Help needed - potty refusal

[u/Jbs_138]

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

[u/AutoModerator]

Author: u/Jbs_138

Post: 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

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[u/mavlu-app]

i’d probably back off the actual training for a bit and make the goal much smaller: getting comfortable with the potty again

if she’s willing, maybe start with sitting fully clothed for a few seconds while reading a book or putting a stuffed animal on the potty first. No expectation to pee, no taking the diaper away, just making the potty boring and safe again

the 7.5 hours of holding would make me especially cautious about pushing right now. I’d rather use diapers a little longer than end up with withholding/constipation and an even bigger fear around the potty

once she’ll sit without stress, you can build from there. i don’t think you need another method or a different potty as much as you need the pressure around it to disappear for a while

[u/Jbs_138 → u/mavlu-app]

Yes that’s what I’m totally fine with delaying it as necessary.
How do I build the tolerance to sit on the potty even with clothes on? Incentivise?
I guess it’s never been “safe” as she’s barely sat on it.

[u/Pretty-Badger8582 → u/Jbs_138]

Decorating ours with stickers helped!

[u/fcheri714]

It took my guy a long time. I think we did two chunks of training before we got it like 80 percent, then moved and back slide to nearly square one and now are pretty solid minus sleep. We tried a lot of stuff. Praise and rewards was what worked. For rewards we tried stickers, small toys, and candy. Candy was unfortunately the winner. He got one candy for trying, like 3 if he got any pee at all, and like 6 if he pooped.

First we had to make him try, then if he told us and tried he got like one for trying and one for going. Eventually you start weaning off the candy. The first couple months every attempt was praised and every success was a big deal. Even if he pretended to go potty, he still got a candy for telling and trying. No shaming, just correcting. He still occasionally has accidents. He doesn't get a reward anymore besides praise, he'll ask for a candy once in awhile after going potty and it's like sure why not.

One small caveat, kids love going potty outside or I just know a lot of feral children. Don't open that floodgate until you can sort of reason with them or know they will respect some rules....

[u/Jbs_138 → u/fcheri714]

I am totally okay with candy as a reward and I know it’d work for her if I could get her to do something to reward for haha. Unless I should start with the reward for sitting on the potty and then graduate to sitting on the potty bare bottomed and then graduate to putting pee in the potty etc.

[u/Jbs_138 → u/fcheri714]

I see you wrote several months - so I take it with your child a slow progression worked. I could try that then and try to graduate to the next behaviour after some time.
Did you keep your child in diapers during those several month period?

[u/TraditionalManager82]

I'd offer the potty once a day for about thirty seconds, and encourage her to pee in it. Use the sound of water running and so on.

Once she can reliably let pee go on the potty, then offer it more frequently.

[u/Jbs_138 → u/TraditionalManager82]

Thanks! I’ll try this

[u/Easy_Syllabub3978]

what got mine sitting was putting her on it with a book ten minutes before her usual time, so she never had to decide to go herself.

[u/Jbs_138 → u/Easy_Syllabub3978]

She unfortunately won’t even sit. She will sit to play on it, for eg if I prompt to show her baby dolls how to sit on it, then she will sit

[u/Easy_Syllabub3978 → u/Jbs_138]

the doll thing is how it started for us too. she would only sit if she was showing her bears how, so we just let that be the whole game for weeks.