Potty training support for a four-year-old starting school in September

[DearDog96]

Hi all,

DD is 4 and is showing no signs of being ready to train yet which is concerning me as she’s due to be starting school in September. We’ve had a few failed attempts in the past, and she just doesn’t seem to be getting the hang of knowing when she needs to go. The doctors and HV have been supportive and keep giving me all these different tactics to try but to no avail and since I’ve recently had another baby we’ve resorted back to nappies again.

Please don’t come for me, I know she’s late to be trained! Just looking for some support, tips, and to know I’m not the only one still having to change a 4 year old x

You wake up tomorrow and say this is the day we are potty training.

Potty in middle of room.

No pants. No leaving the house until she gets it. No tv or other ‘treat’ activity.

If she starts to wee then you pick her up mid week and put her on the potty to finish. Make her sit there while you clean it all up as it’s a slip hazard. Then clean her. Take her to shower her bottom half and try again a few hours later.

If they hate showers it’s more effective imo so don’t be worried about that. Don’t make it a punishment but be reassuring throughout. We need to clean you. It’s ok. This will be quick. Be calm don’t react to the chaos.

What is your partner doing about it? Not all down to you.

Where do you suggest the reception teachers divert their attention when they’re trying to actually teach the children, rather than change your daughter’s nappy??

it’s really not as trivial/“lighthearted” as you seem to think it is!

I've potty trained 2 children and found bribery worked well. A sweet for a wee or poo etc.. did it up to 2 weeks maximum with both and worked wonders. Both were trained pretty quickly. I know it's controversial but I simply don't have the time to be doing it any other way.

Take the napped off and put her on the potty every 15 mins like clockwork. Keep that up for a couple of days. If she’s in pants and wets herself it feel horrible so they don’t want to have an accident. You can crack it really fast. They’re never ready, you need to just get it done.

I saw someone on MN day they used washing up liquid in the potty, so when they wee up comes bubbles. It was a little boy they we talking about but it might help with your DD if you make it funny and a surprise especially with chocolate as well!

Bribery is totally the name of the game.

We got to Easter before school started and DS wasn’t showing any signs of willingness. In the end, bribery on a significant scale worked for us. I bought playmobil kits and other small toys, wrapped the bits up individually and then put them in a box. DS got to open one every time he used the potty. He cracked it in about 48 hours. He is highly motivated by presents but inherently a bit lazy.

The book oh crap potty training talked about reframing from ready to capable ie are they capable now, even if they don’t want to!

also, bribe with chocolate buttons

You post about this a lot. You’ve done your daughter a disservice by infantilising her and letting her have a dummy and bottle aged 4. Are these gone now?

As for the potty training, if she is literally wetting herself every day as you say, and she doesn’t seem to register when she needs to pee, then you should defer her and get her into a nursery. It is not fair to send a child who is developmentally delayed like this to school. Give her another year of nursery and commit to toilet training her.

That’s complete nonsense unless there are serious underlying issues.

We trained DS over a bank holiday weekend and had virtually no accidents after that either during the day or at night.

I think too many people build it up to be something far more difficult to achieve than it really is.

I’ve read your other threads. She was dry at home in May, so she can do it.

How did you get her dry at home then? Do that again.

And then crack the going out issue - did you get a travel potty?

It sounds slightly as though you’ve gone back to pull ups when things have become difficult.

It’s hard and boring but you need to keep going.

You are approaching this backwards.

You need to learn when she needs a wee not her to begin with. You need to learn her signs by watching her. So take a day, just you and her in a small space and then play tea parties- get some sort of fun drink dispensing water jug and juice. Youll learn her signals and then takr her for a wee. She will learn the feeling of needing a wee and going to the toilet soon enough.

She's 4 so I'd skip the potty, they're for tiny toddlers. Get a small toilet seat or a ladder seat on the actual toilet as she also can't take the potty to school.

