No progress with potty training at nearly four, worried about starting school

[Joyeusse]

Hello, mums! A very upset and stressed mum here - about potty training. My son is 4, starting school in Sept. He's such a sweet lil boy, affectionate and behaving as much as possible for his age. We've been trying the potty training for 2 years now and absolutely no progress at all. I did everything, books, songs, cartoons, all models of potties, took him in the bathroom with us, talked a lot, explained, made him sit, upairy pullups, naked days etc. He says yes, I understand, yes I will, then holds it. He got to sit on a potty for 4 h in a row, its madness. And not even a drop. Then, I get him up, put some undies, 5 min later he would do a pool on the floor. Yesterday he did a poo and he was fine with it, but never ever did he do a pee by his own will. Only a couple of times, after spending hours on the potty and because we were already so upset or he just couldnt hold it anymore. I dont ask you what to do because I honestly know I did everything here. Im only asking if anyone had been through this and how was it with the school? Im so stressed and frustrated, they will probabbly think I never bothered. But the truth is Im at my wits end and it consumes me terribly. And Im afraid it will damage our relation and he will turn into a boy he really isn't, just out of fear or stress because of the potty thing. So, if anybody else experienced such a stressful situation, how long did it take to actually get successful and how was it mamaged at reception? Thank you for reading.

Very stressful...
Have you tried leaving him to it and having plenty of spare pants and joggers to hand when he gets it wrong?
Just say never mind let's tidy you up.. you'll get it one day... take all the stress and expectation away for him.
Good luck whatever you try.

We got a cute little frog urinal he might like to try something like that. It sounds as though you’ve tried and he’s not been ready so you’ve stopped which is probably very sensible for a 2 year old. Does he have special needs? For a 4 year old without SEN I think you just need to tell him it’s happening an persevere. Don’t give up after no progress for a couple of days. Take a week off work, make this your only focus until you make progress. Stickers, chocolate buttons, toys whatever incentives he responds too and loads of praise for trying, listening, anything really. Sending a non SEN child to school in nappies is not OK.

He sat for 4h by his choice, I tried multiple times to tell him to only sit when he feels ready to go. That's why I mentioned this detail, because it was all wrong.

When he’s wet his pants do you instantly change him? My dc needed to make to association that wet pants felt horrid and going to the toilet avoided that feeling.

Are you using pull ups?

Thank you all for your messages. As I said before, we really tried almost everuthing mentioned here. Only one lady came up with something new and only one other lady answered my actual question. Some of you got it a little wrong, like I made my child sit on the potty for 4h. No, I tried to make him use it only when needed, but he was always coming back. Stopping him aggressively would have been a conflicting message. Yes, we tried stickers, rewards etc. As for him being SEN, well, I honestly don't know. I was told he had a speech delay, I can see a few little details that keep him still a little behind, but never been diagnosed, although seen and monitored. He is a very smart lil boy, very happy, playful, just doesnt do what most kids do because he has his own personality and rythm. He understands the potty/toilet subject, he tell me what he will do and how, but then he turns 180° like he never heard me.
I was just hoping to get more answers from mums who got it this difficult, as in when and how it finally got better. Again, thx for all the advice, but it doesn't change my son stubbornness.

I had a hard one to train. We stopped using nappies, I accepted the wee round the floors and I also worked out the time between a drink and a wee. About 45 mins. It took about a fortnight to get most wee on the potty. It was a good 4 months before they were reliably using the potty.
If you give them more wet food such as ice lollies and jelly it helps.

I have to because its soaking and I cant let him soak the whole house. If we were in the garden, it could be different. Just need some warm weather but now we are resetting.

Thank you, will try that!

Have you tried putting the potty in a private place? My ds couldn't go if anyone could see him so I put it in a quiet room.
Also those things you can put on the toilet to make it into a game might help.

I never knew this, thank you so much for your reply. Indeed, he acts like he can never tell when he needs it! Wow, thank you, I will read more about this.

Thank you! Will try the wet food approach on our next attempt.

I was also going to suggest go straight to standing up with a target in the loo to aim at. It was the only thing that worked for ds.

What do your GP and his pre school/ nursery suggest?

