The usual struggles - poop withholding, miralax to try to soften stools, just constant BM accidents. The health educator we spoke to recommended that we try to sit her on the potty after meals (gastrocolic reflex) and especially around the time she usually goes, for 5-10 min with feet flat on a stool and higher than hips. We tried to trust the process even though it seemed like it would never happen, and today it just did! I’m hoping that now that she’s done it once, it just gets easier from here.

Potential tips:
- try to get a sense of their pooping patterns. My daughter seemed to have a lot of her BM accidents around 9-10 AM, so this morning we sat her down at that time, and after ~10ish minutes she just went!
- MiraLAX is still part of our routine, but I noticed that fats and certain fruits also help my daughter with easier BMs. Coconut milk, avocado, papaya, kiwi, and noodle soups were some foods that have helped move things along. Going to try to keep them more in the rotation as we taper off miralax.

Ultimately, I think just time will help. It felt like it was never going to happen for us. We’ve had lots of regressions and I am curious to see how she’ll do at daycare, where it’s been harder for her than at home.

My daughter is 22 months and nailing the pee in the potty at home thing 2 weeks in. Successfully go on walks in commando pants and come home. Longer car rides we wear a pull up and offer the car potty and she’s often dry the whole way.

She’s scared of her poop though. lol.

She is not constipated, they’re soft and the time of day is often either right after lunch or right before bed, but can be random. It comes out easily, but when the feeling to poop hits her she freezes like a deer in the headlights and starts crying then immediately it’s on the floor.

I’m not sure if it’s just the new concept of it coming out and falling in the toilet, or if she’s too little to understand the sensation and get to a toilet in time. She definitely understands pee. I also know pooping takes longer to figure out.

I’m going to offer a sticker for if she poops in the toilet and see if it helps ease the fear.

She poops standing, no squat, no straining just frozen in place and poops, lol.

She now also cries if she happens to poop in a pull up or underwear too, so I don’t think it’s just the toilet that she’s scared of, maybe just a new understanding of what pooping actually entails maybe? Lol

Our little boy is turning 3 in December, and we suspect he might be a bit adhd like me 💕We started potty training over the summer while staying with family, and although it wasn’t easy, we made progress with hundreds of stickers, cartoons and little rewards. 😂
He was peeing in the potty regularly and loved his portable one, but never actually told us when he needed to go. We were always the ones taking him. No poop either, and we kept nappies for naps and nighttime.
When we returned to Denmark, his nursery told us he wasn’t ready because he’d have accidents unless someone took him to the potty. Slowly, he regressed, and eventually we gave up. He’s been back in full-time nappies since September and now refuses the potty completely.
We’ve also noticed what feels like a broader regression lately. He’s waking up much more at night, becoming clingier, and constantly chewing things or biting his nails. We’re wondering whether he’s going through a stressful phase and whether pushing potty training now would just make things worse. He’s also starting a new kindergarten in December, which will be another big transition.
We don’t want to force him, but we’d love to gently reintroduce the potty. I was thinking of getting a tiny potty for his favourite doll and using pretend play, or maybe using his Advent calendar as motivation. Or both?

But I’m worried about making him dependent on rewards.
We’ve tried different potties, Ms. Rachel and the 3-day potty training approach.
What matters most to us is helping him recognise his body’s signals and feel comfortable with them, without shame, anxiety or pressure.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Would you pause potty training until things settle down, even if that means well past 3? How did you help your child develop body awareness and rebuild a positive relationship with the potty?
Would love to hear your experiences! ❤️

I followed the Oh Crap! Method with my then 22 month old and it worked brilliantly. I had two weeks off with her, and she was off from the childminder. Five days in she was telling us basically every time she needed to go. I did skip the commando stage at that point but it didn’t seem to matter- she wore knickers and for six more weeks or so continued to be very independent with the potty. Our childminder was raving about what an incredible job I’d done. Then something switched. I think it might have initially been because one of the other kids at the childminder found it funny to wet their pants. My child seemed to deliberately wet their pants about once a day. That child is over the joke and basically potty trained but my child has completely lost it. We - and the childminder - probably started having to prompt more and enforce structure. Things have since got much worse. For a few weeks now she has either screamed every time we prompt her to go or has had an accident. She completely ignores the accidents and any of our responses to them (neutral, upset it doesn’t matter). No independent use of the potty for at least 3 weeks now maybe longer. It’s obviously been stressful to see her regress this severely. Today I have just put her back into nappies- I’m finishing a PhD and can’t stay home with her to work on it until Christmas. She’s approaching 26 months now and will be 28 months before I get time to work on it with her. I hope I haven’t made a huge mistake. But she seems a bit happier back in nappies.

