Having a nightmare first day

[Sparrowandblackbird]

Dd is two and a half and I’ve tried to gently introduce the potty. It’s not going well and she won’t sit on it, or if she does it’s for a split second then stands up.

I had an awful time with my first child and he wasn’t reliably trained until 5 (!) so I’m really worried about this happening again!

She’s not ready. DD1 announced she didn’t want any nappies just shy of 2.5 and so, with a newborn baby in tow, I followed her lead. 3 potty wees, 2 accidents. I naively thought we’d cracked it. The next day was tiny dribbles constantly all over the floor. She howled and howled at being put back in nappies but I told her wees go in the potty or in the toilet and if she can’t do that, then the wee goes in a nappy. I felt horrible.

Fast forward 5 or 6 months and she had another day of announcing she didn’t want to go anywhere, didn’t want to wear anything, she just wanted to play at home. She was done within the day. Didn’t do anything differently, she just wasn’t ready earlier.

We did have the potty in the bathroom, and sometimes in the living room/garden at random times. I let her choose one, I let her decorate I, and I let her choose some special soap which she could only use after a wee or poo on the potty or toilet. Have a read of “no more nappies” with her, and the ERIC website might be useful for you. We also put a puppy pad on the seat of her car seat, and she wears a pull up for a long journey/where we won’t be able to pull over easily. I really do get the disheartened feeling, but when she is ready it will be so easy!

Oh yeah those cloth pad things are great. I think they're sometimes called kylie pads.

I've just got rid of day time nappies for my little girl, she's just over 2.5. She had been telling me she'd done a poo for a while but never before it happened so we just took the nappy off one weekend and put knickers on her. It was a disaster to start with and she was weeing and pooing in her knickers multiple times daily. What was a game changer for us was a pack of Disney princess knickers from Tesco and bypassing the potty and getting a small toilet seat attachment on the proper toilet off of Amazon. It took about a fortnight to get her reliably using the toilet with no wet or dirty underwear both at home and out.

OP, have you tried pull ups? I know a lot advise against it, but we had great success with them. Put knickers on top if she wants some on. I agree with others though, sometimes just pausing for even a few weeks can make a difference. It’s trickier when it becomes a battle of wills (talking from experience). My daughter was so easy, my son was a very different experience.

If your eldest took ages maybe wait til a bit later with the second? My eldest was the same and I didn’t start til closer to 3 second time round. I was also much less intense - wore pull ups for trips out, gave us both a break on trickier days, made sure I didn’t get upset or stressed.

Thank you. It’s so silly - I thought I was fairly relaxed about it; she can tell me when she has had a poo and she can hold onto her wee. I very much thought I was all ‘oh, we’ll try and if she doesn’t take to it try again in a few months’ but when she actually wouldn’t sit on the potty I felt myself stressing out. I honestly don’t know why it feels like the mark of a bad parent or something … I just need to relax about it and encourage her. I think that’s my tentative plan: keep the potty out, be encouraging and positive but not push or force that’s where I went wrong with no1. I think I was slightly mad postpartum and for some reason ds being potty trained became an absolute fixation, I stressed us both out and made us both unhappy. It is honestly my single biggest regret as a mum.

She’s 2,5. Leave it. Our back in nappies or pull ups

try again in 6mths or less if she seems keen

it shouldn’t be a battle and if ready then can be done in a day or two

What did you not like about oh crap?

The tone, but it’s great if it worked for you. For me it massively contributed to a sense of failure and anxiety and I just don’t want that again.

I attempted potty training just after 2years old, my DD absolutely would refuse to sit on the potty. No amount of bribery, begging, demanding, just leaving it out worked. I paused and then tried again at exactly 2.5 and after day 1 she had no accidents. I went heavy on the bribery, with coins and little presents.

I know so much online says don’t wait until they’re ready, but having experienced potty training dd - I completely disagree with this based on my daughters experience.

I like to think I’m a sensible person and I know logically that if I give it two or three months she’ll probably be fine. I know there has been a bit of a push back against the more child led approach lately which is one of the reasons Oh Crap has been so popular. I think the method with a bit of a pinch of salt is OK, but it doesn’t allow for, well, life very easily!

😂😂😂😂😂

Make sure she's totally ready. I didn't potty train my son until he was just over 3 years old and he was completely ready, i could have done it earlier but had other things going on.

My son would do tries on the potty for months and never manager any wees as he just didn't know how to. When I finally committed to potty training and took off the nappy fully it worked really quickly. He just wore trousers but no nappy, he freaked the first 2 times he wet himself but then he started getting it (they need to feel wet). Once he understood how to wee he started doing them on the potty and within 4 days he was trained and not having accidents. I used to just pop on a pull up for going out to save us both stress but I'd get him to try on the potty the same as I would be at home but after a couple of weeks when I felt he was more reliable I stopped the nappies for going out.

Bribery is the way forward if you ask me! I’d never have got dd potty trained without stickers and chocolate 🤣

I agree with this too. We had a chart. He got a sticker for every try, some chocolate for every wee or poo, and he had a toy picked out that he'd get after 10 wees.

I didn’t really do anything- or maybe took the lazy approach!
I just waited until DDs were saying yes about wearing knickers and that they were big girls and didn’t need nappies anymore. Then had a few days off (I had a holiday booked with DD1 and DD2 announced she wasn’t wearing nappies anymore just before Easter weekend).
Then they went into knickers all day,
stayed in for the first day or two and had the potty near us all the time, then short outings in knickers taking the potty with us.
Some accidents the first couple of days but after that they were both fine - DD2 started training on the Thursday went back to nursery on the Tuesday in knickers and never had an accident.
I’m very much a fan of just waiting and not stressing about it.
DDs were 2&6m and 3&2m, I could have been trying to train them 6 months earlier and had months of stress and accidents but I’d have ended up with the same result in the end, a potty trained child. So what’s the point.
Yeah if still not trained and coming up to starting school age I would have said we’ve got to do it now but otherwise just wait and take their lead.