Gently stop toddler's bedtime delay tactics?

[themothership]

My 23 month old DD is day time potty trained, and mostly dry at night despite nursing 1+ times during the night.
Recently she has begun saying she needs to pee after we do our full bedtime routine and turn the lights out (book, nursing, brushing teeth, peeing on the potty, putting on nighttime "panties" training pants). I don't want to ignore her and tell her she doesn't need to go potty because she just went, but when I do take her she doesn't go again despite sitting on the potty for up to 15 minutes, and she screams and cries when I try to take her back to the bedroom to be put to sleep. Once she calms down (usually after I tell her that she will throw up if she continues crying/screaming) she goes to sleep easily.

Is there a gentle way to enforce a "we can sit on the potty for X minutes and then it is bedtime" type of thing? or are there any other suggestions?

[Smilesarefree]

Hi, frustrating isn't it?!  I went through the same kind of thing with dd, and I felt the same way as you, I couldn't ignore her request for the potty even when I knew she didn't really have to go.  I would take her but tell her that she could sit on the potty until I or she counted to 10, or I'd let her pick a song and once I was done singing she had to go back to bed.  At first she'd still fuss a bit when I made her get off but no screaming and eventually she knew that once the song was done or whatever it was time to get off.

Trying to get her to understand that once the bedtime ritual was done and she was in bed that she couldn't go to the potty anymore took a lot of patience and explaining to her over and over and over night after night until she finally got it. We'd go potty right before bed and I would explain to her that she just went and so shouldn't need to go again of course she kept asking and I continued to take her until eventually she stopped asking.  This took probably a month or more, maybe 2 and some nights I wanted to pull my hair out.  Some nights when she'd asked I was able to distract her by doing something silly and she'd forget, but that didn't happen too often.

[cristeen]

How about putting the little potty next to her bed?  When she asks to go again, let her go on that potty with the lights still out and still in her bedroom instead of turning on lights and traipsing to the bathroom. 

[GoddessKristie]

Originally Posted by cristeen 

How about putting the little potty next to her bed?  When she asks to go again, let her go on that potty with the lights still out and still in her bedroom instead of turning on lights and traipsing to the bathroom. 

We did this with our DS. The entire time he was potty training and until he was about 2.5 or 3 he had a potty in his room. That was what he used at night and that was much less interesting than going all the way to the bathroom, turning on the light, etc etc. It didn't seem to be too much of a distraction at bed time.