Absolutely NO progress with TT

[natski]

My son was 3 in August and is refusing point blank to wear undies or sit on the potty/toilet.

He has worn undies previously and had accidents and he has successfully done a couple of wee's on the toilet/potty, but is now just refusing. He keeps telling me 'not yet', or 'after breakfast' then after breakfast it's 'after I play' etc. etc. He used to tell me that he needed his nappy changed but now he'll happily sit in a wet or dirty nappy for hours if I'd let him.

I worry that I'm being too lazy, but I'm also worried that I will traumatise him by being forceful. I sometimes get frustrated at him and make threats like 'we'll have to ring pre-school then because they don't have nappies there' - which I know is totally wrong, it just gets me down and so frustrated that it unfortunately comes out of my mouth.

We've tried doing a 'deal' with a reward, we've also tried stars and sticker charts to no avail. He's happily sat on the toilet months ago but I was lazy about enforcing it so I think I've done the wrong thing and gone the wrong way about it all.

Anyone have any advice? I'm at my wits end. I feel like I need to get forceful but I don't want to do that. He's been sick with gastro this week so it's obviously not a good time to try and enforce the issue.

He is an intelligent boy, speaks so well and I know this is horrible to think, but I just feel he has regressed somehow in this department - if you know what I mean.

He's obviously not ready, am I just being too anxious???

[ICanDream]

I could have written your post. DS is 4 days older than yours and absolutely the same - when we have tried undies he just wets himself and doesn't always seem to mind :eek:

We've tried rewards, bribery, sticker charts and he just shows no interest in them, or just loses interest and we are back to square one.

He tells us the potty is too small for his bottom :laughing:, or he just pull toilet paper off the roll rather than use the toilet.

We finally thought that maybe we were heading down a path of interest when he FINALLY started to tell us he done a poop but in the last two days he's stopped that too.

Short of putting him in undies at childcare with lots of change of clothes I'm not sure what else to do. I don't want to go down that path as I think it will embarrass him but I'm so sick of being criticised IRL for him not being toilet trained. :hissy:

So I'm sorry I have no more ideas for you but wanted to give you :hugs: and let you know you weren't alone.

[JimJamsMum]

I bribe my son with lollies (the all natural ones) and it has worked really well. The way I see it is that kids have to want to use the toilet so they need some motivation. Have a think about what motivates your son (for ours it is food). I also think it's important to have a reward that he does not get at any other time and is an immediate and concrete reward. At the moment we have run out of lollies and he has continued to use the potty anyway so I think we've cracked it.

[coogeemum]

I'm doing the same as JimJamsMum, as I know my DS currently has a thing about lollies (after a recent birthday party). I just knew this would be his currency - what he values. To date he's really shown NO interest in TT and is happy to stay in a dirty nappy forever! We bought a tiny wooden treasure box from the $2 shop together yesterday and filled it with the natural mini jelly beans. Well tonight after a day of spills everywhere we had our first success just before having his bath :yelclap: I just have to give that little treasure box a shake to get him running to the bathroom!

[quitecontrary]

Nat - big hugs for you! Don't put yourself down cause ds is giving you a power trip. We decided to take the plunge and do the '3 day potty training program' with G this weekend as I was so haphazard with my tt for her, and it wasn't going anywhere. Up til starting this I was using all sorts of "threats" about pre-school with her and getting so cranky. But today has gone really well, we have had more pees in the potty than not and an almost with the poo. PM me if you want more details, or google it.

[crazymuma]

My advice with boys to make a game of it is to paint a target on a tree outside - if you manage to hit the target all day then you get a suprise.

Also coloured ping pong balls in the toilet are a great idea when teaching them to aim.

[Hollywood]

I bribe my son with lollies (the all natural ones) and it has worked really well. The way I see it is that kids have to want to use the toilet so they need some motivation. Have a think about what motivates your son (for ours it is food). I also think it's important to have a reward that he does not get at any other time and is an immediate and concrete reward. At the moment we have run out of lollies and he has continued to use the potty anyway so I think we've cracked it.

Rewards worked with my DS too. I trained him within 3 days using the 3 day potty training method and I chose choc chips as the reward to give DS (rewards are part of the method). He was basically trained for wees within 4 hours of putting on his first pair of jocks on day 1, but poos took the full 3 days before he was totally comfortable.

By day 2 I was able to phase out the choc chips and he didn't ask for them again.

[Hollywood]

oh, and I trained DS at 25 months of age...

[natski]

When I originally posted this, I didn't think it actually posted because my browser crashed! haha!

Thanks girls for your advice. We have made a little progress but not quite there yet. He is finally wearing undies all day (for over a week now) and pull-ups if we go out and only nappies at night. Some days he wakes up dry too. He happily wears undies now and we have no arguments at getting them on.

The only problem now is sitting on the loo! He again is just refusing to go. He even held on for 7 hours when I went to my mums the other day - he just wouldn't go on the potty or we even tried him to wee on the garden. We had a padded seat and a potty at home and he just refused all the time. So I took him out on Tuesday to buy a new potty, thinking the shopping experience and him picking it out would help. After choosing the $8 potty at Big W, we ended up walking out with the $65 fancy singing one! argh!

Anyway, it worked for 2 days - well kind of. He happily sat on it, even did a poo and he sometimes tried to go and would push out a few drops so I know he can do it. Now he just wont go and is having accidents ALL THE TIME. Will not sit on 'teddyteddy' the singing potty! We have sticker charts and rewards - 2 marshmallows and he knows it's a treat as we don't usually have them.

I don't know what to do. I have been calm about the accidents, and I know you should be, but I just wonder if I'm calm about it, then does that make him think I don't care about it and it's okay to wee on the floor??? I don't want to go mad on him, but I don't think he's figuring it out. I keep telling him next time he needs to wee on the potty, but he just doesn't seem to be getting it! It's like he's embarrassed or something.

I wish it didn't worry me, I just feel like we're not progressing. I suppose we have cause he's now wearing undies.

[JimJamsMum]

We went through a similar phase. DS started peeing on everything except the potty including DS2's car capsule and bouncer. I figured he was bored with the rewards so I bought some different lollies which helped get him back on track. I think it's just a phase and he did get over it and we don't have to reward him anymore.