My child will be turning 4 in Oct. She is strong willed and stubborn. She knows about the potty we have read books to her she goes with me in the restroom and I explain while I am going. I have tried stickers and candy. I have put her in underwear and training pants and she just goes in them. I have tried to get her on a schedule going once an hour or so. She has never actually gone while she has sat on the potty. She fights me almost everytime I try to get her to go sit on the potty. She does not care and has no interest in learning. She is old enough and knows all about it. I am getting pretty frusterated. Does anyone have any advice for stubborn children.
I am in the same boat. I am at the point where I am I will try anything drastic so that he'll go. Sorry that I don't have any advice.
try the opposite.. tell her you don't want her to go on the toilet... put the top of it down.. and tell her ... don't use it.. it's for big people... and see what happens..
My son is extremely stubborn also. The trick for us was to not mention it. He knew perfectly well how to use the toilet but he simply refused bc he knew we wanted him to. When we went to visit his new preschool (he was almost 4) he found out he could only attend if he was potty-trained. He saw all kinds of cool things there that he really wanted to play with and suddenly he was motivated on his own to do it. I second the person who wrote in to say once your daughter is in kindergarten/school she will probably become motivated. Another motivation you can use - what is the one thing in the world she loves doing more than anything else?
When you have put her in undies how long do you give her before you go back to diapers? With both of my sons I told them once we go to big boy undies, we do not go back. The first day with my oldest son he had 13 accidents (he was 22 months). He was begging for his pull up, I said no and reminded him of the "rule". The next day he had 2 accidents, and after that maybe one or two a week for about a month or so, and nothing since. It was much the same with my youngest, only he was not ready as early and we trained him when he was almost 3. If you keep going back and forth all she will learn is that if she does not feel like going in the potty you will give in and let her keep her diapers. It is about her maintaining control and she is definitely running the show.
Candy and stickers did not work for me. I started taking away almost everything. I gave my son a small box of toys he could play with, everything else, tv and playdates included only happened if he used the potty. I knew where every bathroom was in places I went.
It took a long time but, he finally got the idea. His half sister was also stubborn and would forget to go because it was inconvienent to her. At 4 years old your daughter gets it. She just doesn't want to do it. You need to find her motivation.
I had similar problems. What worked first for us was as one mom suggested, Preschool. She wanted to go, but we told her she couldn't until she stopped having accidents. (This was around March last year) She quit having accidents and we let her go to the last 2 months of preschool. Unfortunately as soon as summer came she started having accidents multiple times a day again. The more I pushed, the more accidents she would have. I think she was enjoying the attention it brought her. When school started again she stayed dry at school, but not home. Finally I quit giving it any attention. I quit reminding her to go, and just didn't talk about it. When she had accidents, I would bring her to her room, tell her she couldn't come out until she was changed, shut the door and leave (sometimes I had to hold the door shut for a moment to keep her in). I gave her extra attention and praise when she was dry for short periods of time. She is now 4 1/2 and she is doing really well! We still have about 1-2 accidents a week, but overall she is doing much better!
I know several people that have had luck putting the child's potty chair in front of the TV and only letting the child watch a favorite video if they are sitting on the potty. (First dressed until they are comfortable sitting there, then with pants down).
Good Luck!
My daughter LOVES this dvd. It helped her a lot
http://www.drpotty.com/Potty-Power-DVD.html
They also sell it at Toys R Us, Amazon, and some others.
We got to the point where we put her in panties during the day and Underjams at night. Then she got to where she didn't like the feel of the Underjams and we switched to panties 24/7. I got to the point where money was tight and I just told her. This is the last pack I'm buying. When these are done. That's it.
Good luck
M.
M.
There are three things you cannot make a child do...eat, sleep, and make a child pee, or poop when you want them to. My son was a perfect example. Although dry through the night at 18 months he would not use the toilet. And he was a heavy boy to lift when I was pregnant again. So I didn't push it.
When my son was 4, the thing that worked for him (and was self motivating) was his new preschool teacher. We went to meet her before the class was operating. I mentioned that he was still in diapers. She said in ear shot of him, but directed at me, that she usually didn't take children in diapers, and never changed them. Well all his friends were going to that class, so of course he was going... He was "trained" in a day. Easiest thing I never did.
The thing was that he was self motivated to do it because he wanted to be with his friends. Perhaps you can find something that is self motivating to your daughter.
I can understand how frustrating this could be. My 5 1/2 year old is not fully potty trained, however going to school in his pull ups when all of his friends were wearing their big boy underwear really helped him to stop going to the bathroom in his pants. I hope this helped at least a little bit. I'm sorry and good luck.
Well I am going through the same problem; my daugher is 3.5 and stubborn and still goes in her pants. I went to the store a few days ago and bought reuseable cloth diapers and training underwear and I am not letting her wear pullups anymore because she doesn't realize she's wet when she wears them. She went #2 in her cloth diaper yesterday and she had to help clean it out and wash it in the toilet. I am hoping this will help. I have read that pull-ups are not good at all because they give the child too much security and they don't leak and its still comfortable when they go potty in it. Its so frustrating because I feel I have tried everything too; she used to also cry every time we would try to get her to use the potty but she finally got out of that stage. Good luck
My daughter had been doing well when she was 2.5 and along came brother. She did fine for awhile and then at about 3 she started having accidents, some of them were deliberate and out of spite while in time out. I made her clean up her mess and wash out her clothes. None of this helped. I requested help through here and decided it was time to just put on diapers. I quit fighting it. Well, summer rolled around and we were talking about starting preschool and how she needed to be in underwear or she wouldn't be able to go to school. She started trying a bit, but still fought, so it was diapers and pull ups. She went to preschool the first day in pull ups and I talked to the principal. The principal talked to my dd and she stayed dry during the day after that, but once home, she would have accidents. I just put her in diapers and didn't fight it.
Before the end of that year and I think before she turned 4, she was in panties all day. She still didn't stay dry at night, so was in diapers. She has had only one night time accident once she decided she was ready to have panties at night, too. Don't feed a child watermelon as a bedtime snack....
