Potty training....Need Help!!!

Updated on February 11, 2014
A.W. asks from West Chester, OH
6 answers

I have a 30 month old girl. We have worked on potty training since she was 1 year old just introducing her to it and making it a normal thing in the home. Not forcing her to go but we have been learning what its for and how we use it since she was a year. So she is pretty familiar with it she watches me go and lol even says yay mom you did it. Our problem is she will pee on the potty sometimes other times i ask do you have to potty? When she answers no i leave it alone letting her make her own decisions that she does not need to go I guess giving her more big girl freedom. When she answers yes we hurry to the potty and pull off what ever she is wearing and she goes just a little bit. We praise and give a sticker which goes on her chart. Then she will sit on the potty again and it seems like forcing out more pee she will do this at least 2-3 times. She is very stubborn I know when she is pooping and ask do you have to go pooppotty? and she says no and even starts getting upset. I have always heard dont force them but i am at my wits end. Sometimes she will spread her legs and watch her pee run down her legs. I have tried doing going every 30 mins but she will cry and scream if i say lets go potty. She gets upset if she has to leave her toys or what ever she is doing to go potty.

I have tried
panties pull ups bare bottom
sitting her on the potty and turn the water on
sitting her on the potty and reading or playing with toys when she wants up she will cry and scream
i give her a choice yay big girl panties or baby diapers she picks the diapers

dont know what to do anymore any help would be greatly appreciated

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A.A.

answers from Tulsa on

She's not ready. For both of your sakes, take a break and try again in a month or two.

4 moms found this helpful
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C.C.

answers from Orlando on

She is not ready. Do not let it become a struggle. Back off.
I am training my 3 year old now and it has been a slow process. At first he would sit on his little potty and pee, no problem and I would put a sticker on his chart. Then he started to not want to go on the potty, would ask for a pull up and cry. I backed off and slowly reintroduced the potty. This was at about 33 months. For the last 3 months he will pee in his potty everyday if I leave him bare butt. Still will not poo. He tends to poo in the morning in bed while he still has pullup on. The last 3 days he has worn underpants and kept them dry whereas before he would just wet them when I tried to do this. I just keep reminding him he has big boy underpants on and does he have to go.
Yesterday I put a pullup on OVER his underpants and we went and ran a few errands. When we got home he told me he had to go and both his pullup and underpants were dry. I feel we are making progress, but it has taken him 3 months to get to this point. I still have to get him to poo in the potty and to use big toilets outside of his home.
Good luck to you. I used to think that once they went in the potty, they would just "get it". But that is definitely not the case, its on their time schedule, not ours.

3 moms found this helpful
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D.D.

answers from Pittsburgh on

I agree with a complete break.

My story is that at 34 months, I decided to really try to train one of mine. We put in a lot of effort. Sitting on the potty every hour. Staying home so we could run to the potty at a moment's notice. Wearing underpants and cleaning up a lot of messes. Being frustrated with multiple daily accidents. After 2 months of this, we were going on vacation. Obviously we couldn't have our kid peeing all over other people's houses, so I went completely back to pullups, deciding to enjoy vacation and not even bring the topic up. We'd try again in a few months. Well guess what - once I completely quit mentioning it, he decided to go on his own, and by the end of that week of vacation, he was completely trained, on his own. Still in pullups in case of accidents, but the pullups were dry and he was asking to go to the potty when he needed to.

The lesson - the parent cannot win this power struggle. You give your child to tools (and you've already done that). And from there, they will do it when they are ready.

1 mom found this helpful

B.C.

answers from Norfolk on

Some kids can train at this age while others need to be a bit older.
Our son was trained at 3 1/2 and at that age it was easy (and I let day care take the lead on it).
That she's crying and screaming when she wants up means you've got the makings of a power struggle going on and it's time to back off.
Just drop it for a few months and then see what happens when you try again.
She'll most likely train sometime in the next year or so.
In the grand scheme of things a power struggle over potty training just isn't worth the aggravation and fighting.

1 mom found this helpful
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H.W.

answers from Portland on

First, you have to decide:
Who is driving the train on this? You, or her?

If you are determined to have her use the potty, then you are going to have to be firm about NOT asking her if she needs to go and just taking her. Otherwise, what could happen is that you are giving her a choice, she thinks it's a choice, THEN you say "it's not a choice, you have to go..."

See how confusing this is for her?

First, stop using the chart. In this situation, you are only adding more 'parts' to a process which is actually very simple. (The chart is probably why she is trying to force more pee out. )

If you want to do a more child-led approach, then I would advise backing off for now. This is up to you, of course. My son was three and we tried introducing a small potty... he was not on board.

At 3 years 4 months, we told him that he was big enough to use a potty and he could choose between trainer underwear or cloth diapers (instead of paper-- because a BIG part of toileting IS letting them be wet and soak themselves-- this is how they get motivated to GET TO the toilet in time, they want to avoid this feeling). No more paper diapers during the day, period. (The only time I relied on them was if we had to go to the store that first week or so.)

Kids need to feel wet. They need to physically make the connection between "I feel the urge to pee; I am peeing; my clothes are wet=this is no fun for me".

If you are at your wits end and your kid is having screaming and crying, personally, I think it's time to just back off and take a break. The reason I suggest this is because the more this becomes a power struggle, the longer it is going to take. In working with little ones for a long time and helping kids potty train, the two things I took away from those experiences were this:
1. Keep the pull-ups out of the situation once you have decided to move forward. They are like magic underwear, they keep the child too comfortable and are very confusing.

2. They are ready when they are ready. They aren't going to be ready until they are, period.

I waited until nearly 40 months with my son and you know? We did it with no fuss, no drama, he hated feeling wet, and he was staying dry all day within a week. Just a couple of accidents. I was gentle about transitioning him from playing to using the potty "Oh, it's time to use the potty. Do you want to hop to the potty or fly like a bird?" Keep it light. We also found that a potty seat on the floor was better for our little guy than using a toilet. Our bathroom was small and so we put the Boone (it's a very comfy potty seat for little ones, low, no climbing, the seat is flat so no hard rim) in the hallway.

I'd also eliminate the 'big girl'/baby language around her choices. Keep them as neutral as possible. You don't want her to feel that she is making a 'baby' choice-- you want her focused positively. It's almost like saying "well, here's the good choice (the one I like) and here's the bad choice (the diapers) --pick one. If you are going to give her a choice, make sure it isn't emotionally loaded because that's another hallmark of a power struggle. You are asking her to make a choice which demeans her. I don't think any of us, as adults, would appreciate being spoken to in that way by a boss or spouse. We'd much rather that person owned what *they* wanted and just communicated it in a respectful way.

There's also a huge spectrum for readiness in regard to age; some kids are totally trained at around 20 months and some kids take longer. I choose to let my son have a little extra time until I could see he was meeting all of the other benchmarks for readiness... he just wasn't interested, but at that point, taking the comfortable (diaper) choice away meant that he had to deal with the new reality of no more diapers.

Take your time. Take a break. Come back to it when both of you have let go of this struggle a bit. Nothing bad will happen if she doesn't use the potty for another half year. Really. There are plenty of kids who are three who just start using the potty then. I have seen them!

1 mom found this helpful
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G.B.

answers from Oklahoma City on

She's still pretty young to be trained. Don't stop trying, just stop trying to make the day all about going to the potty.

We did 1 jelly bean for pee and 2 jelly beans for poop and it worked. They wanted the candy so they'd sit there and try to make themselves go.

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