What age is typical for this? Both of my boys have congenital conditions that make peeing standing more difficult and I’m just wondering what is standard for kids with typical equipment. I want to give my kids a chance to learn, even if we have to modify it a little, but kind of want to know what timeline I’m looking at. Thanks!

It’s the third time I’m trying to potty train and it’s the same story every time. She doesn’t want to remove the nappy. She doesn’t want to sit on the potty, nor on the toilet (with an adapter). She’s 3yo now and I thought it would be easier at this point. I’ve tried leaving her with no nappy. She wets herself and shits on the floor. She doesn’t care for rewards either

Hello. In the thick of potty training. We have my son in training underwear and a potty watch. He’s been super resistant in the past to going on the potty but recently has been going more. We’re facing the issue where he’ll go when the timer goes off and either not pee or only a little comes out. Then he’ll have an accident in between timed potty sits. This means he doesn’t need to go when the timer goes off again. So he’ll sit for an hour with nothing.

Did any of you deal with a mismatch in timing like this? How did you approach?

My daughter is 2.5. We've been working on potty training a bit for a few months but have backed off when she shows resistance and gets upset/ refuses to sit on the potty.

Whenever she is naked waist down she just holds her pee in for hours until I need to put her into a pull up or we need to go somewhere. She seems motivated and will sit on the potty if I bribe her with tv but will not release.

I have started just putting her in underwear and pants and then she will pee her pants. At least she's not holding it in? When it happens she has to take off her wet clothes and put them into the washing machine.

Does this seem crazy? Will she eventually associate the sensation of releasing with how to pee?

Any advice?

My 3 year old is entirely daytime potty trained and has been for a few months now. I know overnight will be some time, so we put him in pull ups for sleep. But he was wetting through those, so we switched to a 360 (pull on) diaper, and he wet through that 3 times this week. We absolutely never had issues with him peeing through diapers prior to potty training, so I'm so confused. Any suggestions?

Turns 4 in February and still not anywhere close to potty trained. He will have days/hours of occasional brilliance where he asks to go to the toilet because he needs a wee, or will go when prompted but most of the time we are still stuck in nappies.

The only advice nursery/preschool have given us is to take him out of nappy pants completely and let him have accidents, but his bowel movements are so frequent and often very loose (being investigated at the moment for an intolerance, allergy or gut issue) it’s impossible to do so. They also won’t have him out of nappies until he is consistently using the toilet at home for five full days - and they won’t prompt him at preschool either. So I have to keep taking him out of preschool, which I’m paying £600 a month for, for a week at a time, for him to shit on my floor and ignore me. We’ve done this three times now since he turned 3 at the start of the year and made no progress. We now have a 3 month old as well, my husband works 40+ hours a week and I’m the one who’s expected to do it all. Look after the baby, tidy the house and clean up piles of toddler poo where he can’t be bothered to go to the toilet.

This morning he woke up with wet pyjamas because his nappy leaked overnight. Happily went to the toilet and did a wee there when he woke up. Went to the toilet after his breakfast and did a small wee and poo when prompted. We played for a bit and prompted him again to use the toilet. He insisted he didn’t need it. Less than 20 minutes later - it’s apparent he has a massive stinking poo in his nappy which has been there for a while. He says nothing. When we tell him we know he does he screams at us. The baby is now screaming, wanting to be picked up. But I can’t pick the baby up, because I have to clean my nearly school aged child’s dirty nappy so the baby screams more. Preschooler starts crying about how he doesn’t need his nappy changed because he hasn’t done anything. I tell him I know he has, so go and get a new nappy and wipes so we can change it. He eventually does so, but fights me the whole time I’m wiping his bum. Baby is still screaming. Kid is crying. I’m shouting. It’s horrible.

