3 yo refuses to even try using potty

[flatstanley72]

My 3 yo DD absolutely refuses to ever try using the potty. She knows when she needs to go and knows how to use the potty, just doesn't want to. She was interested before baby brother was born (he is now 6 months), but now will not do it. I don't know if I should just wait and eventually she will be ready and want to do it or if I should try to encourage her more. I really don't like the idea of sticker charts, reward systems, etc., but have wondered if maybe I should try something like that. She just seems to have no motivation to do it on her own.

[NCmama]

I have no advise. I am going through the exact same thing! I finally started not letting him wear pullups or underwear and he would go as long as he was naked. But now he has a meltdown if I don't put underwear on him, but will only pee in them. But i am holding steady to "no pullups during the day". I figure he'll have to eventually get tired of wet underwear. hopefully...

[gretelmom]

Exact same thing with my DS when baby was born. Best advice I got was "relax, he won't go to kindergarten in diapers". We were such over reactors we even took him to a pediatric urologist a month before he turned 4. Of course he was FINE. Doctor said, "take the pressure off, relax, he's fine". The week before he turned 4 he said "Let's go to the mall. I'll wear underpants and use the potty and then you'll buy me a toy!" And that's exactly what we did. No accidents or anything for months. ANd trust me, he NEVER wanted underpants or to pee in the potty before that moment. Sticker charts and treats never worked, I tried them reluctantly, but knew my kid and he doesn't work like that.

Keep the potty out in the open, ask gently if she'd like to go, and honor her choice not to. If she's almost 4 and still refuses, then you can talk to doctor, but don't stress.

[rachelernst.com]

That which you resist persists. This was the law of potty training for us, both a first born boy and younger girl. THE key in both cases to helping it along was spending long periods of time (think whole day play date, just hanging out at a home) with older kids about age 5-7 who were going all on their own. The older kid just got up and went on their own. This was cool to the younger one and gave them the desire to do it.

Other than that my basic advice is:
1. Toilet LEarning is an entire process involving becoming self-conscious and wanting privacy (oh, they'll want to use the toilet themselves by age 5!) plus hygeine. When frustrated, I focused on hygeine rather than on whether or not they put poop or pee IN the toilet. Hand washing, soaps, counting to 20 while they wash, Other details in the process, repeat repeat.
2. Honoring autonomy in all areas of life whenever possible. Giving tall stool for the sink and easy to use soaps, etc.
3. switch to pull ups and underwear whenever possible. Favorites are Hanna Andersson training underwear with 4 layers of cotton.
4. Enzymatic cleaner such as Kids N Pets or Natures Miracle
5. Underwear and naked whenever possible. Don't worry about all the times that you put a pull up on them. This didn't seem to factor in to the overall learning pattern... they pee in them when you're at the store and such. They hide and pee in them. But, if you give SOME chances to practice in LOW STRESS eventually they start to get it.
4. Reminding ahead of time - "The potty is right here so if you feel the pee coming you can RUN to the potty!" I rarely reminded my DD or asked her to go.
5. Visiting the bathroom at the stores, at least once per trip.
6. For my son, he is in Kindergarten and has a box of flushable wipes in his bag. We reviewed the procedure for using at school with explanation of how they are not to be shared and if anyone uses them we have to throw them away and get a new one, so he must put them back in his bag, etc. etc. (he has total ownership of the whole process and I never even discussed it with his teacher--this eliminated one roadblock for him not wanting to go to school). He liked the wipes all along. I think one early roadblock involved him wanting to be clean so he avoided the toileting process. I explained many times that he would be cleaner if he would poop directly into the toilet and I pointed out numerous times how much easier it was to clean his bottom when it wasn't poop in pants. One indicator of this kind of fear for him was that he was always clean with his hands and didn't want to get them dirty. This type of fear is instilled with our talk of germs. I've identified that when we talk about germs we should focus on not how BAD the germs are but that germs make us sick but there are WAYS of getting rid of them--focus on how to get rid of them. Point out what is obvious to us... that the germs get washed down the sink and they are sticky so you have to use the soap and water and count to 20. It's okay to get germs on when we wipe because then we wash our hands and they are *all gone! Germs like to travel around on things so we have to wash them even if we only pee, because we touched the flush handle. (This led to him flushing the toilet at home with his foot and declaring that his hands didn't have germs so he doesn't have to wash. I totally let that one go because he was applying logic that I gave him! But, he can't do this in public restrooms because the germs are on the doors, the shopping cart, etc. so it's time to wash them down the drain.)

