3 1/2 Yr Old Girl Not Potty Trained

Ok at 3 1/2 you are in the right window. Yes girls train faster than boys girls tend to at 2 and boys at 3, but you have not missed the "magic window". Sounds as if your daughter has other emotional developmental issues. Unless you refer her to a team (school districts offer this free of charge) to help you, you will have to tackle it now. Children are not considered developmentally behind with potty training until age 4. That is the reason Medical Assistance pays for diapers at age 4. So you do have a little amount of time. I do think your daughter's psycho/social development is playing a role in the delay and do recoomend you getting help with that, but potty training wise, I think you need to relax and stop speculating what is going to happen.
I personally would stop with the pull-ups. Just be done.... They even recommend this with children with HF Autism. Do not sit and try to negotiate with her. Just do not buy any more. I know this is a big move, especially at night and it may involve a lot of extra work on you, but if your goal is to get her out of diapers, it is just something you need to do. Do not sit and tell her the what ifs, plea with her or beg her. 3 year olds live in the here and now, not the what if predicted future. Yes, she held her urine for 8 hours; oh well you now know she has the physical muscle strength to do that as well as the psychological control. So now make her use those abilities everyday. Place her in regular clothes & panties. Skip the freakin potty at this point especially if she is pushing beyond a size XL pull-up. She is a bigger girl. Get the toliet insert and let her use the regular toliet. Prompt her to go to the bathroom every couple of hours. Now do not beg her, plea with her just nice little reminders. You give her options and choices when you ask her to go, when you plea with her or try negotiations.
Wake up tomorrow morning and do not say anything. Just put the panties on her and say "there you go." These are what you are wearing now. Every couple of hours tell her "Alley you need to go to the bathroom now." If she goes great, if not remind her in an hour. Make it an everyday exspectation and not something that is a choice.
Just think, what is the worst thing. You have more clothes to wash.... She gets a bladder infection which can be a pain, but does clear up. Even with that you have now accomplished a life skill...
BTW, I was one of those 4 yr old potty training parents. I was told to do it this way by a group of professionals and it worked in less than 24 hours. They told me it would work in less than 48 hrs... Since it went so well, I decided to try it with my younger child when she was 2 and it worked like a charm with her too. I felt bad at first but then realized I had so much anxiety about it, that my anxiety was also playing into the oldest anxiety. I thought it was a crazy idea when they told me, but it worked so well with the oldest, you see I did it again.... Good Luck....

Hi P.. My daughter is also very sensitive, and also trained "late". I was very nervous that she would not be accepted at preschool because they required children to be potty trained. She reluctantly trained to pee in the potty (she finally responded to M&M bribes), but would only poop in a diaper until she was almost 4. To make things more interesting, during potty training she was about to pee in a public toilet one day that happened to have an automatic flusher, when the toilet flushed. At almost eleven, she still recalls that event, which she experienced as a trauma and which effected her use of public bathrooms for years. Like your child, she once held her pee for 8 hours when we were traveling. As her pediatrician pointed out, her control was impressive! But she did not actually complete what I would call potty training until she was a bit past her fourth birthday, and only after I had settled down and let go of when she would be trained. I feel for you. Be patient. Talk to your daughter's pediatrician. As my daughter's doctor assured me, she would not be "walking down the aisle" wearing Huggies. If you are also a sensitive person, hone your relaxation skills. Read Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's books on sensitive children. Breathe. She will get it eventually.

Ok, take a deep breath.........she's going to be fine.............and so are you.

First off, have you talked to her about school? If she is that sensitive, then you need to tell her that she has to be potty trained before she goes to pre-school...........can you get in a few days a week this fall? That might help her a lot.............

Next, you need to ask her why she doesn't like the toilet..........talk to her about it..........tell her she is a big girl and you need to understand why she isn't being a big girl about this..........

Do you take her in and let her go or attempt to go?

You might try letting her run around the house without her pulls up if it's just you two at home..........and tell her she can't do anything on the floor.....then take her to the potty every hour or so...........

I think having a "big girl" talk with her just might work, if not, tell her that she has to go to big girl panties because she can't fit into any more diapers.........you're sorry, but sometimes things don't go the way we want them too.....

Good Luck and try to stay calm..........be sure to praise her and tell her how proud you are of her.....take care.

my youngest son wasn't completly potty trained until just before his 4th bday. i was going nuts b/c all of his age appropriate freinds in playgroup were and i had him registered for preschool in the next fall where he had to be. First, let me say..."patience mom" it will happen. I then started using the "big boy" approach to everything and tried to relax as well. kids totally pick up on "moms" anxious behavior on things. Have you tried having her clean herself up? I know a friend tried that it and it worked. I've noticed that girls are more aware than boys ( i have 3 boys), so has she noticed that her friends are wearing underwear? Maybe pointing that out when she's playing with friends. just an simple comment, nothing to make her feel bad of course. Have you taken her shopping for the new underwear? maybe she won't want to mess those up.
Again, i say, try to be patient. She will ge it! Probably when you least expect it. :-) Hang in there!