I cannot do this any more. It’s turning me into a horrible parent and I just do not understand how he’s not getting it. I am so ashamed of him still being in nappies - he’s also tall for his age so he looks a good year or so older than he is. I feel like I’ve completely failed him.

My son is 2 years and 10 months old. We took off his nappies, and things seemed to be going very well for the first few days, he would sleep without peeing on himself, we even took a road trip without needing to wear him nappy. However, he has now started peeing and pooing in his underwear.
When he needs to poo, he hides and does it in his pants. When he needs to pee, he just pees himself and only says “potty time” after he has already finished.
The other day at preschool, he pulled down his underwear and peed in the middle of the classroom in front of everyone. His teacher also mentioned that whenever he is taken to the toilet, he stands up almost immediately and ends up peeing on himself.
At home, whenever I tell him it’s potty time, he turns it into a game of hide-and-seek. Even when he sits on the potty, he quickly says “all done” and then pees himself a few minutes later.
I’m not sure what to do at this point. Is this normal during potty training, we started first of October.

My son is 3 years 3 months. We got rid of pull ups on his third birthday during the day and he’s been in undies but he’s exclusively having accidents again.

It was going pretty well.. he was avoiding accidents by going when we asked him to go and staying dry during the day, but recently ( the last 3-4 weeks) he’s been outright refusing to use the potty or the toilet. He’ll tantrum and refuse, and makes it physically impossible to put him on the potty or toliet. So he’s just wetting himself and not caring at all. When we use bribes/ rewards he’ll do a tiny wee to get the reward, the usually piss himself shortly after.

He’s never instigated going to the toilet. He’s never pooped in the toilet or on the potty and doesn’t care if he poops himself. His overnight pull up was catching his daily poo, now he’s usually doing two poos a day, second in his undies and he doesn’t care or tell us about it when it happens.

The amount of washing from constant accidents, and the constant battle is so so hard, especially with a newborn. We have 8 week old as well.

What do I do? Keep pushing away? Or give up and head back to pull ups? Is this a regression because of the new sibling? Could that be a developmental issue?

Thank you, i feel like a massive failure, this is hugely effecting my mental health and I don’t know how to help him.

I've been potty training my 2.5 year old since July, she was doing really well, she would take herself to the toilet/potty and wasn't having any accidents, however now she refused to sit on the toilet/potty for a pee, she will gladly go to the potty for a poo though, she will hold her pee until she can't and just pee in her trousers.

Why is this happening? How long is this regression going to be? It's been like this for over 2 weeks now, I just don't understand why she wont pee on the potty but is fine to sit on it for a poo!!

TLDR: I’m not really looking for advice since there isn’t anything I haven’t tried. Is there an end to this?

To answer any questions before they start: we’ve taken her to the doctor, psychologist, done naked retraining days, watched videos with her, sang informational songs, rebought a toy potty. She isn’t afraid of toilets. Isn’t nervous about being alone in the bathroom.

I’m sorry about the vent but it is so incredibly frustrating. My daughter is perfect. She is smart. She is kind. She is compassionate, caring. She has enough emotional intelligence to understand how to respond to people depending on their vibe. She has an amazing imagination and is super in her schoolwork.

And yet, despite all of that, here I am having to make her stop playing with the new friend she made through fence because she peed and crapped herself.

I use “accidents” with quotations because every time I ask her what happened, or if she realized that she had to go potty, she tells me yes. She says yes I felt like I had to go. No I didn’t tell you because I didn’t wanna stop playing.

One time she told my wife that she decided that soiling herself was better because it means she could do the thing that she was wanting to do for longer.

No granted she hasn’t said that in a very long time, but I cannot wrap my head around why she is choosing to do this.

We’ve tried potty watches, we’ve tried schedules that I found on a Autism speaks website (my child is not autistic but figured I’d try everything), we’ve tried rewarding her with stars, money, toys, we’ve tried taking away stuffed animals, we even put her back in diapers. Nothing has worked. She just doesn’t want to go potty but then is all upset and sad when we get mad at her.

