Potty Train Relapse for Newly Trained.

Updated on July 27, 2009
A.G. asks from Portsmouth, VA
4 answers

My daughter one day in early June decided that she wanted to wear pretty panties. We have had potties since about 18 months, but only used them before baths or occasionally as the kids seemed interested (for instance after they picked out a potty book). I always gave an M&M for a successful potty, and now a temporary tatoo for being dry all day except nap. Over the course of a week she got better and better, she was going by herself without me having to ask her if she needed to go. She always has access to a kids potty, and she can and does sometimes ask for the big potty. For safety reasons, the bathroom is behind a gate which is a bit of a challenge. She always helps to empty her potty and gets lots of praise. She wore cloth panties at home and pull-ups for going out(diapers for bed). After about a week we had a week where she was almost dry at home except for a couple of accidents and naps/bedtime(didn't seem to matter if it was pullups or cloth), she was nervous about going when we were out or too distracted to tell me. The next week she was dry most of the time while out and while at home.

Then it started to go down hill, instead of her telling me it was time to go I started to have to tell her. It seems she's gotten bored with the process. Its gotten worse and worse for the last four weeks, now she has to be told every time unless she has to go poop which she doesn't like to do in her undies. With both kids to help, I can't seem to get the timing right on telling her to go. She often refuses and unless I threaten to put a diaper on her she won't go. She almost always says she has to go when trying to delay a nap or bed though so thats a whole different discipline issue - when you are trying to encourage training how do you say no or put a time limit.

I know she's young and we could just start over later, but she REALLY doesn't want to wear diapers and I feel like forcing her back into them would be worse than making her go potty on a schedule.

A week ago I tried some of the techniques from "Potty Training in a Day" and they worked really well for three days. We stressed having dry pants rather than actually using the potty, I had her check that they were dry often and she got praise, we discussed how Elmo didn't want to be wet and how proud he would be of her for keeping him dry, I showed disapproval of the wet pants as yucky but not disapproval of her, and had her help me clean up any mess made.

I don't think it is that we are expecting another baby because we had already told them and started talking with them before she started training. As I've been feeling better these last couple weeks she's gotten more attention not less.

I'm pregnant, naseated, and dealing with two way crankier than normal kids and its getting difficult to keep positive when she has an accident. I'd love any advice, I was thinking of maybe keeping her home most of the weekend (all except an hour for church)band going pantless or even bare bottomed??

Oh and her brother is going occasionally as he get the idea from watching her go, but he isn't interested in really using the potty right now.

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So What Happened?

Thanks Ladies for the great advice. I kept my daughter naked most of the weekend, and she had no accidents since Friday morning except when we put her in a pull-up to go to a birthday party. By yesterday she was again going without reminders. I have her cloth panties on her now so we'll see if she still thinks that she can pee in those. She tells me all the time that she needs to keep her panties dry and go pee-pee in the potty, so I think she understands the concept. She says the same thing about the pull-ups, but she definately doesn't hesitate to pee in them so I'm still working on how to reinforce without punishiments that it IS NOT ok to be lazy just because something is on her bottom.

More Answers

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E.M.

answers from Norfolk on

A. -
Sorry I don't have any potty training advice (my son is just 19 months and is only remotely showing interest in his potty). But, when I saw you have 28 month old twins, I selfishly wanted to post. I am newly pregant (7 weeks) with fraternal twins and am scared out of my mind about how I will be able to manage twins on top of my 19 month old (He'll be 2 yrs, 2mths when they are born).

Any advice or suggestions since you have already gone through it?

Thanks!
E.

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S.M.

answers from Washington DC on

I had such a struggle with my toddler getting her to take a break from her toys and fun to take time to use the potty... The only thing that worked for me was "I'm going to get there first!" and running to the potty fast.

You might find that she really doesn't have to go as often as she did when she first learned... my nearly three-year-old only uses the potty three times a day now (or sometimes only twice a day!).

I do find that I have to limit juice and fruit to only two small servings of fruit or juice per day, especially if we are doing something REALLY fun that she won't want to take a break from, or else she is more likely to have accidents.

If she's bored, getting a new special potty might make it more interesting for a while. Ikea has cheap ones with lots of fun colors. Take it away and hide it every few days and bring it back out from time to time to keep potty time more interesting!

If she's in a big girl bed, you can just put a potty in her room if she's insisting that she has to go potty before a nap or bed. Tell her if she uses the potty, you'll come help her clean it up, but otherwise, she'll have to go back to bed on her own.

I'd say if you can play outside more while it's nice out, leaving a potty outside for her to use if she wants, you'll at least save yourself a few clean-ups!

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M.C.

answers from Washington DC on

Its very common for some kids to revert. Just yesterday, I saw my daughter wiggling while she played and I asked her 3x if she had to go. After 20m she stood up and said, 'I have to go...no wait, I don't'. She'd sat there and peed her pants instead of stopping for a sec.
My advice is to keep doing what you are doing. Don't revert back to diapers. Been there done that. It makes it harder, cuz now the child is used to not laying down to be changed, etc. One thing that worked with my son was to do a rewards chart, and every 7 days for stickers was a little treat (from the dollar store!).
M.

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D.S.

answers from Washington DC on

Good for you for following her cues! My son and I trained when he was 26 months old, so it can be done. And he was SO proud of himself when he got it :) I'll tell you, he did great for a week and then didn't want to stop playing because the newness wore off. What I did was keep telling him how big he was and let him do big boy things, like get his own library card, have him help me more in the kitchen with putting in ingredients, setting the table, etc. So I would tell him a little bit all day how big he was and mention going on the toilet too. If I knew he had to go and wouldn't, I would give him a chocolate chip for sitting and trying. That was key, just try. I truly think sitting and releasing when you aren't absolutely full is a learned behavior, so he really didn't think he needed to stop playing because he wasn't bursting, and then would miss his opportunity. So I learned to say "we're going to empty our bladders, whatever's in there." That really seemed to help him. You might need to set a timer to remind yourself to take her, and just work with her on sitting and going. My son used to get a new toy to unwrap (junk from the bottom of my SIL's toybox) for sitting and listening to three stories. (He could hold it for the stories but not unwrap it.) That gave him time to relax and try without me paying too much attention to him, plus it was a reward for something he could achieve, not this new thing he was trying to master. And if he didn't have to go he still got the toy for doing what I had asked. You could use that and then before nap or bed tell her that at the end of the three stories she has to get off. Once he did pretty well, I would always take a change of clothes wherever we went, and took him to the woods to practice peeing on trees, which he thought was fun and different and sort of a reward for all this todoo. I don't know if girls would enjoy it so much, but maybe some sort of big girl ritual after she's been dry a week. Also, I tried for several months to keep up the encouragement for going on the toilet, because I've heard of relapses when the parent stops valuing the skill. In fact, he had several accidents in a week and I finally said "what's the problem here?" Of course that was negative and didn't help a lick. When I went back to praising for good behavior the accidents stopped! Good luck!!!

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