No progress in 8 months

[Wrongsideofpennines]

My just turned 3 year old has made no progress in potty training in 8 months. He came out of nappies in September and I am utterly fed up of cleaning up him, his clothes, his carseat, the floor, the sofa. He still has multiple accidents both bladder and bowels. At home, and in childcare.

He knows he needs to wee and poo in the toilet. We have a potty and a folding seat and he can use either of these himself. He can dress and undress his lower half. He can communicate in full sentences.

About 50% of the time he will go when we tell him to. The other 50% he will argue it and sometimes I try to trust him and other times I make him go. When we take him to the toilet he usually wees and or poos. But his pants are invariably also damp.

I have tried rewards but he never tells us he needs to go, and rarely when he is wet. So instead we tried rewarding for a day of no accidents and then he just wets/poos after he had the reward. We tried no clothes on and he pooed on the floor. We tried no underwear and the same happened. We tried no trousers and the same happened.

He is not constipated and does not have a UTI. He has an older sibling who has encouraged him. Occasionally we have a couple of days with only minor accidents like a dribble in his pants but then the next day we are back to full accidents all day. Today he has done 2 poos and 4 wees in his underwear.

We make him clean up himself and he doesn't care. He sees it as a game and just messes around instead of doing it. He doesn't feel like he is missing out because he is enjoying singing himself a song or putting his pants on his head instead.

There doesn't seem to be any progress at all and it seems stupid after 8 months of no nappies to put him back into them but we used washable nappies and I do more washing now than I did with the bloody nappies. I honestly don't know what to do next. I am really struggling to see a way forward. I dread days out or going away because I don't want to have to pack 7 pairs of pants and trousers for a day out but that is literally the reality. I'm contemplating dehydrating him in a heatwave just so I can take my older child out somewhere in half term but I cannot cope with the soiling.

I will take any suggestions because I really am so desperately unhappy about it all.

@NoKnit Agree. Back to nappies. When he’s ready and wants to do it, he will. I do find this early training (to boast about it?) very odd and the severe methods used even worse. Someone must be advocating this because I see it a lot on MN.

I fundamentally disagree with Eric that 18 months is a deal age to start. This would have been laughted at 20 or 30 years ago. Plus the idea that dc don’t show signs of being ready. This is also nonsense and they use a ridiculous example where a dc doesn’t suddenly wake up and want to train. Of course they don’t but you have conversations, child doesn’t like a wet nappy, child tells you they want the potty etc. They can often do this in just a few weeks. Not the months Eric suggests. Their view of bladder issues is also way out. Years ago few dc were trained before 30 months, but we don’t have an epidemic of bladder issues. This web site is poor and seems to be driving poor policies and huge angst. It’s foolish. Some dc will train early and of course many won’t. Some dc read early and others are slow and remain slow. Most dc potty train!

I had a boy and trained him over a long weekend at 2. He never had a single accident after that either day or night.

I have no idea what some of these parents are doing as they are making a simple task appear ridiculously difficult and stressful.

I have a lot of sympathy OP as constant mess is a nightmare, but can I just say that all this talk of starting too early and needing to wait until 3.5 is just complete nonsense.

In the past all kids were trained between about 18 months and 2.5.
It was very unusual for a child to still be in nappies at 3. All over the world toddlers are trained early. We are a real outlier with our kids training so late.

The biggest hindrance is modern nappies, the child doesn't feel wet, and has never associated wee with wet.

Sorry you are going through this OP. Personally I would be using training pants of some kind, the toweling lined ones you can get where they hold the wee, but the child feels wet. This helps with mess, but allows training to continue.

@steppemum No, dc were NOT all trained by then! Absolute rubbish. It was not 3.5 either. This dc isn’t 3. It was not unusual at all for boys to be in nappies at 3.

I agree the wet soggy nappies of old meant dc didn’t like them, snd modern ones are different but you are factually incorrect. Between 2.5 and 3 was normal and 18 months was definitely unheard of. Who has time to train a child with few words and little understanding of body functions? It’s madness. The prolonging of this never ever happened because we accepted a quick training was better than shaming dc and endless cleaning up. Women believing old wives tales are listening to very selective stories.

I worked in education and we often had dc starting school who weren’t potty trained and that was 35 years ago. Not being potty trained at nursery wasn’t unusual either, especially with boys. There really was not a golden age!

@steppemum yes perhaps it did used to be unusual for a child to be in nappies over the age of 3. However it certainly wasn't and still isn't unusual for a lot of these 3 year olds out of nappies to have multiple daily accidents as the OP is experiencing with her son and the same as I had with my oldest son 10 years ago. He just can't do it fully yet kids develop at different rates. This is ok. What is not ok is shaming the 3 year old boy and making him clean himself up. This is doing the little lads self esteem no good the poor thing. I totally get why the OP is frustrated I used to be too. But not going on days out because of it is punishing everyone and I find that sad. Use a nappy. The kids won't still be in them when he's 10 so where is the big deal?

@NoKnit Repeated accidents is not being potty trained! It’s delusional.

No, dc were NOT all trained by then! Absolute rubbish.

it really isn't rubbish.
In every country I have lived in apart from UK, kids are trained much earlier.
My mum had us in the 60s and they all potty trained at 2, that was the norm.

@steppemum We are talking about the uk! It’s nonsense to think all dc were trained at 2. In 70 and I wasn’t! Nor my sisters. Nor my DDs, nor any friends DC. It’s folk lore making modern mums look bad. DC cannot fully understand what you want them to do at 2. Mostly they cannot make the connection beteeen feelings and potty or simply have no feelings or simply don’t care. Modern nappies absorb a lot so dc aren’t that bothered.

Years ago we just stayed at home with DMs. No nursery, no playgroup and school at 5. No one cared about potty training at 2. And whst does it prove anyway? My DD was 3, but got a place at Oxford. Did they care she wax trained a whole year older than your gold standard? Clearly not.

Dc develop compartmentally. Some do a lot of things early, but not necessarily everything . Later potty training doesn’t indicate intelligence but it tends to eliminate numerous accidents and months of angst and mopping up.