Title says it all, but let me provide more context.
My son is almost 4 (will be in January) and has been potty trained since 20 months. He has been wearing underwear and peeing on the potty since then and only wears pull ups at night (still doesn’t wake up dry but I know this is more of a biological milestone). He has pooped on the potty maybe 3 times closer to when we first potty trained but the poop part never stuck. He doesn’t have any accidents, he is very in touch with his body and knows when he has to go. He NEVER poops during the day, it’s ALWAYS at bedtime when he gets a pull up on anyways. We’ve been able to get him to poop IN the bathroom but he will NOT sit on the potty, even with a pull up on, to poop. We have tried EVERYTHING. We have tried incentives, rewards, buying the toy he really wants and leaving it on display. Sticker charts. Candy. You name it, we’ve tried it. I haven’t heard of a single method that we HAVENT tried. The only thing left is to take away pull ups but he’s just not ready to be dry all night and I’m not going to let him sleep in pee all night. Idk what I’m looking for because I don’t think there’s anything we can do to force it so maybe I just need encouragement that he won’t be going to high school in pull ups (partially joking) and he’ll eventually figure it out on his own (hopefully sooner than later 😅).

Sincerely, at my wits end

My 2yo was very interested in the potty (they have them in her daycare room) so we did a pantless weekend to try and train her.

This kid can withhold pee for HOURS. It took 3 hours to get the first pee out of her. Since then there have been a few accidents at daycare but none at home.

This morning she woke us up at 5 (1.5 hours earlier than usual). I went in and her pull up was completely dry. I thought "oh I'll put her on the potty and maybe we can all go back to sleep" NO

She refused to sit, then screamed and cried to have her pull up again. I refused. 2 hours later she finally peed on the potty. She was so pleased and proud of herself.

On the one hand I'm trying not to over pressure her, but on the other we are clearly locked in a battle of wills and she's trying to hold out for a diaper. I am not giving in but I'm also not being my best self. Any advice welcome.

Hi all! We started potty training somewhat unexpectedly at 21 months. We had introduced the potty and kept it out for her to get familiar with it, explained what it was, and had a Peppa pig book about the potty. We didn’t expect to start training until 2, but I guess she picked up a lot from the book because one day she randomly told me she had to poo and asked for the potty. We’ve switched to pull ups and have been lightly training since then.

I say lightly because we more or less just made a routine of using it before and after sleep, before we leave the house, (inconsistently) after meals, and whenever she asks. I wasn’t interested in anything like the oh crap method.

By 23 ish months she was fully poop potty trained. She’s 25 months now and has pooped in her diaper only once or twice the last 2 months. She always asks to use the potty when she feels a poop coming on.

The trouble now is pee. We’ve been in training pants the last 2 months, but they basically feel like a slightly less absorbant diaper so I don’t know how effective they are. She has no problem being in a wet diaper and no desire to change out of them. Some days she can stay dry the whole morning, but usually no. She’ll ask to use the potty to pee often if we’re out but never at home. Sometimes before bed she’ll sit on the potty and do nothing, and then 10 minutes later pee in her diaper.

So I’m not sure where to go from here. Is she simply not ready to be fully potty trained (ie her bladder can’t hold it yet for that long)?
I’m debating staying home for a few days, saying bye bye to the diapers, and putting her into underwear and expecting some accidents. I just don’t know if that will be a waste of time at this point if she typically can’t stay dry for longer periods of time right now.

Any and all advice appreciated! :) just a note though I have no desire to try the oh crap method. It’s cold where I live right now and I have no desire for her to run around semi naked for 2 days.

ETA: she has no visible cues for when she pees!

We just finished day 4 of the 3 day method and it is going very well. My little girl tells me when she has to potty (both pee and poop) AND she stays completely dry overnight 7pm-7am SO I am very proud of her! BUT each time she gets onto the potty, she’s peeing incompletely and not letting it all go so she’s announcing that she had to potty literally every 15 minutes! Any tips on how to get her to empty her bladder so that we can actually leave the house?

We are currently on Day 5 of potty training my 2-year-11-month-old boy.
We have had zero success. Day 1 & 2 were full of accidents which was expected. Each time he had an accident he immediately told us what he had done and we would tell him that’s okay accidents happen and explain that he needs to do it on the potty.

