Out of ideas

[Sophinabobina]

My son is 3y5m. We attempted toilet training twice in the run up to his 3rd birthday but his understanding wasnt there. We tried again at the end of August and after 3 days it clicked and he was doing all wees and poos on the toilet... for about 3 weeks and since then up and down with wees.
Never had any issues with poos. He will go straight to the toilet or tell me he needs to go but wees is just the opposite.
He will not tell anyone he needs to go, just does it and sits in it. It doesmt bother him. When I try and talk to him about it he just laughs. We have tried reward charts. Went back to Nappies for a week during an illness and started again which worked for a short time. Alarm set to take him every half an hour. Nothing is working. We skipped the potty purely for hygiene reasons and hoping to not have to go through a further transition to the toilet.
He fully understands he should be doing it on the toilet, what else can I try.
Im sick of having most of his wardrobe in the wash every single day!!
Development wise he has been meeting milestones other than speech. He had his tonsils and ads removed in may and started talking almost immediately. Otherwise on track!

Have you tried him wearing nothing?!!

I bought all kinds of special underwear for my eldest. And one time she had done a wee and we had cleaned her and whatnot but she was still naked on the bottom. Anyways, she ASKED for underwear while holding herself. 💡!!! I realised that in her mind diaper/underwear was the place to go!!

Because it was a girl, and summer, she just wore summer dresses with no underwear. It was so quick 👍

Get him fully involved in accident cleanup and drag it out as much as possible. So he has to get undressed himself, put wet clothes in the wash, redress himself, then help clean up the puddle (obviously don’t let him have the cleaning spray). The idea being that it’s a massive inconvenience for him to have an accident. If it happens while he’s watching TV never pause it to ensure he misses it. He should figure out pretty quickly that it would have been easier to use the toilet and to reenforce this you could consider briefly back the potty so it’s right there with him and there’s no effort required. And when he does use it give an immediate reward e.g. a smartie. I would also stop with the timers as you’re not letting him learn to listen to his body.

Yeah we tried that too. To be honest even now he often has times with nothing on and he will just wee wherever he is.

Definitely going to try the 'inconvenience' method. Make him go upstairs and get changed etc.

Thank you

I removed DSs pants and he soon learnt that he didn’t like wet socks. Or you could try my mother’s method but the way they did things back in the 50s would bring a social worker to your door now.

Unfortunately wet socks dont phase him either. Especially at nursery when he gets to come home in 'new socks'

I would note these things down and just be wondering about possible ASD. It might not be, or it just might not be obvious yet, but tonsil and adenoid removal is more common in children with ASD. Also not being bothered about sitting in wet clothes or being bothered about wetting himself at that age at preschool.

Don't assume preschool will pick it up if it is either - no one ever mentioned it to me until DS was 9 - and that teacher happened to have just gone on a course and had an inkling. It's just something worth keeping in mind, DS was a nightmare to toilet train, but was just about dry around 3 so didn't seem out of the ordinary.

Boys are such rascals. I had this with DS2. He just didn't care. Eventually it worked itself out but only due to what I assume was peer pressure from his friends in nursery. Still wet the bed for years though. But grew out of that too.