Potty Training Wars: When to Surrender & Give Up the Fight
Hello! I just found your blog and have spent the last hour or so reading through all the potty training articles I could find. You have some very good tips, ideas and suggestions- just what I need! This is the only site I’ve found that has realistic answers to potty training questions. With that, I have some more questions. I’m sorry if you’ve already answered some of these and maybe I just missed it. ?
Last month, we started potty training our two year old (28 month old, to be exact) on a long weekend where we would be home the entire time. We went immediately to underwear (pull ups only at night) and explained that it was time to use the potty. The first day, she had maybe four accidents and then once she went on the potty, she was fine with it and did pretty well. I thought, “oh, this isn’t too bad”… little did I know.
She still uses the potty to pee, but only if we ask/bribe/beg. She has never told us she needs to go potty. She’s gone on her own maybe a handful of times without prompting, but that’s it. And that was weeks ago.
If we don’t ask her to go potty, then she’ll just have an accident in her underwear/pants. And it doesn’t faze her – she couldn’t care less about being wet. We have m&ms for when she pees on the potty, but that worked for maybe a week and now she doesn’t care about those. We try to have her help clean up, but that usually just causes a tantrum, then she’ll help a little (like one wipe of a towel) and be done with it.
Sometimes it’s a struggle to get her to go too. She says “no, I don’t like it”. Which I think she just means she doesn’t want to because you can ask her if she wants a cookie and she’ll say she doesn’t like cookies, then immediately ask for a cookie. Toddlers, huh? ? so I don’t think she’s uncomfortable or has a UTI or anything like that. But we have had some tantrums and then we just back off asking and she’ll have an accident a few minutes later.
The second week or so of training, she would poop in her potty – she even actually did that on her own without telling us a few times. We gave her all the praise in the world, called grandparents who praised, basically threw little potty parties – haha. But that was short-lived. After that week, she absolutely refuses to poop on the potty. She’ll go in her room and poop in her underwear. Again, she couldn’t care less that she has pooped in her underwear. She doesn’t tell us she’s pooped, she just continues on with whatever she’s doing. We’ve tried m&ms, stickers and a potty chart where she can get special toys after she poops on the potty three times. She hasn’t pooped on the potty once. She’ll tell you that she gets stickers and a toy when she goes poop on the potty…she just won’t actually do it.
She goes to a Montessori school two days a week and usually does pretty well there. She’s had maybe two or three pee accidents there but usually does well. They’re pretty proactive in helping with potty training.
We’ve been at this for a month and the lack of progress is starting to wear on this momma. I’m wondering if I just tried too early and she wasn’t ready. Should I put a pause on potty training for a few months and wait for her to be more interested and initiate?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
If you plug “when to give up p” into Google, “potty training” is one of the top suggestions (along with pacifier, pumping and one lone non-mom-worry of potential relationship). Will any of those top results be helpful? Absolutely not! They are a cacophony of conflicting advice and not-so-subtle digs and brags and the occasional horror story.
“Don’t give up! There’s nothing worse for a toddler than giving up! Think of the mixed messages you’ll send!”
“Just stop, she’s too young, what were you even thinking, if you just wait for her to show interest and she’ll basically just train herself!”
“You just have to be patient! My DD was six months younger than yours and took three full days to train!”
“My kid didn’t crap on the toilet until the third grade. ABANDON ALL HOPE.”
I’m wondering what signs of potty readiness she was displaying that prompted you to start “officially” training? Did she seem interested at all? Did you read lots of books and gradually introduce the potty as a “someday” concept, or did you just up and decree it to be the New World Order one day? I am a big fan of the three day/long weekend/boot camp model of training, but I sense some parents take the all-in/immersive aspects of the approach a bit too far. There needs to be a gradual build-up/introduction and there DEFINITELY needs to be signs of interest and readiness from your child, as opposed to it being a decision you make 100% on their behalf. Otherwise the only person who is really getting “trained” is…well, you.
