Potty training issue!!

[audibear78]

My son is 2 1/2 and has been potty trained for over a month now. He even stays dry at night! However, all of a sudden yesterday he tells me he has to go pee-pee and when we get to the bathroom he won't go. He just stops and say's "no pee-pee", so I don't force him to try because I don't want him to fear the potty. He is literally wiggling and dancing and totally has to go but won't go. He'll ask a million times to go pee-pee an then when we get to the bathroom he says no and changes his mind or he'll sit on the potty for a second and then stand-up and say "no pee-pee". Last night when I was putting him to bed he kept doing the same thing and still wouldn't go so I put him to bed....then he started screaming and by the time I got to his room he had peed all the way down to his socks. He was crying and saying yucky so I didn't make a big deal out of it and cleaned him up and said we would put dry underwear on him and that made him feel better and he went to bed.

Skip to this morning....he gets up and is doing the same thing again. I feel badly for him because he looks like he is in pain wiggling all around the living room, but he won't use the potty and he won't go in his pants.

Any ideas as to why the sudden change? Could he have a UTI? He doesn't have a fever and is not complaining of and back pain.

TIA!

SEE UPDATE BELOW

[sapphire_chan]

Could you see if he'd "just sit" on the potty and read stories together?

Maybe he's letting his bladder get a bit too full and that's making sitting uncomfortable? As in, he puts off going pee to play and then really really really needs to go so much that it's hard to relax and let it out? Could you encourage him to go at regular intervals for awhile until he's past this stage?

All else fails, how does he feel about baths? Nothing like some warm water to get things flowing as it were.

[PatchChild]

I'd also remind him of what happened the night before. He didn't like that he got pee all over himself and his bed. Remind him of that and explain how not peeing during the day led to that.

[audibear78]

I try to get him to sit and he won't for more than a second or two. We have books in the bathroom because he likes to look at them when he has to poop but he is not interested at all.

I reminded him about last night and said "remember, you want to stay dry" and he totally gets it and I think that's why he keeps it in".

On another note....He is circumsized an I did notice that around the glans, it is a little irritated. He was slightly adhesed the last time I took him to the pediatrician and she told me that it woul naturally pull back on its own when he started getting erections at night....maybe that happened and now he's confusing the irritation with painful urination?? I'm pulling at straws here but I can't seem to figure this one out.

[sapphire_chan]

Pop him in the tub. If it is feeling like it's painful to pee the warm water'll be soothing.

Or figure out something majorly distracting, like standing to pee at targets or drawing on snow.

[audibear78]

Update!!

so I followed your suggestions and put him in the shower (he prefers the shower over a bath). He peed in th shower no problem and wasn't in any pain but then he started to wiggle again and I realized he had to poop. He didn't want to go but I told him it was ok and put his potty in there. He went a little and again, wasn't in any pain but he didn't want to go.

So....he must have been holding his pee beacause he had to poop so badly and didn't want to go. Now, why doesn't he want to go poop??? It doesn't hurt him....It's clearly psychological.

Any thoughts as to why he's holding it in??

[sapphire_chan]

Could he be mildly constipated? Up his water intake, offer some prune juice or dried apricots, and see if that helps. The fact he got any out and isn't in much pain means you've probably caught it in time to avoid a cycle of withholding.

[Shami]

If I thought it was psychological, I'd try and figure out ways to make pottying so much fun. Do things that he rarely gets to do. My dd loved blowing bubbles while on the potty.

Maybe find things that are to be done only with supervision and while he sits you supervise the activity. I'm thinking of things like a jewlery box that he's not allowed to play with, or, in my case, daddy's little dish of what nots on the dresser. Screws with nuts and bolts to screw on and screw off. A candle in a muffin or a bagel to sing happy birthday and blow out, many times over.
These may sound crazy, but I would do anything to avoid some of the nightmare stories I've heard here on MDC.
Hope he gets over it soon!

[atreyyena]

I think you should also check for pin worms, they're not a pleasant idea but they can cause a feeling of having to go cause they're down there, but the child doesn't actually have to go. They will also cause incontinence for that reason, and will cause pooping problems too.

just a thought.

[amberskyfire]

Can he stand to pee yet? One thing my mother did with my little brother that he loved was to put a step stool in front of the big potty. Then she would put a Cheerio in the toilet and he would aim for the Cheerio. It sounds silly, but it worked