Potty Training 2 1/2 Yr Old Again?

Have you tried putting big girl undies on and then the pullups over them. This way she will feel being wet, but without the mess.

She may not be ready yet...you might want to give her some time and try again. Also, you can ask the teachers at daycare to help you out with this. Good luck.

Totally normal! As my doctor told me when my daughter did the same thing: "The thrill is gone" What I did was put her in pull-ups (I know they are expensive) until she got interested again and then when she consistently WANTED to use the potty I put her in big girl panties. Also what helped was a sticker chart. Every time she went on the potty I let her put a sticker on a chart I had made. No big reward after a certain number of stickers - just the fun of doing it herself.

Let her lead you - she'll know when she's ready and it will be easier then.

Oh My -- how frustrating for you! My 2 oldest were similar -- so I can appreciate your frustration!! The only thing I can think is that she just wasn't ready. I know, I know -- but my 2 faked me out and then weren't potty trained until 3. The upside? NEVER had accidents once they were 100% ready. Good luck!

I not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but my daughter is the same age and was using the potty fine when we had a potty chart next to the toilet that she got a sticker on whenever she went potty- when the chart was done we quit doing it and then she quit going potty- we brought the potty chart back and she has not had an accident at all every since. We also tell her whenever she goes potty that it make Mommy and Daddy happy and now she says that whenever she goes. I dont know if you are interested in the potty chart but there are free ones on the web that you can download and print. Best of luck.

Somtimes I think that if you start too early it will backfire and/or cause serious frustrations.

I speak from experience =).

Young children aren't lazy, so to speak. If they do not do something, there is a developmental reason as to why. She isn't ready just yet. Give it another month. There is huge growth and differences that occur in just a month in 2 year olds. Also enlist the help of daycare. They should be really good (and patient) and that will help.

Good luck. It is not easy!

A.

Did you ask her why she doesnt want to use the potty? Did you tell her that if she wants to go to nursery school like the other big kids she has to use a potty? From my 3 I found out that breaking training as it were was at the root of another issue not that they didnt understand or were incapable.

Hi D.,

You might want to try thick cloth training pants with waterproof outer layer, or just plain old plastic pants like you'd use for cloth diapers over her panties. This will give some protection for furniture, etc (but not contain a full drenching pee) while still giving her the message that if she pees, she's going to have a wet bottom. Also, at this age, many kids do not tell their parents when they need to use the toilet, that is often the last step in the training process. I'd be sure to take her every hour or hour and a half, don't ask her if she wants to or has to, just take her and eventually if she wants to avoid the wet bottom, she'll start holding it til you take her

Good luck!

This sounds like EXACTLY what is happening with my 2 year old. She took to the potty very well at 18 months...and now that she is 2yo + 3mos she is back sliding to peeing in her pull up, and not even telling us! I feel like we are having to start all over again.

I don't think you are wrong to use the pull ups. I clean up pee off the furniture/floor as many times as I can tollerate or have time for without loosing my temper and then I say "I guess we'll just have to put a pull up on you". Its frustrating but I don't want to chance loosing my temper and turning her off to the potty forever.

It is a HUGE relief to me to know that my daughter isn't the only one doing this. I guess potty trainng is a long term thing.

Put some big girl undrwear on her and try rubber pants over them. It will be uncomfortable for her when she pees in them and it wont get on your floor. It is very normal for your daughter to go through this my daughter started potty training at 18 months and was doing really well, then just stopped and we tried again when she was ready. She told me that she was ready to be a big girl. When your daughter is ready she will let you know. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is wait when you know that they can do it, but in the long run it is better for them and easier for you because it means less accidents.

Hi there...My daughter was 3 when she began wearing underwear and using the toilet by herself but I had her use the bathroom frequently so that she would avoid as many accidents as possible. Everytime I went to the bathroom she came with me and tried most of the time she went. she could only hold her pee for up to three hours. Then she got a sticker to put on her potty poster.
Now she is 3.8 and she can hold her pee longer. I still keep a small potty chair in the basement so that if she gets caught up in play she can use it instead of running up the stairs.
I would put your daughter back into the underwear and just have her try more often so as to catch her before she has an accident.
M

i feel your pain. my daughter, now almost 4, did the same thing. no one tells you how hard potty training really is. the average age to be fully potty trained is 3 years 3 months. try not to push too hard to have potty trained before she's ready, you'll just have another pack of problems. my daughter would pee on the floor because she wouldn't leave the tv. now she spends 10 minutes washing her hands after she goes!!

Rest assured that you did nothing wrong. I responded to someone else this past week with potty issues.

Think about it. Kids are told what to do all day long. Even if we give them choices, a lot of decisions are made for them. Where and when they go potty, whether it is conscious or not, is something they have control over. Kids will potty train when ready.

Is she afraid? Maybe. Maybe one time it hurt to go and now she is afraid. Maybe she sees her pee and poop as her own and doesn't like to see it flushed away. It could be a number of things but it's nothing you did. I solved that issue by getting the Magic School Bus's book on the Water Cycle and it explains where waste goes etc. and we talked about it and that solved that issue of being afraid but ultimately, my son still told me he wasn't going to go on the potty until he was 4. He kept his promise, going when he wanted on the potty and remaining in training pants but when it got close to his fourth birthday he said a promise was a promise and never turned back. He never wore training pants again and had maybe one or two accidents.