No judgement from me in that last paragraph, by the way. I absolutely am guilty of doing exactly that with one of my toddlers. I thought he was ready, mostly based on his age, what other people’s kids were doing at the time, and a vague bit of hubris that he seemed advanced in a few other areas (verbal, mostly) so clearrrrrrrrly he was going to train as soon as realistically possible.
The result: LOLOLOLOL.
I tried. I did everything that worked for my firstborn, everything I’ve preached and rambled about here on This Very Website, and lo, it did not work. He was not ready. Unless I was willing to live our lives as permanent slaves to the 30-minute potty timer, there would be accidents all the live-long day. (And even when we WERE doing the whole pump him full of liquids and then physically put his butt on the toilet every 30 minutes thing, he was still just as likely to have an accident exactly 30 seconds after he got off.) I was irritated and exhausted and missed being able to go places and do things without being on constant High Bladder Alert.
And so, you know. We stopped. I decided (especially since he wasn’t my only kid, and staying in the house for weeks on end wasn’t a possibility) after enough days had passed and I just wasn’t seeing ANY measure of real success other than occasional timing-based luck, to admit defeat and put him back in diapers. He did not care at all.
We tried again a few months later, once he started following his brother into the bathroom out of curiosity. He trained in three days.
But one anecdote does not a gospel make. Some kids really do take a very long time and you just have to power through a couple weeks of nonsense. A full month? Ehhhh, that’s probably questionable. It’s entirely up to you to decide whether the constant pressure/vigilance now is serving even the tiniest sliver of purpose, and if you’ve seen ANY progress that isn’t worth giving up on. You say she’s doing pretty well at preschool: That might be enough to justify sticking with things, especially if you can mimic whatever “proactive” steps her teachers do at home. Is there something they’re doing differently? (Set potty break times, a different potty seat configuration, etc.?) Is it maybe the peer group setting? If she doesn’t care about being wet at home, will she care more at say, the library? The playground? A store? Is it her teachers? Would she respond similarly to say, a babysitter or grandparent stepping in and reinforcing her training for a day/evening?
She IS young. Definitely not TOO young to train, but realistically, if she didn’t potty train for another six months she’d STILL land right in the middle of the “typical” range. I personally consider any age closer to 24 months than 36 months as training on the early side! (Though I did have boys, who anecdotally train “later” than girls, but I don’t think that’s a good generalization to make, as many, MANY girls aren’t ready to train right at 2 to 2.5 years old either.)
SO. If I were you, I would take a good long look in the rearview mirror and re-examine the signs of potty readiness that prompted you to train.
Ideally, signs you want to see in potty training readiness:
1) Diapers staying dry for longer periods of time (including after naps), and a semi-regular poop schedule.
2) Solid verbal ability that includes telling you that they need to go, or that they’ve just gone in their diaper.
3) Pulling/tugging at wet/dirty diapers or asking to be changed.
4) Hiding when peeing/pooping, or giving some physical or verbal indication that they’re going.
5) An interest in family members’ bathroom habits and a willingness to copy/mimic those habits (even if they don’t actually go or do anything).
It sounds like, at a minimum, she’s missing sign #3, as she simply doesn’t care about being wet or dirty. Not every kid needs to check off EVERY one of these signs 100%, but man, that one REALLY, REALLY helps. (I don’t think my youngest child would have ever trained if wet clothing didn’t drive him up the wall. As soon as we stopped changing him out of his clothes too quickly, he was like, “This sucks. I will use the potty instead.”) If she’s missing any of the other signs, then it’s possible that yes, she just wasn’t/isn’t ready.
But! I’d also take a good long look at what’s leading to her (relative?) success at preschool and see if there is ANYTHING at all that’s being done differently. Then at least give whatever that thing is a try for a weekend (schedule/reward/configuration/peers/non-parent adults/etc.). If you’re still seeing a complete lack of potty training progress, try going back to diapers at home and see if she cares at all, or if THAT ends up being something that makes her go, “Oh. I don’t like this after all.” (And that might not happen right away! She might be happy to not be nagged about the potty all day for awhile, then change her mind about “baby diapers” in a few weeks/months.)
No matter what, though, and above all things: She WILL potty train, when she’s ready. I promise.