Ok. I agree you need the warmer weather. Keep him a little while wet. Obviously not negligent but enough he can feel uncomfortable.

Stick with pants not nappies and not a potty. We used a fold out mini toilet seat

Get him to use the toilet standing up . You can get things to put in the toilet for him to aim at ie A ping pong ball . Let him also go with Daddy sometimes. It maybe the sitting down position isn't helping . Mum of 4 boys here !

Sounds promising. Thanks again!

Thank you! Another kind lady gave me this idea yesterday, apparently it could be a game changer.

My sister who work in a toilet training age nursery room said to put aside a week. Carry 15 changes of clothes and throw away nappies and just go for it. No potties as you’ll have another transition to make. Let them feel how wetting and soiling feels horrid. Good luck

You keep dismissing everyone’s advice, and saying they don’t understand. What most people are trying to tell you is that you need to expect it to take longer than a week, and to persevere. You keep giving up at the start, it can take many months for some children. I think most parents would think they had an untrainable child if they kept on giving up after a few days or a week.

A couple of Cheerios in the toilet bowl are good for target practice!

@Joyeusse My DD was much younger but I got nowhere with potty training. She was doing well with other development markers, but the potty? No chance.

In passing, at a development check, I mentioned it to our GP. In those days the GP did the checks. He said completely forget about training her. Do not mention it or do anything about it for 2 months. Just put her in nappies, change her, don’t talk about it and don’t try anything to do with potty training. Can all talk about potties, accidents, para and nappies. You do have 2 months. Try that. I have to say that just before her 3rd birthday she was totally dry and this was around 2-3 weeks after the 8 week embargo! This way the stress goes. You simply change him in silence and forget about doing anything in terms of training.

For whatever reason, he’s not ready but this can be changed without stress and heightened expectation. Take away the drama! I was not prepared to mop up all the time! My GP was spot on.

A friend who was a nurse advised her daughter to stop using pull-ups with her child. She explained that many children only respond to the uncomfortable sensation of wet clothing - she said that that is why she advocates using old-fashioned terry nappies instead of disposable nappies.

Interesting. Not even mentioning, wow. Pffff, ok, I have almost nothing left anyway. I will try. Thank you so much!

I had a very different approach to potty training. Can he pee on demand?
It sounds like he can’t. And it’s a critical part of potty training so you can say pee just before going out.
He has bladder control. What I think he’s unable to do is pee on demand. Maybe he doesn’t understand what he has to do physiologically to let the pee out because it has only ever come out when he’s desperate.

So my husband explained to both kids that they had to ‘let go’ of their pee, let it out, open their penis or something. I don’t share their anatomy so I couldn’t help. Once they both got the hang of peeing on demand, I began to stretch out the timings between pees. In two days we were at controlled pees every two hours.

From that to telling us all the time when he needed to go was another 3 weeks but we always peed before leaving the house or coming back from somewhere. And I told him at school to pee at morning break, and lunch time and just before home time. (And obviously in between if he really needed to).

I think here we expect kids to tell us from day 1 when they need a pee AND also pee independently and remember to pee. I began by taking the pressure of him having to remember. He simply had to pee on demand when I told him to, and slowly I stretched out the time between the pees so he could feel what a full bladder felt like. Both boys were trained just after they turned 2 and 2.5.

We had this with my little girl. She would hold her wee for up to 10 hours and she used to drink loads so I knew she needed to go. I read every piece of information and bought every different type of potty you could think of but she still wouldn’t do it. I do think the constant stopping and starting wasn’t great though so after Christmas we made a big thing of throwing out her “daytime nappies” and I haven’t put one on her since. I’m not going to lie it took about a month and it was incredibly stressful. There was lots of holding/big accidents. As soon as she realised she wasn’t getting the nappies back it did get easier and she is fine now. We did also remove all of the other potty’s I had and used one of these folding toilet seats. It’s really compact so you can take it everywhere. I think the consistency of the seat helped too and now she is happy to use the toilet anywhere we go.

I do feel for you though..I was at the end of my tether and honestly it’s something I don’t ever want to go through again. But stick to it and you will come out of the other side!!

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