She may also not fully know when she has to go all the time and it may feel like a failure to her. that is what happened with my younger son so I just explained that some kids bodies (their bladder) doesn't grow as fast as others and it was normal to have accidents and not know that he had to go. It helped his self confidence but again, until he could feel when he had to go and was ready, it didn't happen.

Good luck.

Buy buy baby has training underwear that is very padded and absorb a lot of the pee. I still keep my son in them in case of accidents in the public. It barely goes through his pants.

They also have a great toilet seat with set ladder that is in one system. It folds up. Kids love it bc it feels secure and they can climb on the tiolet by themselves..
All my friends have it and trained thier kids in no time.

It's a very frustrating situation and I empathize with you! I had a similiar situation with my daughter, now 3 1/2. The harder I tried, tho' to get her to use the potty, the worse it was. Praise, rewards, and (on the other end) fighting over it did not help at all for us. We took a break from it, stayed in pull-ups for about a month and then, over a long weekend, I very calmly went to underwear and told her that now that she is a big girl she is expected to use the potty. I did not make a big deal of it... it was something she needed to do just like brushing her teeth. This worked for us in two days. You have time ~ she is still young and She can probably sense your frustration which just makes things more tense for everyone. Good luck!

Hi D.,
I'm a mom of 5 y/o twins and an 8 month old. Been there with the potty training. Have you checked with your day care to find out how things were going there? My twins were totally trained at day care through natural peer pressure and sticker reward charts. Its possible that others kids in daycare are not as independent as your daughter, possibly causing her to backslide in her potty progress. You may want to talk to her teachers if you have not done so already. Wishing you lots of luck!

mom of 3

Hi D.,

This happens, since children grow in fits and starts, and sometimes regress for a while. You probably need to re-train her, but I would highly recommend that you use the method outlined in the book "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" by Nathan Azrin. I used it with my then-2.8-year-old and it worked beautifully well.

After a half-day he was going potty himself (including undressing and redressing himself and flushing the toilet - I trained him directly on the toilet rather than the potty). We had about 3 accidents in the first week, then 2 accidents over the following 2 weeks, and that was it.

It was intense for me, but a lot of fun for him. The book was written in the 70's and in English English, so some assumptions are a little offensive to my taste and some words are unusual, but the method is very sound. I've recommended it to all the mothers I know going through this stage, and all those who actually used it had similar experiences to mine.

If she isn't ready, then you need to wait until she is. If, as you said, she's lazy, try putting the big girl underwear on then the pull-ups. That way she'll feel wet but you won't have the mess and maybe she'll be motivated to get up and go.

I heard that it would be good to put the underwear on and then a diaper so that they feel the wetness sooner but your house isn't wrecked....
I'm going through a similar thing but hadn't moved to the big girl underwear yet. My daughter will be 2 this month and about 4 or 5 months ago started pulling on her diaper to let us know she was dirty or wet. One day she said "poopy" but her diaper was clean so I sat her on the potty and she went! I was so excited I went right out and got pull ups and an Elmo potty chair. She was doing great,(for the pee anyway, that 1st time was the only time she pooped on the toilet) sometimes even waking up dry. Then about a month ago she had a dirty pull up and I realized I had none with me so we needed to rush home. I didn't want her touching it or it getting anywhere so I kept saying "yucky, don't touch" - ever since she won't tell me and whenever I take a pull up off she says "yucky" I am SOOOO mad at myself! At daycare she'll go on the potty and I asked what they were doing and they said everytime they bring the kids in to change them, they sit them. So I started that and she usually goes. I am going to do a stcker chart and some special treat for when she tells me on her own and hope that works. I'd love to hear other thought though!!

I saw the same thing happen to a little boy at a Day Care that I volunteer. He was using the potty, but was wearing pull-ups. His mother went through something and kept him out of school for almost 4 months. When he returned he went back to pampers (not pullups) and going on himself. Since returning to the Day Care he is totally off pampers, but I wondered why. Then I came across an article or I heard something on the radio in which as child psychologist said that babies are born knowing when to potty. The parents are the one's who put pampers on them because we don't want to clean up accidents. He was suggesting that the parents make the children lazy and then we force them to potty train when we're ready. I don't know how true this is, but it may be something pyschological. Maybe the pullups helped your child feel confident that if possible she could make a mistake. The big girl underwear was probably too soon for her. My 3 1/2yrs old went on her own. I was to a point where she was going from pampers to pullups, she had turned 2 that July. I made a clear decision that I wasn't buying any more pampers and just one bag of pullups per month by Christmas of that year. Well, it was maybe October of that year and she was sitting on the toilet by herself. I did buy her the child's toilet top to put on the big toilet and she climbed up there and went on her own. So, they have to let you know when they're ready. But, I was surely going to force her to be potty trained before the next year.