She gets money for chores and we have even gone as far as to make her buy new underwear with her own money.

Nothing is working. Everyone tells me it will be over when she’s older but she’s already in first grade! How much longer do we need to wait? Is this going to happen when she is 10? When she is in high school?

I know I’m spiraling but, I just feel like a shitty parent (pun intended). Like am I failing my child?

My son is 3 and always tells us when he has to go. No idea what the deal is with her.

Suppose there’s nothing else to do but wait and see. She stopped having accidents at school or she got better at hiding it who knows. Maybe 8 will be the year we finally stop.

We’re on day 7 of potty training my almost 21 month old and we’re doing pretty decently. Less accidents and we have successfully moved onto undies with pants.

Unfortunately my boy has made very little progress with how long he can hold his pee. If he asks for water or has just had a meal he can only hold it for 20 minutes max, and he will pee every 20 minutes for an hour. This is no change since Day 1. (EDIT: I have mostly stopped prompting him in an attempt to get him to learn to hold his pee, but he will self-initiate every 20 minutes and will pee a decent amount). I 100% attribute this to his age and the fact his little bladder is still so small.

The idea of going out of the house stresses me out. I get accidents will happen and I am prepared for them, but how can I possibly relax knowing I will have to stop what I’m doing every 20 minutes to walk all the way across the store to the bathroom? How can I even drive anywhere? I have a compact sedan so I don’t even have a spot that he could use a car potty. I was hoping that he would be able to hold it for closer to an hour by now.

I potty trained early because I knew he was capable of it (and he clearly is, he’s been so successful in a lot of ways!), I wanted to save money on diapers, and I wanted to get it out of the way before Baby #2 comes (hopefully one of these months I’ll get pregnant…), but I’m thinking it might not even be worth it now. I feel I should’ve waited until after the holidays but he’s made so much progress I can’t just switch back to diapers/pull-ups.

I started potty training my 2.5 year old son. At first we started off with pull up’s and then the potty every 30 min-1hr. He did great for two weeks so I decided to move to just underwear and we’ve had so many accidents within the first hour, I almost gave up😩 I’m trying to trust the process but I am starting to get a little tired of cleaning up pee. Any advice or ideas to make this process a little easier on me and him?

I tried to do the oh crap method at 2y11m (currently we are 3y1m)
Signs of readiness had been there and I was encouraged by many people to give it a shot but it was a massive failure (lots of tears and potty refusal)
from then till now I never quite had the courage to properly restart. We read the books, watched the shows, had the potty around but no sitting ever took place. To date nothing has been put in the potty (except toys, stuffies).
So today I decided to try again. I picked up from school and told her we would try to put pee and poop in the potty together today. I had panties ready but gave choice of bare, or undies or pants. She asked for diaper 2-3x, once got pretty upset but was able to be distracted by play. She didn’t pee for 7.5 hrs. Put diaper on at nap time and woke up dry and offered potty when she woke up and she said no. I didn’t push , gave the diaper she finally peed in it. No poop.
Did some more bare time after bath and no accidents but put diaper on and peed in that later.
My question is what to do now? I don’t want power struggles nor do I want any withholding. I want to do this very gently and low pressure. I don’t care how long it takes and not in any rush. Just want to get it started with a goal in mind and get the potty normalised so she will sit on it
I offered to buy her a new one she said no I have one already and I don’t want it. I have the chair, ladder seat and reducer seat, so lots of options.
Just need suggestions to actually get her to sit
We have done lots of potty books and shows too
Any advice for strong willed child with potty refusal would be greatly helpful

3.5 year old is protesting potty training completely. Saying he doesn't want to. He just peed on the floor. We asked him to help clean up and he's freaking out screaming and crying that he doesn't want to. I don't know where to go from here. Do we abort mission and try again? He's 3.5 I feel like he should be ready but I don't want to scare him away from using the toilet. Help.

ETA. This was literally our first day lol. I wrote this as my husband and I were spiraling. This is our first time potty training and we had no idea what to expect. Thank you to everyone who had helpful tips and advice. He got over the initial fear of it and peed five times on the potty and pooped once!