Try to get inside your child's mind and understand this scary process from his viewpoint. We take so much information for granted that they don't know. Little things we say scare them. They are supposed to form their own Self at this age and they are compelled to oppose us if we are pressuring them. Let the pressure off in all areas as much as possible, explain when you need to, and they will learn when they have the desire to do it.


My first boy we stressed over, with me vacillating between coercion and trying to take it as it comes. Dad would make comments and I would react. Finally, I decided I had to let go and at age 4 started to not care what Dad said and focus on myself and how I dealt with it most of the time. He didn't do it until a vacation with cousins when he was 4, and it took until age 4.5 for it to be no accidents (there were times when he would pee outside and woops there came the poop.) There was also a lot of backlash from the early coercion attempts and he went through a phase for more than 6 months or a year where he would get aggressive or hyper just before he would need to poop--and I had to guess whether this was because of poop or just because kids get hyper sometimes. And, even then he was "late" but he did it all at once considering he was also learning the nighttime dryness and got out of nighttime diapers before age 5. So, there again, it's not just about daytime underwear, but if the process is stressful, nighttime can continue to be a chore. Don't cause the stress during day and he may do it all at once like this... or not. Either way, the stress is worse than the "delay."

I was able to allow my DD to learn in a very low key way with NO rewards or punishments and very little praise (mostly praised her in low key when she said "I did it!". I stated the results simply, like "Oh, now your pants are still clean and dry and mama doesn't have to clean up a mess. I like not having to clean up poop off the floor.") I notice that my kids like to have me acknowledge things (facts) and "Oh, okay!" and I'm a trained minimalist in this area. :-)

[Zing]

I agree that rewards are not the way to go. She definitely sounds bored with the process. Bring enthusiasm back to going potty.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Add a few drops of blue food coloring to potty. Have her think about what color her pee is. Then discuss what blue mixed with yellow makes. Let her try.

Just an idea. Many parents have shared great success with these tactics. Hope it works for you too.

Emily Geizer
www.childperspective.com

[Girlprof]

If she's only 3 and has a new baby in the house, I would just stop trying. Stop talking about it. Diapers all the way. She doesn't sound at all interested at the moment and until she is, it's probably going to be more difficult than it needs to be.

Our DS didn't potty train until 3.5. We got a fair amount of outside pressure to do something about it, but he just wasn't interested. I did eventually buy some underwear and told him that was available whenever he was interested. One day he said he wanted to wear underwear. We had a day full of accidents. A day full of LOTS of time spent on the potty. And that was it. He insisted he was ready to be dry at night too and much to my surprise, he was.

Of course, every kid is different, but for us, I don't want to mess around with reminding them to go, spending lots of time and energy negotiating and cleaning up, etc. Late and fast is our motto!

One thing that his daycare teachers had worked on was having him learn how to get his own pants up and down. For us, that was a good intermediary stage. Still in diapers, but he did some of the work and got practice with dressing/undressing.

[alfabetsoup]

Originally Posted by Girlprof

Late and fast is our motto!

That is a great motto! We had a couple of false starts with DD1--every time she wore underpants she would just pee in them and she didn't care. So I just gave it up and kept her in pull-ups. Then we watched the Little Mermaid (bad mommy emoticon). She was 3y2m.

The next pack of pull-ups happened to have Ariel on half and Cinderella on the other half. DD1 only wanted to wear the Ariel ones, so once they were all gone, I gave her the choice of Cinderella or a cloth diaper. She ran away shrieking NO NO NO CINDERELLA NO NO NO NAPPY! And that was that. For about a week we stayed in the house and did the bare bottom thing. When we did go out, she wore a dress and underpants and we went to the mall where they have child-sized toilets. She was charmed to go on the teeny-tiny toilets and it was a very successful trip. She's had very few pee accidents since, and it's been about 5 months. She's even dry at night!

Poop was another issue and we did do some bribes but things are really good now. I thought it would never happen and she would be the only kid in kindergarten still in pull-ups!

[philomom]

Can you find someone's trained four year old to have over for a few days. I know you have a new baby... but this is what my mom did with my brother. Once he saw the older boy using the potty.. it was suddenly the thing to do.. my mother never had to say another word.

[Bokonon]

My son was the same way. He wasn't interested at all at home, though he wore pull-ups to school and would pee there. He wasn't pee-trained until about a month after his 4th birthday, and wasn't poo-trained until about a month after that. The trick for getting him to finally poop in the potty was bubbles - I blew bubbles in the bathroom while he was sitting on the toilet and had to poop, and it was really fun for him. So finally saw that it didn't hurt to go poop on the potty, and he never asked to put on a pull-up to poop in again.

But I agree - the more you push it, the less they want to do it!