Day 3 & 4 there have been no accidents but he also isn’t going on his potty. Now he is withholding until nap time and doing a wee in his nappy. The same in the afternoon until bedtime.
He isn’t squeezing his legs together and stuff. He is still playing as normal and running around.
He understands where poo and pee go, if I ask him he says I’m the potty. He has special toys and books that he can have while on the potty so he likes sitting on the potty.

We’ve been doing the no pants method too.
I know I shouldn’t compare but I can’t help but feel like I’m failing when I go online and see everyone else’s kids are doing it within 3 days 😩

Almost a week ago my freshly 20 month old wanted her diaper off while I was on a virtual appointment. I quickly took it off, then set out her potty while I finished my appointment just in case by some miracle she wanted to use it. To my surprise she sat and peed, and then a few minutes later sat and pooped.
I’d been wanting to train soon anyway (I’m 14 weeks pregnant and want her potty trained before baby #2) so I decided that was my sign to start.
I wasn’t following a specific method at first, though I’d seen bits and pieces of oh crap. I had her bottomless for the first few days and planned to put on pants on the 3rd day or so. She improved from day 1 to day 2, and was great about pooping on the potty. Day 3 started a lot of resistance (I tried pants, underwear and bottomless, and hindsight I hovered and prompted WAY too much) and that continued through day 4 when I finally decided to read Oh Crap.

Now we’re on day 6 of training and I’m not sure how to proceed. Today I tried putting pants on her more often and she peed in them pretty quickly 3 times in a row. I tried to hand her a win and she had 2 more pee accidents bottomless before we finally had a success.

I don’t want to give up training until I’ve given it 2 weeks of effort, but I’m also so exhausted. Just when I think she’s getting the hang of it she has 2-4 pee accidents in a row.

I’m looking for advice, similar stories, or just some solidarity I guess. Is this normal?

TLDR: 20 month old daughter still misses the potty 50% of the time for pee’s and I’m switching back and forth between commando and bottomless

Hi! My son is almost 3.5 and on the spectrum (high functioning), he talks and has his own opinions about everything. He has sever fear /dislike of pooping.
It started when he was 1, he would all of a sudden sit on his bum and strain, or so we thought. So we picked him up and he pooped in his diaper in our hand for a while. We thought he was straining. But then ot suggested, that my son was actually withholding poop. And it was true. Long story short, we went to gastroenterology and we give him MiraLAX every single day. It makes poop soft but he still tries to hold it and constantly has smears of poop on his diapers.
He doesn’t want to poop on the potty even with treats, cartoons and ice cream . One time we had to give him the kids enema (bc he even holds the suppositories ) and he would not go on the potty even then, he was crying hysterically and everything just went on the floor (sorry for details)
Im at a loss. How do I even approach potty training?
He can pee on the potty with almost no mistakes but he doesn’t let me to put cotton undies on him.
And if it’s regular clothes, he will get poop stains everywhere too…
Did anyone have a similar experience?
😕

My son turned 3 last week and we started potty training about 7 weeks ago over a 4 day weekend (husband and I work full time). He did great and has minimal accidents but he’s relying entirely on our prompting to use the potty. Maybe twice during the last 7 weeks he’s said “I have to pee”. If we don’t initiate he will just pee in his pants. About a week or two into potty training we tried not prompting him for a couple days and it was a lot of accidents.

He’s at daycare 3x a week and we suspect he drinks less water there and is able to hold his pee between the transition times where all kids are taken to the potty. When he does have accidents, it’s usually end of the day when they’re outside for a long stretch. So he’s not telling the teachers he has to pee or after he has an accident. He’s with my parents 2x a week and they also have our 10 month old those days and I don’t want to make it harder on them so they’ve been prompting as well to avoid accidents. He wears very lightly padded underwear at daycare and my parents to cut down on the mess but if he does a full pee he is absolutely wet and needs a change of clothes so they are not acting as a diaper.

