we're vegetarian so poos are a lot softer and pants unsalvageable. I was at my wits end but dh was more chilled about it.

He's 4 and a half now and I can't remember the last time he had an accident at nursery. Poos were successful there pretty much as soon as he started in the preschool room. He has had maybe a handful of wee accidents since he's been in that room.

Really I think you should hang on in there. It does sound like she can do it but is maybe constipated as others suggested? Perhaps try going veggie for a week as we don'thave that problem at all? And also give her naked bars? They really get the system moving!

Also I remember sending him in with 5 changes a day at one point at nursery and only returning with one left in his bag because of wee accidents when he was distracted. If he ran out of changes they would put him in a nappy and I didn't want that.