HELP! End of week 1 and no improvement!

[Jenmac67]

Just not sure what to do. I started training DD - aged almost 2.5 yrs - last Tuesday. We have had the potties and pants etc in-situ for a few weeks and have been reading the Little Princess avidly and are all in readiness. A few days in and it is all distress and now she announces - with tears - that she is actually a baby and wants her nappy. She seems to understand when she is going but wets herself constantly, she does a few poos in the pants also but is practically permenantly standing in a puddle. I know it is only just coming up to a week and was wondering how long this could take and should I stop and start again in the summer. My older two boys were mostly done in creche so this a new one for me. Any advice gratefully received.

I'd put the nappies back on for the moment - it is not worth the stress and try again in a couple of months.

Yep, stop and try again when the weather is warm and she can run around naked in the garden! It's so much less stressful when it's warm, somehow.

You might find the message sinks in, in between. I did two separate weeks of potty training; the first one was hopeless, but the next one, 3 months later, was a doddle.

Thanks Mums, I think I will revert to pull-ups and wait a while. There is little point in stressing her and me to our wits end. I will just continue with the sitting on the potty at regular times and that might help the 'sinking in ' process. Not worth having a nightmare over it!

My DD gave up training after 3 very successful weeks first time round. I left it completely alone no sitting on potty, no talking about it for about 2 weeks then started slowly again. 3 months later she has trained very quickly, absolutely no stress and with very few accidents.

I hated going back to nappies but it was the best thing we could have done.

I agree with going back to nappies. I had to do that with DS2 when he didn't get it in the first couple of days.

If they are ready to be potty trained it should really be done and dusted within a week.

Mind you I did end up leaving it very late by a lot of people's standards!

I always come on these threads with my lax mum ideas - but I think potty training should take about 10 minutes. You wait until they say "I don't think I want to wear nappies any more, mummy" and you say "OK, here are some pants and there is the loo."

As someone said on the radio earlier this week, you never get adults carrying round bags of trousers saying "I'm really sorry - I was just never properly potty trained"!

Seeker - I agree that it should be over and done with quickly but if I had to wait for DS2 to say he was ready (and probably DS1 too) he would still be in nappies now and he is 6!

I knew he was ready. He just needed convincing to give it a go and then, because (the second time) I got it right it was done very quickly.

Problem now solved (temporarily) Like all these things I was doing it because she is starting in play school after Easter and I thought she needed to be done. I went down this morning and they told me not to bother because when she sees the other kids all wearing pants and using the loo she would probably want to be the same as them. This makes so much sense so nappies back on and every one is happy as sand boys again. Thanks for your advice - it flies right in the face of my expert books where they say you have to persevere and if you revert to nappies you have lost it altogether. Glad to hear that there are sensible mothers out there!