Almost 3-Year-old Girl and Still LOTS of Accidents

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I know it seems like things are not progressing like they should but it is alright!! Try to appreciate the positive and do not dwell of the negative when it comes to potty training. She is fine!! My daughter was not even walking yet and using the potty but then my son came along and he could have gone to kindergarten in diapers. It all depends on the child. I would just put her back in diapers and things will just click one day and she will tell you that she wants to go. Don't get frustrated because it will only stress her out and take things longer.

She just doesn't sound ready and there are plenty of kids out there that are not ready until they are closer to 4. My daughter just turned 3 and she has zero interest in using the potty. We keep trying to encourage her and so far she will just sit on the potty but has not done anything on it yet. And sometimes she just doesn't want to even sit on it (we do try to reward her when she does).

I'm not sure who "everyone" is that said she was ready 8 months ago and what they were basing that on, but SHE is the only one that can decide when she is ready! The only pressure you are feeling is that which you are putting on yourself and that can translate into putting pressure on your daughter, and that is the last thing you all need. Everyone else may mean well, but maybe they need to back off. So lighten up, relax, eventually it will happen.

My son was nearly 4 when we put him in underwear and that was 6 months ago. If I don't make him go about every 2 hours he doesn't always get to the potty in time (usually just damp underwear, not a puddle, then he goes to the bathroom on his own). It's improving but it has been slow progress all the way. Also, my son backslides if he is overtired or sick. Some kids also regress if there is a major change or emotional stress.

I'd say keep her on a potty break schedule because she is not at the point of remembering on her own. If you know you won't have a chance for her to go (like a long outing or car trip) then put her in a pull up and/or get a portable potty. The road from diapers to total bathroom independence is obviously much longer that we as parents would like!

She is not ready, Just let her be. Many children do not potty train till 4 and there is nothing wrong with that.

When she is ready, she is going to ask to go potty and she is only going to take a few weeks to know what she is feeling,

Right now you are wasting your energy and she may be a bit stressed and confused by it.

My daughter is also almost 3 (Nov 30). She does take herself to the potty, but she still has accidents too. I started potty training her in December of last year. If she had been a boy, you would have had any need to even bother with potty training till he turned 3. Just keep it up! The average kid takes anywhere between 9 months to a year to potty train. Sounds like you are on schedule.

It really is okay that she isn't quite ready, honest! Don't compare her progress to other kids, she WILL do it when she's ready, I promise!

Does she have accidents during certain times of the day? Continue to take her every hour, and ask her if she needs to go. If she says 'no', thank her for trying. If she has an accident, don't make a big deal of it. Just say 'uh oh, should we go sit on the potty in case you have to go?'

Personally, during this period, I kept my son in pullups until he was adamant he wanted to wear big boy underwear. He had a few accidents after the pull ups, but they subsided.

I just heard about. When they have an accident get a clean pair of panties all wet and make them wear it for an hour. They'll hate it and will avoid wetting pants again. Another idea is if she is not ready ask if she wants to go back to diapers, not as a threat, but seeing what she needs. That might help, but you are the parent and her better than anyone. Good luck!

I am not reading any of the other responses...

A friend of mine could have written your post 2 months ago. So I'll let you what she did and what worked for her.
She was given some great advice from an older family member (we should listen to their wisdom more often) and they told her to STOP talking about it all together! Put the diapers on and never speak of it again.
She thought ok, how will this work?
Well as soon as they ignored the subject all together her daughter didn't like that she wasn't getting attention anymore in that area. They found her daughter bringing it up ALL the time and wanted to talk about the potty and how fun it was ect... but they always said "that is nice" and moved on. It really started to get to the little girl.
One day I guess she just got sad about it and said mommy I want to use the potty again. She sat her down and said are you sure you are ready??? when the little girl said yes they had a throwing away the diapers party. They told her if she was truly ready it was undies forever and no more diapers. Everyone agreed.
It took 2 weeks of trial and error and yes many sheet changes (because they did undies even for sleeping- no pull ups), but on the 3rd week accidents were down to 1-2 a week and even the sheet changes were hardly done. By the 4th -5th week she was potty trained.
I am sure there will be accidents here and there, but after at least a year of struggle, I guess giving up on it was what worked.