I hoped with time he’d transition to initiating but I haven’t seen any promising signs yet. His communication is excellent and cognitively he gets it so I’m torn between it being hormonal / developmental and he just can’t connect urge to holding it to telling us yet or if he’s just way too play-focused (very strong willed and play trumps all things, even snacks!!) and refusing to disrupt himself even though he feels the urge. I know one approach is to go commando and let him fully wet himself and clean up and get disrupted to show how not fun that is and we will try that this weekend at home but when we first started potty training he was totally unphased by accidents.. it was as though he preferred to pee in his pants than stop what he was doing, cleanup and all!

He’s good when we prompt (always a bit of a power struggle but gives in easily because he loves to read his books on potty) but I’d love to move to him initiating at least some. Especially when we’re out, we stayed home for about 4-5 weeks but we have started to get out again and I’m constantly thinking about the best time to get him all set up in a public potty to avoid an accident out since I know he won’t tell me and that’s just non sustainable (especially moving into winter and bulky clothes).

Anyone have a similar situation and what helped it click for your toddler to move to initiating their need to use the potty?

In my darkness days I scrolled this sub looking for success stories but I’ve realised most people leave once they’ve had success. So here’s the success story I wanted to see.

We started training my twin toddlers (now 3) a few months ago now. We did 4 days at home naked, didn’t go anywhere, and worked really hard on it. We had an absolute wild ride. Initially they did well, then they didn’t. We had pee withholding until they couldn’t anymore, refusal to try the potty, many many poo accidents, horrible days at daycare where they needed to be put back in pull ups because they had so many accidents. I felt in my soul that I shouldn’t go back to nappies so I kept going.

I can finally say that we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. As frustrated as I was reading this at the time, I am convinced now that it was genuinely just time that did it. Repetition, familiarity and staying strong even though I was crumbling. And let me tell you, I have found this to be the hardest parts of parenthood, second only to my children being born early and being in hospital which of course far outweighs this. But I will make a list of things we did and didn’t do. Maybe they’ll help you, maybe they won’t.

The final piece of the puzzle has been daycare and I just want to say to the daycare parents here, it’s so hard. Twin B was just not going to the toilet for poo at daycare for AGES. I think time was the only thing that changed it for her. They still have a potty preference for poo at home and we are working on it, but I don’t consider it insurmountable as they do poop in the toilet at daycare.

What we did

-We played some pottyganda for them. They don’t watch TV and so the novelty effect was huge. Daniel Tiger and Ms Rachel.

-Read a copy of the Lovavery book about going to poo – it’s genuinely good

-Took photos of the toilet at daycare (obviously with no kids) and showed the kids the photos at home and talked about how we pee and poo on the toilet at daycare

-Made up little social stories.

-We pushed for undies at daycare, not pullups. Look, I am of the opinion that a pullup is a nappy/diaper. I’m sorry. There’s no difference in feel for them.

-Made potties available in multiple rooms and also got a toilet seat reducer

-Got them some novelty foamy handwash

-Kept fucking going even though every fibre of my being wanted to give up.

-Recognised and praised them listening to their bodies, not just the poop or pee itself.

-Backed down when they started resisting (the hardest thing EVER). No constant reminders.

-Talked to daycare, talked to them again, talked to them again. Supported the teachers as best we could – eg we take the girls to the toilet at drop off.

-KEPT GOING. I felt it in my bones my kids were ready. If you doubt it, then take a break. But my kids were almost 3, and they were ready. I believed it.

What we didn’t do

-Reward charts or prizes or sweet treats. I know my kids. This wouldn’t work for them and they’d clock it immediately. You know your kid best and if they’re motivated by reward, it’s a great tool in the toolbox

-Put nappies on when we finally left the house. It’s convenient but it’s confusing. We packed clean up supplies, extra clothes etc and tried to time it as well as we could.

I think there’s also a huge mental mindgame for parents in this and I wanted to talk about this. I am very Type A and for the first time in parenting I felt that the amount of effort I put into it did not correlate with the amount of success. I found that so fucking hard to reconcile that I actually had to seek therapy. Not even kidding. What helped me was actually a tool I learnt in therapy which is called the circle of control. Google it. There are some things in your control, some things you can influence, and some things outside your control. I made a visual for myself. I can’t post it here but here’s a list of some of the things

Things I control

-A positive potty environment

-My attitude, facial expressions, language

-Whether I show them pottyganda and read to them

-Conversations with daycare and advocating for my kids

-My own will power.

