Pottytraining Woes with 3 1/2 Yr Old Daughter

First, I would get rid of the pull ups. None in the house. Panties must be worn. When she has an accident
make her help clean herself up. I think at her age
she definitely knows what she is doing. I would not
even discuss it. Just go thru the motions, get clothes
off, clean up, put new ones on. No discussion at all.
Kids do not care if they get negative or positive
attention, as long as they get it. That's the best I
can come up with. Good luck.

She is probably not sensitive to the signs that she has to go until too late. She knows what you want, but cant control herself yet. You need to remind her to go. Every 2 hours tell her to sit on the potty, eventually she will figure it out. Its like an aha moment. So thats what that little twinge means.

Throw out the Pull-Ups and go back to diapers. Many kids don't get the difference between Pull-Ups and panties, and Pull-Ups should really only be used when the child is staying dry for a majority of the time and only needs the Pull-Up as a back-up in case of accidents. Put her back in the diaper, explain why you're doing it - because she's peeing and pooping in her panties and she can't do that because it's messy so she has to wear diapers until she's ready to go on the potty like a big girl and then she can wear big girl panties. Pull-Ups are a waste of time and money if you're not using them right. They're not diapers and they're not designed to replace diapers - they're an aid in the training process, and if your daughter is regressing, she needs to go back to diapers until she realized what she needs to do.

HI K., I had a similar problem years ago. Your daughter may be thinking the baby gets more attention with diaper changes. You may want to ignore it for a while and use the pullups. Give yourself a rest. What I did, recommended by a psychologist, when my baby was older I started to train her and my son no longer wanted to be a baby. I know many childeren are trained by 3 1/2 but some are not ready. Hang in there she will be trained one day. Grandma Mary

K.,
don't give up now. she needs to be potty trained and if you back out now, you will have to start again some day. Why delay?
here are a few tips:
warm weather just around the corner...no more pullups. none, not even at nights, not when you're out, just get rid of those. They're fancy diapers and feel like diapers.
Get to target get those thick underwear, potty trainers or whatever they're called. also target has mattress protector for 24.99. get that too. get a few portable potties and place them in all bathrooms that you have. get a portable potty with a lid (no music, nothing distracting, just a simple one with a lid on). place a container with wet wipes next to it. Tell her what it's for. Dress her, esp. at nights, with easy to undress jammies. and get started. you explain to her what she's supposed to do, and that's it. rewards didn't work for my twins so i quickly learned to just present potty training as a fact of life.
when she does go in her panties. let her stay like that (hence the warm weather, so she doesn't get cold or something). allow her to start getting uncomfortable. eventually, she will hate that feeling of wetness and dirtiness.
it should take about a week if you do not use pullups. i know, and i did too, dread the washing of everything all day every day. but, for me at least, and my twins, we did that for 1 week. after a week they were done with it.
one more tip. take her potty before bedtime (nothing to drink, except a bit of warm milk if she says she's thirsty) before bedtime, at least two hours before bedtime. then take her potty after brushing teeth. and then when you go to bed, assuming 10, 11 pm you go in and take her potty again. i still do that with one of my twins even though at this point (almost five, it's just a routine for me. i doubt she needs it). but every night, before i head to bed i take her potty. she's totally asleep yet she goes when i put her in the potty.
also, there is a potty that uses ziploc bags for when you're out esp. at the park. in order to avoid shock when using public restrooms, i used that potty for about a year. it's easy to use, and folds when you're done using it. and cleans easy.
let me know if you need me to send you links for some of these things.
don't give up. you're really close.
ps. one of my twins was also speech delayed, but she did understand what i was saying and the process of getting potty trained.
good luck

I don't know if this works for girls, but anything is worth a try right. This is what worked for my son, and I've heard other mom's say the same thing, but it was always about boys. But again worth a shot right. The only thing that worked for my son was to let him run around naked from the waste down. He had to physically see what happened when he didn't "make it" to the potty. We tried everything from rewards to stickers to whatever you can think of. But they didn't work. Running around naked worked. By the way, pull ups are just like diapers. They don't work and are a huge wasted of money. Even the ones that give the cool feeling. So if you want her to potty train don't even bother using these. They don't help.

