Sudden refusal to sit on potty

[livinlovinlaughin]

I am curious what you would do...

A very smart 23month old started asking to use the potty. After a couple successful trips to the potty, all diapers were gone. Wearing cloth training pants day and night this smart little boy took to the potty right away and was not having any accidents after a couple days. After a couple weeks he woke up one day and decided he would refuse to sit on the potty. This is day 3 of creative tactics. Nothing is working. He knows what he is doing. He knows he should go on the potty. Caregivers have remained calm and patient.

Ideas of possible reasons for him refusing to sit on the potty: 1. He got his first fever the week before accompanied by a stuffy/runny nose. But he continued to potty and had no accidents. The day he started refusing was once he was over the bug he had. 2. The day before he woke up and refused, his potty leaked pee all over the floor and he was very upset while he was going even though caregivers told him is was ok and remained calm. 3. I really think he is very smart and is testing his caregivers.

The question is, how would you proceed? How would you get this LO back on track? How would you get him to simply sit on the potty again?

I must add, I am a firm believer in, once the diapers are gone they are gone.

[MamaPhD]

We are kinda in a same boat. DD is almost 23 mo and she successfully peed in the potty 2-3 times in the beginning of her self-initiated PL. Now after a couple of weeks of casual PL/naked time, she knows she has to go, holds it, but will not sit on the potty, big or small (we have 3). She ends up peeing on the floor or holds until she asks for (or I convince her to put on) a diaper, then goes. Then she tells me diaper is wet and pulls if off.

I believe in DD-led PL, so I am encouraging her to try the potty again with lots of cheering and reading/talking about it. But if she is not ready, then she is not ready. Now she knows when she has to pee/poop, and I think that is an important milestone. I think it's similar to when a child starts to walk, but will still crawl some of the time. I can't imaging saying to a toddler, well, you're not allowed to crawl any more now that you walked for x hours yesterday and I know you can do it.

I don't believe in bribing especially with food. A lof of people told me about giving M&Ms for PL and I just disagree with that idea in several ways. Sorry, I guess I'm not helping! I'm curious what ideas other people have so I can learn as well. But for now, I'm just letting DD lead the way and being patient.

[DeerMother]

I did bribe with m and ms. : hiding

dd initiated pl at 21 months and honestly, it was a breeze. At 28-29 months she would often refuse to go. At that age, I was still reminding her. Some times I thought she was refusing bc she needed to poop. Other times I think she just didn't want to stop playing. She rarely ( maybe 1-2 times) had an accident. I was more concerned bc she wasn't going and that doesn't feel good.

So jar of m and m's went in the bathroom. She got one after she went. The phase lasted a couple of months. Now she tells me when she needs to go and she goes without treats. Dd had never had candy before, so this was huge for her. I also didn't want to go back to diapers and felt it would be shaming her if I forced her to wear one. She became very sensitive about even cloth trainers.

[meemee]

with many kids who pt early they go thru a regression period.

mine did.

has your child gone thru an imagination spurt. suddenly v. imaginative? the other side of imagination is fear of things - like the flushing of toilets will suck you away too. for my dd it was the drain in the bathtub.

made a game with dd to race to teh bathroom to go. whoever made it first gets to sit on teh potty. our rules were different at home than dc. at dc she had to get used to the changes as she changed to a new dc and continued for a little while.

at home it was all games. and reminders. huge reminders. at the park dd didnt object too much. she happily went there so we went there regularly.

also it took me a while to realise she HATED the kids potty. she wanted to sit on the big potty with her ring.

[tangledblue]

Same thing here. DD did great for a month and then lots of accidents. Much better now.

Things that seem to be working:

-Letting DD have as much control as possible--e.g. reminding her to go & offering help but not pushing it.
-Giving advance notice: "We need to leave to go to the zoo soon and we have to use the potty before we leave." (Go to the bathroom before leaving the house yourself as an example).
-Or phrasing it as a simple sequence of events, especially if you're sure he has to go, like if he drank a glass of juice 45 min ago: "Ok, we'll have lunch in a few minutes after you use the potty."
-Being super duper enthusiastic when he uses the potty
-Using a puppet or doll to have a dialogue: "I need to use the potty! Do you need to use the potty? Hey, where is the potty, anyway?" etc. This usually dislodges the resistance.
-Special books for her to "read" or be read to while on potty
-Getting to use an animal stamp on a piece of paper afterwards--really, we're using this as more of reward for handwashing since she's decided she doesn't like that anymore--we don't use the stamps on a chart or anything, it's purely the reward of choosing & using the stamp that she likes. We have a set of Melissa & Doug--8 small animal stamps with 4 colors of nontoxic ink.


HTH!