-The research I consume.

-Providing fibrous foods

Things I influence

-Daycare hours and days for one day a week. I have a flexible job where I can influence the time they go to daycare on a Friday.

-The potty environment at daycare. I can make suggestions but cannot enforce them

-Emotions – I can respond to their emotions but I cannot stop them from feeling them.

-Foods that they consume – I can encourage consumption of fibrous foods but cannot control it.

Things out of my control

-Whether my kids pee/poo. It’s their body and I do not control it.

-Whether the pottyganda “sinks in”

-Whether they go to daycare at all. I need to provide for my family.

-Their rate of physiological development. I cannot make them become more aware of their body at a rate faster than they are able to.

-Daycare actions in the moment

-Their digestion

– how often they go

I hope this helps someone, anyone. May the poo gods be with you, I sure felt like they abandoned me for several months.

Medical info: My son was constipated for a while, did an ultrasound and x-rays. We have gone to the doctors and are on month 3 of MiraLAX. He never had poop accidents, only the constant need to pee every 15-30 minutes which prompted us to look into it and find he was constipated. He was backed up which was putting pressure on his bladder and he had said that he couldn't feel when he had to go. We have worked hard on listening to our body to help him recognize the signs and feelings and it seemed to be working. But now we are dealing with choosing to ignore his body and his need to pee and waiting til he cannot hold it and peeing himself. He has said and is aware when he has to pee and is actively choosing not to go. He will tell us when he first felt the need and that he knew he had to go but didn't want to stop playing or activity, but has no problem walking away to take care of this after it happens. My partner and I are stuck

We have been doing the following:
-We go potty every hour with a timer
-Have a potty chart that he helped create and can check mark off. We have offered a small reward (letter cookie) at the end of the day for celebrating him being dry.
- Not shaming when he does have a pee incident. We will ask if he could feel the pees before he had to go and most of the time he will tell us he knew he had to go 5 minutes before the accident. We just tell him we are proud he can feel his body and we will continue working on listening to his body by using the bathroom when he needs to. Then we move to cleaning up.
- When he does have an accident, we immediately stop what we are doing, use the shower, and he does his laundry to help promote him understanding that when we pee ourselves we need to clean up and keep our bodies clean.

Nothing seems to be helping move the progress of choosing to try to hold it. He loves doing his own laundry, loves taking a shower regardless and has no problem walking away from play to do so. He rarely gets juice and only drinks water and when he does drink juice we make sure to tell him to try after 30 minutes.

Any advice??

Is this “normal”? shes staying hydrated and we are trying to carch when she pees but used to poop like twice a day, now nothing since startingpotty training …

Let me start by saying we have a very independent son. Everything with him has to be a suggestion because if he is “told” to do anything he will absolutely not do it.

Day 1 we tried the Oh Crap method of prompting a sit on the potty every 45 minutes or so. We didn’t give him a choice and just said okay time to go sit on the potty. He did NOT take well to that at all. Every time we said okay he ran away and screamed and cried like he was afraid of it. He also had an accident immediately after each prompting.

Eventually we took a step back and switched to stickers and M&ms just to get him to sit on the potty. He had a few more accidents but eventually he did two big pees on the potty with the promise of a lollipop as a reward.

This morning the promise of rewards is not working. He just says no when we say if you sit on the potty and go peepee you get a candy. He just says no and walks away.

Eventually he did do a good pee on the potty just before nap time but it came after 2 small accidents and a lot of prompting and some resistance from him to stay sitting on the toilet to finish the pee. I’m just trying to figure out how to move forward. I want to be as consistent as possible but should we just let him yell and have the accidents or be on top of him? It’s very confusing when he isn’t consistent himself with his responses to our prompts or rewards. I honestly feel like I’m going a bit crazy.

we’ve started potty training, I keep him pretty much naked all day and every fifteen to thirty minutes I sit him on his potty seat. I bring bubbles to keep him on the potty long enough in hopes he will relieve himself, but no joke the second this kid steps off the potty he pees. I will tell him uh oh, you just peed, we pee on the potty in a happy tone so I don’t discourage him and try to help him correlate the bodily function to the bathroom. I’ve even tried using the bathroom myself and give myself praise in front of him to let him know it’s not scary and a good thing, I feel like a nut lol.
We’ve been at for about a week, I know it will take some time, but he does start montessori next month, and he doesn’t need to be fully potty trained until 3 but i’d really like to 1. make it easier for myself because he hates getting his diaper changed, and 2. make it easier for his teachers.
Should I be approaching this differently or what may be some things that helped you when potty training?

