Dd wants to wear underwear but soils them every time

[NicaG]

My dd is 2.5. She understands what the potty is for, and she can pee there if asked. Lately she sometimes decides she wants to wear underwear. Fine. We work on practicing using the potty. But then she pees in them. Fine, we clean it up and talk about using the potty next time. But then she does it again and again. How do I communicate positively that this is not what underwear is for? She seems to see underwear as a fashion alternative to diapers, not a lifestyle change.

The worst is that she poops in the underwear, and then sneaks away and takes them off and doesn't tell me. So then I smell something but I can't figure out where it is, and when I get to it it's all over the rug, the couch, whatever. I am 14 weeks pregnant and still sick all the time, and now my house smells like poop and I just want to cry. I am just so fed up with the potty learning! What can I do here? I know some people suggest going into the backyard and practicing without underwear, but we have too many neighbors close by, and it's not warm enough yet. I toilet trained my ds, but we never had this problem. Is dd too young? Any help would be much appreciated.

[Chloe'sMama]

sorry mama, sounds stressful.  If it was me and i was pregnant, i would just say no for now.  sounds like she is not ready and it makes more work for you.  Every child is ready at different times.  At 2.5 she should be able to understand the concept, so she may not be physically ready.

Good luck mama

[crunchy_mommy]

DS does the same thing... even though he has great understanding where he's "supposed' to go and knows when he needs to go... so we just hid the underwear and kind of discourage it right now (occasionally we'll let him wear it if he REALLY wants to but most of the time he can be easily dissuaded)... I figure he's just not emotionally ready or something and we'll try again later... no need to make extra work or stress for either of us...

[sapphire_chan]

If she resists using diapers, how about putting the undies on over her diaper? (buy the next size up if you need to)

Depending on how many neighbors are home during the day sitting right there watching your yard, you're probably going to be fine if you let her go out in just a dress.

[craft_media_hero]

With my dd, I held off panties as a big "big girl" milestone and really built it up to her but wouldn't do the switch til she was going poop in the potty. So we stuck with diapers and pulled them down to go pee (which she did pretty consistently, but not poo), and when she'd go peepee in the potty, we'd talk about how once she started going poop in the potty, she'd be able to wear big girl real panties. It's good that she wants to wear them--that's a motivating factor! Then once she started going poo in the potty, we made a big deal about switching to big girl panties and how they are special and that we don't want them to get peepee or poo on them. I would not hand out the panties for a while but kind of prep her (through discussion) for what has to happen in order to get into those so special underwear, and just keep talking about it when she goes peepee, when she's doing that consistently, start aiming to get the #2s in the toilet and THEN!  congratulate her with switching to undies with the understanding that they're special and not to be pooped in.

Just give it some time  maybe hide them for a while.

[crunchy_mommy]

craft_media_hero -- that's exactly what I did with DS, except somehow it was a massive failure. I must've done it wrong somehow lol. Oh well...

[lifeguard]

When we made the switch to underwear it was 100%. I spent 3 days running to the bathroom 25 times with a dripping boy. It was not fun. But I would literally bring him to the toilet & sit him on it & remind him he needed to pee on the potty every time he peed (even though he was already done at that point). After the first 3 days it was about another 2 weeks before he was really reliable (but after 3 days he seemed to figure out how to hold it for longer which helped significantly).

I NEVER made a big deal about it. I was just super calm. "Oh, oh. Quick, let's go to the potty" & brought him upstairs to the bathroom.

With the poopy underwear - have you had her help you clean them up? As in, pick them up off the floor & bring to the toilet to be rinsed? No shaming or getting angry or upset, simply, "Oh no, what a mess we have hear, come help me clean it up." And then while washing them out a reminder that we poop on the potty.

During our potty learning time (& anytime we have a little regression) I reminded ds about a hundred times a day to tell me if he needed to poop or pee. I tried REALLY hard to not ask if he needed to (he would always say no anyway) so that it built the attitude that I trusted him to know his body & tell me when he needed to go.

[craft_media_hero]

Originally Posted by crunchy_mommy 

craft_media_hero -- that's exactly what I did with DS, except somehow it was a massive failure. I must've done it wrong somehow lol. Oh well...

Crunchy, I don't know *shrug* it worked for my one girl child, but I am already totally freaked at the prospect of potty learning with my 9month old son! I have no idea if I just go lucky and hit the potty jackpot with her or what---we spent a really long time pulling down diapers and peeing and then once it was poop in the potty, we just switched to undies 100% and never went back. She has never had an accident unless sick or already on her way to the toilet. I think we just happened to seize the right moment when she was actually really really ready. Seriously, could be a totally different story with ds, though!

[elisheva]

My ds2 just went through something similar at 2.5. I would leave him nakey at home (he prefers this anyway) and would have him wear a pull-up out - lucky for me he accepted this without much fight. We called them "rocket pants". Sometimes we put the undies on over the rocket pants if he was really insistent.