Anyhow just thought I would pass it along...
My 2 1/2 year old is going through this all right now, but we are having great success. I'll count my blessing for now :)
Good luck

Well I just want to give you a shoulder to cry on, mine son turned three last month and we are still doing the whole diaper thing!!! He can do it, just doesn't want to ever since his baby bro cam on the scene...but I digress...:P ANYWAY...don't worry about what anybody says or thinks, there is way to much pressure put on all moms in my opinion. I was in Wal-mart today and this mom's little girl was screaming. She had an older child in tow, was trying to put groceries in her cart and pay all at the same time and this older woman had the gall to walk by give her a dirty look and shake her head. I was so amazed that anyone could pass judgment on an overworked and tired mama trying to feed her family...but...they can. sigh...so back to the main point which is I think it is pretty normal for her to have some accidents at this age because it just takes time to develop the ability to know when you need to go. Different kids master it at different times. Are her accidents around the same time? Are pull-ups and option? How about maybe putting some plastic panties over the cloth ones in case of accidents? I am about to try these thick training pants I saw online to see if I can get my son interested in the potty again and feel like a big boy. Anyway, maybe some thick training pants would prevent such big messes. I think it you just Google training pants you might find some helpful things and avoid going back to diapers or even pull-ups. Good luck, I know it is tough and they never do things on our schedule!!!! Take care:D

We do 2 things. We made our children clean up their own potty, and we gave them "polar bear" showers. If they messed in their pants then they had to get in a cold shower and wash up and then once they were dressed again they had to clean up their mess. We only had to give a few polar bear showers and the accidents quit.

Put her back in Pull ups and give her more time. If she protests, just tell her that she can wear panties when she goes x amount of days In a row without any accidents. Then it puts it on her to make the effort to go when she needs to instead of you telling her when to go.

I too felt the pressure from others but after becoming so frustrated I just decided who cares what other people think/say. Kids are different. My mom kept telling me that my sibs and I were potty trained by 2 but she would ignore the fact that all of us were bed wetters for YEARS after that. Our girls were much harder to potty train than our son. One was 3 yrs 2 mths and the other was 3 yrs 7 mths.
Hang in there. Don't let it make you crazy.

Find her currency (a friend of mine coined that term, and I love it). For my oldest, candy did the trick, for her son it was Orange Soda, for my youngest it was money (dollar bills did the trick, coins did not motivate him enough), and I also used large toys (small toys worked for pee, but we had to bring out the bigger guns for poo) that I rented from an online company for 3 months. He wanted nothing to do with candy/treats, etc. In other words, find the right bribery to motivate her. Some may disagree, but that's what worked for both my kids. Good Luck!

My son started potty training at 2ish for a week, and gave it up. No biggie. We used pullups for the next year and a half. The at 3.5 he potty trained in about 2 days flat (on his own). He had only 1 or 2 accidents those days... and he had maybe 3 accidents that whole year. Huzzah for the "easy" button. No work on my part whatsoever except for asking him to see if he had "sneaky pee" before leaving the house. ((If I asked him if he needed to pee and the answer was no, he'd need to as soon as we backed out of the driveway. "Sneaky Pee" he found hilarious (that his body would need to pee and not tell him, but he'd pee if he tried).)) No trips, hand holding, charts, stickers, any kind of incentive. His nervous system had rewired itself to take urination completely out of autonomic control, so he didn't even have to think about it. Totally ready.

Don't get me wrong... he had WANTED to use the toilet at 2ish, but his body just wasn't ready for full conscious control, no matter how much he *wanted* to be. So we waited. No muss no fuss.

In our house it was no biggie to me because my family is SO large (cousins and etc). We've had 2 or 3 kids train under 2. MOST (40 or so) train between 2-4, and 2 or 3 kids between 5-6. ((This is all daytime training... with few exceptions, night time training follows about a year after daytraining))

She not ready. Please don't "BRIBE" her or give her a "POLAR BEAR" shower. She just not ready. She really is still really little. Give your self a break and her as well. Kids are really smart. They know when you are stressed and they also get stressed. Slow down and take a deep breath. You are a good mom and she is an amazing daughter. Remember that and Good Luck...

don't punish her. put her back in diapers. she likely won't dig that- it will perhaps give her motivation to pay more attention to her body. explain to her how big girls go pee on the potty. when you go potty be available to her so she can see you doing business on the toilet. praise her when she gets it right. don't punish or react negatively when she has an accident. Say "Uh oh, ________, you just made a mess in your panties. Now we'll have to stop doing what we're doing to get you cleaned up." Ask her why it happened. Some kids have anxiety, or forget they have to potty. She's worn diapers for a long time. It's a hard habit to drop for someone so small.

I understand the frustration. This will pass. :)
My suggestion is to be as positive as you can be about what she is doing right. When she makes it to the potty, praise her. Ask if she is still dry. (Be excited if she still is.) When she has an accident, talk about that she missed this time, but next time she will make it, as she is such a big girl.

This sounds totally backwards - and I know it is REALLY hard as a frustrated parent to be positive - but this has worked well for us. When we get more negative the accidents seem to increase. :(
Hope that helps. It worked well for both of ours. (A girl at 27 months, and a boy at 22 months - at his insistence)