My 3.5-year-old daughter seems completely unbothered by peeing and pooping in her pants, and I’m at a complete loss. We first tried potty training a couple of months before she turned 3, but then a stomach bug went through our house. After that, she didn’t seem ready, and I didn’t want to push it because I’ve heard that can cause issues down the line.

She needed to be potty trained before starting preschool, and I figured a couple of months would be plenty of time since my oldest daughter was potty trained over a weekend and never looked back. 😅 However, my 3.5yo is still having accidents almost every other day she attends preschool (3 days a week).

It’s been 3 months since we ditched diapers, and she’s barely made any consistent progress. I feel like I’ve tried everything: naked days, timers, candy rewards, etc. She’ll seem to make progress and go a few days without accidents (although she usually still needs reminders to sit on the potty), but then it feels like we take two steps backward for every step forward. The next week, she’ll be having multiple pee and poop accidents a day.

For a few weeks, I thought she had finally figured out pooping on the potty - and was even doing it without prompting, which was so exciting! But now she’s had poop accidents two days in a row.

The biggest thing is that she seems SO unbothered by it. More than half the time, I’m the one who notices that her underwear or pants are wet.

Her preschool teacher has asked a couple of times whether we’ve talked to her doctor or ruled out a UTI. I guess I’m trying to figure out whether we just need to give this more time (I was honestly shocked when I realized it’s been 3 months, because it FEELS like twice that long 😅) or whether there could be something else going on.

Are there other signs of a UTI I should be looking for, or is it worth making a doctor’s appointment even without other symptoms? I’m not usually one to go to the doctor unless absolutely necessary, but when it comes to my kids, it’s hard to know what’s necessary and what isn’t.

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been in a similar situation or made it to the other side! Did your child eventually figure it out with more time, or did you discover something else was going on? Any advice is greatly appreciated!!

LG (she will be 3 January) has started potty training this week - she will sit on the potty, she knows that’s where wee goes etc. but she never actually wees. We did pants/trousers the first day and she had two accidents in the morning, dry nap time nappy and we tried no pants/trousers after nap and she had another accident in the evening (she was holding it until the physically couldn’t). Then waited until bedtime nappy to wee/poo.
Today we have done bottomless all day but she absolutely refuses to wee. She has been sitting on the potty every 90 minutes or so fine, but won’t do anything. Have tried books, blowing bubbles but nothing worked. We were playing a tickle game and a bit of wee came out and she got really upset about it and stopped herself from doing any more.
We tried a bath before nap time and she clearly needed to wee but she just wouldn’t (to the point of physically holding herself). I don’t know how to help her feel relaxed enough to wee, I’m trying to be as calm as I can but finding it difficult when she is causing herself so much distress - I know it’s a new feeling etc etc but I don’t know what to do. Should we stop? Or will the problem just be the same further down the line? Or do we keep going and hope she feels better about it soon?
Any advice is welcome, thank you!

my son is 3 next month and i am just losing all faith. he needs to be potty trained for january, starting nursery and he just has no interest in it.

his twin was potty trained within a couple of months after starting at age 2, and i don’t compare them at all but it’s starting to really frustrate me.

he refuses to go to the toilet, and thinks it’s funny to say no to me.

he knows he is doing it, as some days he will go to the toilet.

i’ve bought those nappy training pants which he wears everyday. i’ve bought a mini urinal. i’ve tried going pantless. reward chart.

he’s just not interested in any of it at all!

My daughter just turned 18 months recently and we have been wanting to potty train since end of summer. She has had persistent yeast infection diaper rashes due to moisture, and before you ask, yes we do diaper free time, yes we did a million rounds of nystatin, yes we had her try to sleep without a diaper, yes we even used oral fluconazole course. It gets better every time, and then within a week of it being gone & stopping nystatin or other things, it comes back every single time. It has been months. I don’t think we are supposed to use nystatin forever.