And you might find she's able to hold for a long time so the every hour thing might not be so applicable. My Dd trained at just after 2yrs and from day 1 only went every 4hrs or so.

Hey @DearDog96

I don’t mean for this to sound as forensic as it does, but looking at your previous posts, your lovely newborn has only just arrived, and so that doesn’t quite explain why the potty training is so late.

I don’t mention this as a gotcha but more to offer support - this is something that’s clearly causing you a lot of anxiety so my advice is to examine that a bit - what is it that’s so annoying for you about it? For me, I found it hard to keep patient. Not with my DS, but with myself, I felt guilty every time there was an accident because I felt like I had failed.

so what’s going on for you there?

I think if you work that out, you’ll crack it, but like others have said, you do need to crack it soon.

No excuse if there's no health problems, our twins are 4 been dry since 2 morning and night, never liked a potty, happily go to the loo themselves..same for our boys 5 and up all were done by 2 or just before. There's no such thing as ready, just get on as a parent and do it

1. just day time train for the moment, forget night training until daytime is done
2. two rewards, one small reward for every successful toilet trip, sticker, chocolate button, whatever interests her.
3. big reward chart with a big prize (let her choose something). one tick per toilet visit.
4. ignore accidents, just remind her of the prizes.

We had a horrible time with potty training so I’m probably not the best to give advice! Our daughter has SEN though but we didn’t know it at the time.

We did use the Oh Crap book which worked really well. She was having accidents for a long time though. Lucky never been in nappies or wet herself at night in the whole time she’s been potty trained but was having accidents at school into year 1.

I agree with others that sometimes they just don’t seem to be ready. My daughter never was. But we had to get it done anyway because she was going to school. I absolutely loathed it though.

We set a date and did not go back. No matter how hard it was, we didn’t go back to nappies. We planned a week when we knew we could spend the whole time indoors and got it done.

The idea of waiting till she’s ready isn’t helpful. She needs to be trained, just like you train/teach her to use a cup instead of a bottle or use a knife and fork instead of fingers. She doesn’t get to choose whether she will or won’t.

To help her start to recognise the feeling of needing to go, put her in knickers with a pull up on over the top. Modern nappies are so good at wicking away any moisture or liquid, children dont get the feeling of being wet so they are unable to link the wet with the feeling of needing to go to the loo.

My ds refused to use a potty We got him a step and a child’s seat and he went straight to using the toilet.

You need to give her a big drink, then take her to the toilet say 30 mins later and wait til she wees. Then don’t let her drink anything until lunch - then another big drink, and off to the toilet 20-30 mins after lunch.

I think Lots of little sips of water or milk confuse the signals as the bladder is aways a little bit full, but never achingly full.

This thread isn’t about that at all so why bring it up? Unless you just want to make comments about other people’s parenting decisions.

I mean I’d argue putting her in normal knickers and clothes so she gets the sensation of being wet is, and making sure she’s regularly being reminded to use the toilet?

thanks for the book recommendation x

I know I haven’t mentioned him very much but he’s very much going through this journey with me! We’re just both stuck x

I think that’s part of DDs problem, she’s lazy and would rather just go in her nappy or pants!

NRTFT but I had two children who didn’t get potty training.
Take the nappies away. Work out how long after a drink or food they need to wee. It’s usually 45mins to an hour. Sit them on the potty exactly that time after they’ve had food or drink. The rest of the time aim for when they’ve get up, before you go out anywhere, when you get back home, before bed.
It takes approximately 3 days to work out a pattern.
It does help if they drink more so need to wee more at the beginning. So lots of nice drinks and ice lollies.
Not the most fun activity, my second I trained over the Christmas before they started school. They were still unreliable as going to the loo and did have accidents when they started school 9 months later but the accidents weren’t daily.
You’ve got 7 weeks. If you get her trained to go at set times during the day school will support that.

I might have misunderstood but is she starting full time school in September but has never been to pre school or nursery?