K. W

There are two approaches you could consider. One is that you don't mention whether she is in pre-school. If she isn't, consider enrolling her (at least part time). This might seem contraindicated, upsetting her schedule and all, but peer pressure is a VERY powerful motivator. There are pre-schools that will work with a child still in diapers.
The other is getting your child further evaluated and maybe getting her some behavioral therapy. Again, you don't say whether you are already receiving any kind of support services, but you post does indicate that potty training is not the only issue. Early intervention is key, you don't want to end up having these kind of power struggles with a teenager.
Good luck!

P.,
When my boys were younger, I used to think as long as they were ......... by kindergarten all was right with the world. My middle one sounds a lot like your daughter. He had noice sensitivity. I couldn't take him to places like Walmart without major issues. But he's now 12 and he's fine.

While I didn't like it when he was learning how to use the potty, I did use the underwear only during the day method. It took us longer than the other mom so don't get discouraged. I bought underwear just for the training period that way I could throw away the poopied ones. It took about a week and a half. But once he got it, he got it. He has never wet the bed or had an accident since.

I also want to add that my S-I-L never went potty anywhere but home, even as a teenager. When we asked why she wouldn't go at school, she couldn't say. I would suggest trying to stay home while your daughter is going through this period.

Good luck.
K.

She has all of the power here so stop trying to control it. Let her know that this has been your problem and that now you realize that it's ok if she isn't ready to use the potty that you know she will when she feels ready to try. Let her know that you aren't going to say ANYTHING about it ANYMORE and then really stick to that promise! Get more pull ups if she needs them. Also, playdates with other kids her age that are potty trained or trying too, with you not there may let her deal with it her way. She will not be wearing diapers as an adult so let it play out in her time! It's pretty much the only thing a child that age CAN control in there lives. Good Luck!

I have a good friend who has a little guy who is 4 years old and just finally started going poo in the toilet. She tried everything! Towards the end she made him take off his own pull-up and clean himself. Of course they would come in after and finish the cleaning. But finally she just stopped buying pull-ups. After one accident in the kitchen, he decided that he wanted to use the toilet. Maybe he just needed to not have an alternative to the toilet.

My experience has been that as long as you provide pull-ups the child will keep going in pull-ups and refuse to use the potty. I was also very nervous about switching to underwear, but I just had to do it cold turkey and deal with a number of accidents. But pretty quickly my son started using the potty because he didn't really want to go around in wet clothes all the time. I am now a firm believer in the cold turkey method.

She is at the right age. She will get there! My daughter was 4 when she finially gave up going poopies in her pull up. She did it in her own time. I did not push. But I did offer the incentive of a new toy that she had really wanted. I made a chart with a picture of the toy at the end. She had to do poopies on the potty 10 times before she could get the toy. The chart was in the bathroom for 4 months. Then one day, she did it on the potty and never went back to pull ups. It did happen after she started a new preschool by the way (maybe the influence from the "big" kids?

Does she go to preschool? My stepson was 4 and still not potty trained (mommy kept putting diapers on him b/c she didn't want her "baby" to grow up). Finally my husband told him that he couldn't go to his new school (preschool) unless he could go in the potty and not wear diapers (which was true!). I hate to say it but the pressure of not being the only "baby" in the class worked. I don't know if you have any event like that where you can say, "this is only for big girls and big girls go in the potty."

My daughter was still having potty training issues when she turned 4. In fact, I recall she pooped her pants ON her birthday. We found later she had learning disabilities and was developmentally behind. Something to consider.

Doing it again, we are cloth diapering with our new baby. If I were in your shoes, I would use cloth training pants instead of pullups. There are also covers to keep the wet contained. The problem with pullups is the kids don't feel enough moisture; it doesn't bother them enough to care.

My daughter was, and still is, very sensitive. My methods might be a little extreme, but for both her and her brother, I had to put them in underpants and then when I knew that they had to go, restrict them to an area of the house, like the kitchen, until they went. For both of them, after 5 minutes of being in the kitchen, they finally gave in, and I knew they had to go because they held it all morning in preschool and were holding themselves. I made a big deal out of it, giving them the treats that they had picked out (we picked "potty treats" out at the store) and letting them call dad and grandma. They were both 3 years, 3 months old. My daughter hated flushing, so I would do that for her for a while because the sound bugged her. And for poop, we had some holding it in issues, so I loaded up on fiber. I had to make up a story about sending the poop off to a poopoo party under the sea and we would have to make a big deal of the party. The process seemed like it took forever, because for a few weeks they were wetting all over the place before I did all this, but once they got it, they got it. And I still put a diaper on my son for naps and bedtime. As long as he was dry during waking hours, I was happy. He could pee as much as he wanted at naptime. I think if I waiting for them to be ready, we would still be waiting.