My daughter was showing some basic early signs of readiness so we got her a potty and she practices sitting on it. We watch Ms Rachel and Sesame Street shows about potty training. Her daycare offers her potty time during the day.

We want to try the 1 week naked at home thing, so what better time than the holidays, since both parents work full time office jobs. We can be fully home during the holiday season, and she’ll be 20 months officially by then.

Would it be possible to do? We bought a handheld carpet shampooer for our one rug we can’t move, but other than that the floor is all hard flooring so it should be easy cleanup…

My son is 3 (birthday in August). We have tried three (this is the 3rd) times to potty train starting at 2. First time he didn’t seem ready and then the second time we wanted to take a break.

He has had trouble with pooping for as long as I can remember. He will turn bright red and hold in his poops for as long as possible. Most of the time poop gets on his butt but it’s like the poop was sucked back in lol.

We have tried fiber supplements, miralax, enemas, juice, literally everything I feel like. He CAN poop but it’s only been a handful of times where he actively does it.

We have taken him to the doctor twice and they say just keep giving him miralax and taking him to the potty at intervals throughout the day even if doesn’t need to poop.

He will not poop even in a diaper. I don’t know what to do but my whole life is revolving around him pooping. I am so tired.

I would put him back in diapers but then I’m stuck changing diapers 5 times a day because he leaves streaks in them that smell so bad.

Help.

looking for some advice here - my son turned 3 in august and is in preschool 2.5 hours a day for the last 3 months - he was potty trained in july and we never had issues with accidents except first 2 days of potty training. well he’s been having often accidents where he pees himself now almost few times a week. we talked about it many times and he actually didn’t have any accidents for a few weeks but now it started again, today he actually had two. English is not his first language so he can’t communicate well as other kids but i taught him how to say it and he knows. The problem is that he doesn’t want to miss out on anything and doesn’t want to stop playing/leave playground to go pee. Today when i picked him up I feel like his teacher was kinda frustrated and suggested i bring him in pull ups tomorrow. I don’t know if that’s the best idea because will he regress? I understand they can’t keep changing him but i am kinda at a loss what to do? I am talking with my son about it a lot and really trying my best to explain to him but i am scared pull ups won’t resolve anything?

Hi guys, I've come to believe this is my only solution. I've been at potty training for half year and my 2 year old knows the process, say he poops every time, but will not say he pees and does not care he's wet. He's in underwear all day but I go through five pairs of pants everyday. I'm over it.

He gets very little sugar on the regular, but he absolutely loves it when he does. So what's your bribe system? Do I offer it with every pee in the potty in the beginning and then only when he initiates? How much to offer? I don't want him to eat a lot of sugar because he's already highly energetic, and how and when do I wean this habit off?

Thank you!

Potty training really intimidates me for some reason. I work full time, so does my husband, and my MIL watches our toddler along with multiple other younger children. None of the kids are potty trained yet. My son is the oldest at 25 months.

My son also attends 2 year old preschool for half days, but they do not help with potty training there — they’ve said they’re happy to take him to the potty if he asks to go, but they don’t have the available staff to take him to the potty every 20 minutes. However, he must be potty trained by 3 in order to move on to the next class.

We’ve tried (and failed) at potty training twice. First, at 20 months, he refused to sit on the potty. The 2nd time, at 2 exactly, we tried to train him using pull ups but he just treated them as a diaper. We feel like we need to move right to undies, or the naked method, but are struggling with how to do this with him being in so many different childcare situations.

We’re planning to try over Thanksgiving when he can be with me for 5 days straight since I do not work over the holiday weekend, but how do we handle this when he returns to his regular schedule of home, school, and then grandma’s house? I know we can’t be the only ones dealing with potty training when your toddler is out of the house a lot. Help!