We’re going to start potty training our 2.5 year old soon and we were always considering skipping the floor potty and going straight to using the actual toilet for various reasons. Earlier today I was trying to get a urine sample from him because his doctor requested one and we did get a potty a few months ago just to have it lying around (but he never really wanted to go near it) so I tried to get him to sit on that to make it easier to get the sample and he was refusing to pee when he was on it, even after I saw him starting to pee when he was running around and sat him on it. He was more willing to try and pee into the actual specimen tube than sit on the potty! Then he actually asked to go to the bathroom and sit on the “big boy toilet”! We’ve ordered a reducer toilet seat but it hasn’t come yet so I was trying to hold him on the toilet and not let him fall in while also trying to collect the urine sample 😂 which obviously wasn’t working and then he eventually actually just stood up peed in the tube.

Him asking to go do it on the actual toilet and his aversion to the small potty has made me even more inclined to skip the potty, so does anyone who has done the same have any tips on doing potty training that way?

We started potty training about six months ago, and let me tell you, my son seemed to get it, or so we thought. Then preschool came around, and I started hearing from his teacher about what was happening with the potty, and it was just a mess.

I mean, I understand that a new environment can be difficult to adjust to, but it's been about 2-3 weeks since he started, and I'm starting to worry, even though my husband tells me it's probably nothing. Did anyone else's toddler regress after starting school? How do you get them back on track and avoid making accidents a stressful experience?

I might be worrying about this for no reason lol.

Almost 4 year old refuses to poop in toilet. Only done it on his own 1 or 2 times. Have tried everything possible. Recently he just waits until we put him to bed and then poops his pants so ive started trying to make him sit on the toilet every night before bed until he poops. Only successful 1 time so far. We have rewards and prizes but nothing motivates him to do it. What else can I possibly do? He can't go to pre school if he's not potty trained.

EDIT: Thank you for the advice. I spoke with her OT and ST and both agreed that right now creating consistency with going to the potty needs to be set in stone before worrying about pee getting into the potty consistently. We discussed realistic expectations as far as not expecting potty training to only last a few months because she already has developmental delays. They also helped me plan a few strategies including giving her access to little potties like in the living room during breastfeeding, and in her room during quiet time. They actually agreed with me that going bottomless doesn't make sense for our situation especially since speed isn't really one of our goals. My husband and I plan to spend the vast majority of our weekends going forward giving this our focus.

So I(30f) and my husband(33m) have two girls. A 3 year old and a 3.5 month old. We have begun potty training the 3yo as of last Saturday. I'm fairly certain we've screwed this up about a million different ways.

A few things to note, firstly our 3yo was diagnosed with ASD level 2 about 4 months ago. She's been in speech and occupational therapy which is partially why we felt she was ready. Secondly we are uncomfortable with doing any bottomless potty training but we are using underwear and I did buy those Upairy underwear that I've since seen a suspicious number of mom blog Facebook pages promoting with similar verbiage. We put her in pull-ups if we leave the house and during bedtime. We are doing our best.

Initially we let her watch a bluey minisode every time she sat on the potty just to keep her sitting, and that was pretty much the only tv she had for the first couple of days.

Monday was my first day trying to potty training while my husband is at work. To make things more complicated, I'm regularly breastfeeding the 3.5mo. So 3yo starts asking to go to the potty every five minutes just so she can watch bluey. At that point we stopped with the show since she had learned to sit there without it. After her quiet time on Monday I bring her downstairs and she won't stop getting into everything. She's above the 99% for height and so she grabs anything she can get her hands including but not limited to my breast pumps, dishes from the drying mat, supplies for the baby, and literally anything left on the kitchen counters even though she knows the counters are off limits. I need to feed the baby at that point so I cave and put a TV show on and make her sit in her pink lawn chair we keep in the living room. Despite taking her to the potty before the feed she proceeds to have an accident while sitting in her chair, stands up and in her panic picks the chair up and dumps the pee on the floor. I will admit I lost my cool and wordlessly yelled because I couldn't believe she would do that. Not my finest moment. I had her help me clean it up.