My daughter had similar problems. She also had a speech delay, was immature for her age, and refused to use the potty. Her and I were both so frustrated by it all, that I finally just gave up trying, and put her in pull ups or diapers. I figured she would just do it when she was ready.Then one day, right before her 4th birthday she just decided to go on the potty, and she never had an accident or a problems with it after that. By the way she is now almost 14 years old and doing great. I did hold her back a year after Kindergarten, since she just wasn't ready to move on. It was the best thing I ever did; she is now in 7th grade, with no speech problems or any other issues. She is an A student, an avid reader and she loves to write stories.
So I say just let her go; eventually she will be ready and it will be her decision. It is one of the few things they have control over at that age. I believe it is something you can't push or force.
Good luck!!

Hi K.
I can totally relate to your frustration. We potty trained my daughter for a year! It was on and off again with the pullups and underpants. I would get so frustrated with cleaning up the accidents that I would go back to the pull ups. A few weeks later she would show interested in the potty again so we'd start over (and over and over!) I hated leaving the house when she was just wearing underpants beause I was always afraid she'd have an accident in a store or something. (she did one time) I knew she could do it, she'd gone on the potty dozens of times but never anything consistant. One night at dinnertime when my husband was out of town, I suggested we go out for dinner to McDonalds. (My daughter had turned 3 a few weeks earlier) Matter of factly, I told her she had to use the potty before we could go. She ran to the bathroom, peed, and off we went. I didn't make a big deal out of it. I said great job but that was about it. She's been using the potty ever since! Maybe something similar will help you out! Good luck!

K.,
sometimes less is more. your idea about not mentioning the potty may work. a casual attitude like, "when you're ready to use the potty like mom and dad do, you'll do it," is helpful. that puts your daughter in control, which is what she really is telling you, she is in control. mocxy

One of my sons was potty trained soon after his second b-day.... the other was much older...... he was four years and three months old! Try having her just run around with only a dress on and nothing else. Good luck..... I'm sure she is almost there.
D. N.

Hi K.-
I'm having the same problem with my son. He turned 3 in December. He was doing really well with the potty and then all of a sudden he started going in his pullups. Now its like a game. Everytime I check his pull-up, it's wet. He poops in his pull-up, pulls it off and tells he about it after the fact.
I purchased a "pottywatch" ($10) form One Step Ahead. You can set it in intervals of 30, 60, or 90 minutes. When the time is up, it plays music to let my son know its time to go on the potty. It worked really well in the beginning, and then we stopped it, which I think we stopped too soon. Since we started it again, it's been getting better.
Hope this helps
K.

K.,
I'm looking forward to your replies.

My understanding of the matter is that we do it without any expectation of reward or such. She will learn that too.

It sounds backward, but put her in a diaper. Let her choose when she will start using underwear, and leave them in a place you know she can reach them and put them on. She has to be mindful - not you. She will learn - very rarely do they not. Getting upset and such is not going to help, I think. She knows her own mind, and has demonstrated she knows her own body.

Good luck,
M.

What worked for us and our 3 1/2 yr old daughter, who just recently mastered pooping on the potty, was good old-fashioned bribery: We gave her a lollipop for every poop on the potty. Now she goes by herself! :o)

she sounds very similar to my daughter, both in the potty training and the speech delays. anyway, she is now nine and at 3 years 8 months she finally went on the potty and ever since. she did not mind going on the potty when pooping, though, which is odd, because many children have the issue of seeing part of them being flushed away. that may be part of your daughter's problem. the peeing, for us, was a struggle...a power struggle. when i gave up, she basically gave in. hope this helps.

It sounds like she explained very well what is going on: she feels like she can't use the potty, for whatever reason. I imagine she has no better idea of the whys and wherefores, and they are not really important anyway.

Is her speech delay related to other developmental delays that might explain what is going on? Have you talked to the pediatrician? It doesn't sound like a power struggle between you two, and you have gotten some good suggestions for continuing potty training if that is what you decide. Otherwise slap a diaper on her again if you can't stand it anymore and take a potty timeout until you can come at the problem with renewed energy.