I have a 2.5-year-old who we started potty awareness with when she was about 14 months. She sat on the potty and peed (not always, and not always intentionally), but she was doing great. When she turned 2, we decided, let's pull the plug and go all in. We did the pantsless method over a 4-day weekend; she did great, no accidents ever as long as she was naked. At the time, she was in a small in-home daycare. We got a potty for her and switched her to underwear for a few weeks (her own choice). She had mixed success; they were taking her every 30 minutes to an hour, but at one point she started to refuse to go, and our provider (who I loved) told us they preferred her in pull-ups because she was having accidents and obviously they didn't want pee/poop all over their house. Okay, fine. So we went to pull-ups, and soon after, she started refusing the potty there completely; she just wouldn't go, and they stopped pushing as they didn't think she was ready. The second she got home, the pull-up would come off, and she used the toilet no problem. The second we put her in underwear, though, it's accident after accident. Fast forward to her starting preschool. Preschool seemed like they'd be on board; they have a toilet in the classroom and said they work with kids who are learning. They told me they take them on a schedule. We started her at preschool in pull-ups, and after a few weeks, we decided to do another pantless weekend reset, no pull-ups, underwear in and out of the house. She did great. We sent her to preschool with underwear that following week. By Wednesday of that week, they told us that if she was still having accidents by Friday, they were putting her back in pull-ups. They also don't seem to be prompting her or taking her on a schedule. They say she won't go when they ask.

So now, she is still pantsless at home, pull-ups at daycare, and I am convinced she just is never going to learn. No clue what to do at this point. Do I just stop and let her rock pull-ups, or do I try to keep pushing for underwear? I don't want her sitting or having accidents constantly at school. I can't really take off a full week to get her to learn how to go in underwear. Any advice/encouragement. Is she just not ready? Like, I know she is because she had a period where she anger-peed on things when she was pantless at home, so she clearly has control over her bladder and has never had a poop accident either in underwear, on the floor, or anywhere but the toilet. She is actually great about poop-prompting; it's more pee she struggles with. It's like if we put her in underwear, she just doesn't even think to go pee. At school, it seems like even though she knows where poop and pee go and knows the feelings in her body, she doesn't want to stop playing to do it. Please help; I'm worried she is just never going to get it.

We’ve been potty training for 6 months and it feels like all it’s done is train ME. He’s in underwear, 95% of pee and poop goes in the potty but only because (a) he has developed a bladder of steel and can hold pee for 3+ hrs, basically until a scheduled potty time, and (b) i’m very good at grabbing him just in time when pooping and/or scheduling poop time when we try 5-10m before bed and nap

He has definitely had accidents and he doesn’t like them (total meltdown, and for days after when i mention like “oh, we don’t want to get poop in your underwear”) but it hasn’t translated into asking to use the potty. He’s way too upset to ask him to help wash the underwear etc. I don’t shame accidents in any way.

He does have a vague sense of the poop feeling, because when I see him needing it I ask 3-4 times if he needs to poop and he says no 3 times and yes the fourth time. And there have been some random poop initiations that turn out to be gas, so he gets the idea.

Maybe mildly constipated sometimes but nothing significant, has absolutely no problem pooping on the potty. I even tried MiraLAX once just to see and it made him constantly poop small amounts all day without being able to control it so no thank you. It does tend to take him 5+ minutes to poop, but suspect that’s more a timing issue since it’s usually me getting him on the potty, not following his internal feelings.

He just turned 2.5.

I keep seeing “take a break” but I don’t know how that would work after 6 months of almost always using the potty?

My son is 2.5 yrs old. We started potty training 6 weeks ago. We did a version of the oh crap method, starting over a long weekend. He is having 2-3 accidents a day, so we are thinking it might be time to hit the pause button and try again in a month or so.

He does better when he is naked from the waist down, but we can only do that at home. He is in daycare 3 days a week and having just as many accidents there. We (both at home and daycare) make him sit on the potty at 1.5-2 hr intervals. Sometimes its a fight and distressing and sometimes he complies. But he often doesn't pee when he is on it and then will have an accident 20-30 mins after sitting on the potty.

He isn't able to identify the pee feeling yet. He usually tells us mid accident that he is peeing or will come tell us if we arent right there. Poop is also hit or miss. If he is bare bottomed, he will always go poop in his potty. But if he has underwear or pants on he will often go in his underwear.

Daycare has not said directly that we should pause, but they have made some comments about his progress and asking us what we want to do. We are exhausted with dealing with so many accidents and its not fun for him either. Not sure how to decide if we should keep pushing or just hit pause, give us a break and try again in a month or so.

Has anyone paused training and picked it back up later? Would love to hear your experience.