Potty Training Nightmare!!!! - Philadelphia,PA

I agree with Rachel's response! I was a nanny for several potty-training-aged children and it worked the best! You just have to let her have a few accidents, she will HATE the feeling (wouldn't you?) and she will very quickly realize that the only alternative to that yucky feeling is to do it in the toilet. Just stop giving her diapers one day. you can say "oh, I’m sorry, we ran out of diapers and I can't go buy more right now" and she will either have an accident or go to the potty. I would suggest putting her in some clothes that you REALLY don’t care about and can just throw away for a few days---- you can buy cheap little leggings or pants at Walmart for about $5 each and some inexpensive underwear that you can just throw away. So even if it happens for 3 days, you are spending less than $20 for a potty trained kido— totally worth it!
I think the big thing though is not to punish her for accidents. Don’t praise her, but don’t punish her. Just say "ok, I’m going to clean you up now, if you go in the potty this won't happen." but don’t punish her. That way when she quickly decides that the potty is better than poopie pants, it will be her decision, not something that she is doing to avoid getting in trouble. She is much more likely to stick with using the potty.

It's best if you back off and relax about it. All the pressure may be sparking some stubborness / control issues. The most important thing is to not get into a battle about it. All kids are different and on their own schedules. If she's not ready, she's not ready. Punishing her for this is only going to lead to problems in the future. I know it's frustrating, but try to be patient. www.livingreenathome.com

I waited until my daughter was good and ready, which was 3-1/4.

I hope that you do not get offended by this, but I think the spanking may have caused a MAJOR setback in acieving your goal. I had a Home day care "grandmother" type who did that to my three year old son without my knowledge. When I found out, I removed him. It then took a year of patience to get him completely trained. I think that it will now take a while to get her back in the frame of mind of wanting to do it. You just need to have loads of patience and try not to get angry. I would let a month pass without even bringing it up to her. I wish you the best of luck.

Don't know if it will help but with my daughter I had a similar situation. I told her she needed to decide what day she was going to start having her bowel movements on the potty like a big girl and she responded with Thursday. We made a chart and counted down to Thursday and as of that day we have never looked back. Like I said I don't know if it will work for you but I remember getting to the point where I would have tried anything. Good luck!

Have you tried the Potty Video? We used it and have passed it on to others. It seems to work. We had to use it twice, my son had a backslide after a few months. It's an old video and the copy I have has a teddy bear on the front. They sing songs like "Super Dooper Pooper" and "Tra la la boom de a, I push my pants away," and my son loved it. Corny, but it worked.

Have you tried to do the pullups route? That seemed to work for my daughter (she wanted to do it by herself and didn't want to wait for me to help her), although to be honest the peer pressure at day care probably did the most. If you have another one on the way, it could be she wants to stay the baby - they're pretty smart about the weirdest things at this age! I also went shopping with her and got some pretty underwear that she picked out - she did go 'poopie' in them a few times but she was sad when it happened ("Mommy, why I poopie in my pretty underpants?"). I just told her she needs to remember to go to the potty for her poopie and when she did, gave her lots of high fives.

Some kids also have hangups about it (afraid of 'their' poop going away and such) so you might want to ask her why she doesn't want to do it. We did get a book called 'Where's the Poop?' and it's pretty cool as well - I got it on Amazon but it's probably in stores as well.

In the end, though, all you can do is not worry about it - sounds like you have enough to worry about! If she's not in preschool and there is no absolute requirement that she do it, I'd just let her decide to be the 'big girl' when she's ready. Good luck!

E.,

Hi...ya know..I am going through the same thing only with my son...if you get any good responses on how to potty train...please let me know too...my son seems to struggle when it's poopy time and so that makes him not want to go on the potty...uhhhh this is a challenge for me.

Thanks!
L.

I'm on my way there. The advice I've received is to simply let the kids mess themselves. Especially girls - they pretty much despise being filthy. I know it's really really messy, but hopefully it's only for a day or two before she decides the potty is the place.

It might just be an attention issue. New baby coming and your attention spread thin. I read in books to never scold or punish a child for having accidents. Whether it's on purpose or not. My daughter who is now 10, would be fine for a few days and then regress. I'm not sure why. i did have success with having a potty parade .Sounds dumb but it worked. We'd parade around the house everytime she went on the potty. We'd sing a silly song then I'd give her a sticker. Hope this helps. You might want to pick up a book on the subject. I'm sure with another one the way you'll get some use out of it.
T.