Serious Potty Training Issues with My 2 1/2 Year Old

To cut down on the number of diapers you go through you could use training pants, and plastic pants. It didn't help with the potty training, but it made it a lot cheaper.

Hi J.,

I don't know about any other parents, but our son regressed after our daughter was born.

He started talking baby talk & sucking his thumb and even wanted to drink from the bottle again! He was 3 years old!

We later learned that our daughter who was a little attention deprived (LOL) got a lot of our attention. family were coming over to see her. he was just a little jealous and thought that if he acted like a baby, he would get the attention like she did. It all worked out. You just have to be patient.

I know it sucks now, but you'll be laughing when they are older! Always remember, you are creating memories that will last a lifetime! Put a little potty chair out in the kitchen if that makes her go on it. Keep it in her site. She'll figure it out. As I tell everyone, There's our time, then there's God's time. And let me tell you they hardly ever match! LOL! But there's always a reason! And we never find that out until after the fact!

Trust me,

J.

Get rid of the diapers now! I think alot of parents who successfully potty train make a big mistake by resorting to diapers when children regress. Buy a bunch of rubber undies and use those with regular underpants. She needs to be uncomfortable enough to want to be dry and clean. You're making it too easy for her by playing her games with the diapers. Go cold turkey, or suffer the consequences. I have a friend whose son did this, but refused to go #2 in the potty. He'd only do it in diapers. This went on until he was 5 1/2 because they willingly went along with his demands. They were more worried about the inconvenience of cleaning messes than getting this kid to get down to business. And they paid for it. He had to jump around from preschool to preschool because teachers didn't want to deal with this, and eventually it took him getting teased by kids at school after his secret diaper stash was discovered to stop the madness.

Please, just drop the diapers and spend the extra energy and time to get her to the potty on a regular schedule, whether she needs to go or not. You need to make her accountable. Consider purchasing a potty watch from www.onestepahead.com to keep her on schedule. You can set it for 30, 60, and 90 minute intervals and it will alert the child to go to the potty. Use this until she can control herself.

Perhaps she was trained too soon, and is still having trouble "feeling" when she needs to go. The watch will help her until she gets a feel for it. Another thing to consider is an infection? Get her checked out to be sure. It may be as simple as needing antibiotics and time.

If you think she's pottying just after a new diaper, try this when you think she has to go. I've given other people this advise and all my mom friends have told me that it works, and it worked GREAT for us too.

While she's on the potty, pour very slowly a cup of luke warm water down the front of her starting under her belly button and let it run down her vagina and into the toilet. It ALWAYS gets things flowing. You might have to use more than one cup, but it in my experience, it works everytime. Then, when you have success...celebrate like crazy and call everyone you know. Hopefully, this will encourage her to keep using that method to go potty on the toilet. (Make sure the water is only luke warm because it doesn't take very much heat to be too hot on that little area.) She might be dependant on the water trick for a little while, but she'll eventually learn how to release those muscles while she's on the toilet and then she won't need the water to let go.

Hope this works. (This was also a good trick for getting my daughter to go potty right before we went on an errand and a bathroom wouldn't be readily available, or I wanted to make sure she didn't have an accident. She many times would protest and tell me she didn't have to go, but after this trick...potty everytime.)

I've given this suggestion to other mamasource moms and I'd be interested in hearing from those moms to find out of this worked for them or not.

Good luck.

I would absolutely refuse to change her until her diaper is wet to the point where she actually needs to be changed. I had to tell my son that I would change him when his diaper was wetter and if he didn't want to be wet at all he could wear underwear and go in the potty. It may not cause immediate potty training but you should not have to go through that many diapers at her whim.
I would pull back on training for awhile. I have heard that kids sometimes don't train because that is the one thing they can control. Soon she will tire of being wet and find that having accidents is no fun either.
Good luck to you!

Hi J., We actually had the same issue with our daughter now 3 1/2. What we decided to do since she really wanted to be independent, was to set a kitchen timer and let her be part of the process. Bethany and I went out to the store and she got to pick the kitchen timer (after a conversation as to why we were buying it), she got to decorate it with her stickers and then she helped set it. We did 20 minute intervals at first and then kept moving it back by 1-2 minutes. She had to at least "try" to go potty when the timer went off. It let her have the independence that she wanted and not too many wet pants issues after that.

Now, we are night training and have bought her an alarm clock. We set it for the times when we were noticing bed wetting happening. She gets up, shuts off the alarm, goes potty and then gets back into bed. We were setting it for twice at night, now we just set it for once and then she is getting up on her own in the morning to go.

I hope this helps. I know that the other suggestions sounded great too and I have to say I agree with getting rid of the diapers and pull-ups all together.

The sticker chart worked with my daughter and sometimes it was used in conjunction with sweet tarts. She would get one piece of sweet tart candy for going pee when we put her on the potty and two for poo. Later she would only get one for telling us she had to go and actually went and then only when she was dry all day.

I was having issues from two-three where she would wet each night. Now, we have showed her how to go potty at night and what to do and she does great now. She doesn't even wake us to help her or tuck her back into bed. She would have accidents here and there and she didn't understand why she was wetting. I have an incentive now where if she's dry every night of the week she gets to have candy for breakfast. She never gets that and is great incentive. She later eats a "normal" breakfast at daycare. She was dry all week at night!!

I think she is more than ready. It sounds to me like she is intentionally wetting the new diapers right after you put them on her. IMO, this had turned into a game and an attention-seeker.

I would throw out the diapers and pull-ups. Put her in plain old underwear and those plastic training pants, to protect your floor and furniture. Tell her there are no more diapers--she needs to start going on the potty.

Continue to have her sit on the potty at regular intervals. (It is great that she is doing that!)

If she wets herself, tell her that she should have gone in the potty and walk away. Let her have her temper tantrum and sit in it for quite awhile before you change her. Tell her you're busy and you'll change her when you have time. The less attention she gets from wetting herself, the better. Then have her help you rinse out her clothes in the sink. She will get sick of the extra work!

I would put away her diapers somewhere so she doesn't know there are more in the house,keeping out a supply for the day. I would explain to her that these are all the diapers we have for the day until she goes to sleep. If we use up all the diapers before bedtime she needs to use the potty until its time for bed. Stick to your guns and don't let tantrums change your mind. At bedtime I would bring out a diaper with her pajamas. I would continue doing this until she is either potty trained or gets over her fixation on wearing fresh diapers.