Please help- been potty training for 7 months!

[Lottie231]

I really need some help and advice with potty training. Long post but please help me mums out there!!!

We started in July and it’s now the end of December. I feel like we haven’t progressed at all really. My little boy is 3 in March. He is very clever and I thought he was ready as he was showing signs e.g hiding when he was pooing, messing with his nappy.

He is doing okay with wees but not great really. He would NEVER let me know he needs one, even 7 months in. I have to ask him repeatedly and every time his answer is “No I don’t need one” and gets quite stroppy… even if I know he will need one as it’s been hours! The only way I can get him to go to the loo is to bribe him with a reward or just totally distract him and get him to sit on the toilet whilst talking to him about something random. It’s a huge struggle and to be honest I dread it.

Poos are a complete disaster. I would say we’ve had less than 10 successes on the toilet/potty in 7 months. I ask him repeatedly if he needs to go, he says no. I watch out for signs (there is no pattern with timings) and put him on the toilet (with difficulty as above).. nothing. He has a few little ones in a day… smears.. then will often do a big one in his pants at some random point in the day. He will say nothing- just happily sit in it until I smell it. He knows it’s coming.. he hides!!

What am I doing wrong? I’ve tried all the obvious things, sticker charts, reading stories on the loo, going crazy when he does one successfully, offering him a choice e.g toilet or potty? I’m honestly at the end of my tether and feeling very deflated.

Advice needed!!!

@Lottie231My DD was pretty bright and you have to learn they don’t necessarily do all milestones early or at the age you think they should. DD was three when potty trained. So what? Got a place at Oxford.

I had asked my GP (at a check up!) and he said back to nappies. Don’t talk about it to her. Just clean her and see what happens in 3 months. He was 100% correct. She was 2.9 months then.

Starting at 2.3 years is very early for boys. It’s not a race and I would have given up way before now. What are you trying to prove? Start again in 2 - 3 months. Of course he can go back to nappies. He’s 2.

Hi, I think you’re definitely doing the right thing going back to nappies. My DD was great with communication, ahead of milestones etc but just didn’t want to potty train despite showing all the classic signs that you’ve mentioned. It was like some other PPs have said - she just announced one day she was going for a wee on the toilet and that was it, like a switch had flicked and was just potty trained instantly, told me that nappies were for babies and she wanted big girl knickers on. I felt quite a lot of pressure because she was ‘ahead’ that she should’ve just been able to do it, but it wasn’t her time as she was too busy to break off from plotting world domination to go to the loo.

We had tried twice before and had to go back to nappies (the second time I thought we’d cracked it but she wouldn’t go outside the home/at childcare so we had to go back to nappies). For q1 I honestly didn’t make a big deal out of it and didn’t point out the accidents, I think we just said something along the lines of the nappies were back until we could do all wees and poos in the potty or the loo.

Re q2, we left the potty out and she did do the occasional wee/poo on there unprompted. We’d just point out where it was in the room at the start of the day and leave her to it, if she wanted to use it great, if not no biggie.

Good luck! ☺️

@Lottie231 You don’t need to write him an essay on it! Just say we don’t like wet floors! My GP said don’t discuss it. So don’t. He’s not ready and after 7 months you started too early. Does he like pooing and weeing all over the place? If you have to explain anything, say it’s to keep everything clean. Be honest!

7 months?! That sounds miserable. I'd have gone back to nappies after 2 weeks tbh but mine were done in a couple of days just after 2. I think they say either before 2.5yrs or after 3.5 years is the best time.

He's not at all trained is he, you just sometimes manage to get him on the loo and he wees. He needs to recognise when he needs a wee and choose to go himself. I'd stop constantly asking him if he needs to go. We did Oh Crap book. So them naked waist down and you learn their signs. It was easy but I'd imagine you after 7 months there's going to be some bad feelings towards the whole thing. I'd go back to nappies, ignore the whole thing and then in spring buy a new potty or loo step seat thing and start completely differently.

All these people who said you started too early....I think you started too late. You waited til he was old enough to have an opinion about whether he wants to go to the toilet.

I find parents also kid themselves that their child didn't need training, they just suddenly decided at age 4 they wanted out of nappies. You can't tell me that they didn't teach that child anything to do with independent toileting before that time.

A 3.5 year old with no disabilities is too old to be in nappies. I would persevere with the training. Don't ask, just tell him to go, and bribe him if necessary.

The ops son is not 3 and half, he’ll be 3 in March.
As all PP said, going back to nappies is the sensible thing to do. He might decide in a week that he’s ready but you’ll save your sanity and all that washing by doing a reset.

@Feejoah how is 2 too late? He’s not even 3 yet. 3 in March. Children don’t always develop in a line. Just because they can do lots of things at 2 doesn’t mean they will potty train early. 3 for a boy is perfectly normal but 7 months and no progress is not helping him or op. Most parents have tackled this long before dc are 4, but this DS is still 2. There’s time to go back to nappies and still be fine after he’s 3. It’s not as if most DS are trained by 3. They aren’t.