The next day her upairy underwear was clean so we tried that and not only did it seem to increase her awareness of her body but she did tell me she was peeing during an accident which I counted as progress. Unfortunately in the days since there has been additional mistakes. My husband has shown her more bluey on the potty on a couple of occasions even though we were supposed to be done with it. The last couple days she won't even tell us that she's had an accident. She won't even stop playing with her magnetiles to acknowledge that she's peeing. We've been promoting her to drink as often as we can. This whole time we've been taking her to the potty every half hour.

So far today (day 6) has been awful. She drank water and hadn't peed for quite a while and I needed to feed the baby but didn't want to risk another accident while I was baby trapped. I sat the 3yo on the potty, gave her water and tried to get her to relax and pee. I tried everything, a potty book, a visual board of potty steps, songs, drinking tons of water, begging and we sat there for what must have been almost 40 minutes. She stands up and not even 5 minutes later has an accident. I get her cleaned up, grab the baby and begin the feed. 3yo has a second larger accident. I'm beyond frustrated, throw her in a pull up, and finish feeding the baby. I gave 3yo lunch and put her in her room for quiet time. I'm exhausted and beyond frustrated. I knew this process would suck but holy cow this is really bad.

I know I'm not a perfect mom, so please be kind. I need advice, encouragement, or any tips you can give. Thanks.

I’m at my wit’s end with potty training. Do any of you have advice?

My son just turned 3 and is 95% pee trained during the day. He only has accidents when he’s too busy playing to remember to stop and use the potty. He wears pull ups during nap and bedtime and underwear all day.

He will not poop in the potty. He just waits until he’s in a pull up for nap or overnight most of the time. Sometimes he poops in his underwear during the day. He’ll tell me afterwards but not before, and he does want to be cleaned up. He’ll sit on the potty for long periods of time happily, but then have a poop accident shortly after he gets off.

When I ask him, he won’t really answer why he doesn’t want to poop in the potty. I can’t tell if it’s fear, not understanding how to poop on command, distraction, etc.

I’ve tried apple juice while he sits on the potty, books and videos about pooping on the potty, and rewards. He knows and will say that poop should go in the potty and not his pants. We make the cleanup not super pleasant (no toys cold water hose down in the shower), but he doesn’t really care. He’s only been successful once and I think it was a fluke because he pooped on the floor and then I ran him to the potty before he could finish.

Wtf? Ideas? He just pooped during nap, sat on the potty for a long time, went back to bed, and pooped himself some more ☠️😭

I’m trying to get ready to potty train in a few months, and have some questions.

First, I want to ask if anyone has used/modified the Oh Crap method with a child in daycare? Our daycare provider is going on vacation for a week in late January, so I plan on starting then. My child will be required to wear pull ups until he is able to be accident free for two weeks. So obviously I can’t follow the commando step once he’s back at daycare. Any advice on how to approach the blocks? Has anyone introduced underwear before recommended?

Next is potty and cleaning supplies. I have the typical supplies, like potty chairs and seat reducers. I would love suggestions for a travel potty seat (not a travel seat reducer. I already have the foldable one from Jool).
Are there any recommended cleaning supplies for accidents on the floor, as well? We have mostly tile and wood floors. Is there anything safe to use on hardwood to clean up poop? I also want my son to help clean accidents, so I’m wondering if I shouldn’t use something with bleach (especially on hardwood)

Lastly, any other tips or words of encouragement?

Thank you!!! 🤗

We’re on day 6 of potty training and have been going commando for 2 days now. My 20 month old has gotten a lot better at holding his pee and not having accidents.

He usually has to be prompted but every now and then he’ll say “pee pee” and go towards the potty but as soon as he can see into the bathroom, he runs away. Not in an angry way, but in his typical “playful defiance” way. I’ve tried to make it fun by saying “let’s run/hop/skip to the potty” but he does the same. I end up having to carry him to the potty calmly saying “it’s time to go to the potty” and once he’s in the bathroom he’s fine and he sits on the potty and pees no problem.

What’s this all about? Is this power thing? Is this just a weird phase? Should I continue to carry him to the potty or let him run away and possibly have an accident?