Malka has a new friend, Hannah. She LOVES the book, the doll, the infernal song mentioned above, the dvd, you name it. She LOVES her Karen Katz book about the potty. She KNOWS when she’s going. She LOVES to help flush. She can hold it all night. She held it for almost 2 hours when we needed to collect a urine sample at the doctors office. She can tell us when she’s just gone pish-pish. Her pre-school teachers say she’s bright, knows what’s going on potty-wise, and is SO ready.
So why on G-d’s green earth does our child REFUSE to sit on the potty? If we so much as suggest it, she cries; if I remove her pull-up, to give her some “nekky tush time,” she cries for a diaper. If I bring out her potty, she will actually KICK it, and say: “Ani LO ROTSAH!” (I don’t want!)
We’ve tried m&m’s, organic lollies, stickers, you name it. This child REFUSES to potty train, but her teachers are a little insistent. I’ve shared that when she’s ready, she will.
Will she EVER be ready? She is the ONLY child in her class in diapers still. She’s 2 years, 8 months old. I figure if by the time she’s 3, in December, and there’s no forward momentum, we should go for it full force. We really love her school, and the teachers aren’t saying this out of their being lazy or anything, they willingly and lovingly change Malka when she needs it. They just say that she’s ready, when it clearly seems she isn’t.
Is there ANYTHING else we could try? Because I’d hate for Malka to be needing a pull up change before heading to prom, you know? 😉
Hydrangeas Are pretty 
A few Parent Hacks ideas:
http://www.parenthacks.com/2008/01/fashion-a-fake.html
http://www.parenthacks.com/2007/03/encourage_good_.html
http://www.parenthacks.com/2007/02/reusable_reward.html
http://www.parenthacks.com/2007/01/potty_training_.html
http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/08/potty_training_.html
http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/05/perhaps_if_they.html
http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/02/potty_training_.html
I love Parent Hacks…sorry if this is too much to read!
Seeyoubye!
we had the deadline of, um, TOMORROW to potty train — just a week after she was to turn 3. So, yeah, we got a bit stressed about it as the weeks flew by, she exhibited every sign of being ready, and yet she REFUSED to potty train.
And then, one day, the middle of July, she up and did it. Partially it was competition with Bella, and partially it was just that she was ready and had decided that she was grown up enough.
Give it more time. Provide her opportunities, let her talk about it, but don’t push, and I’ll bet you she’s out of diapers before 3. Although it might be juuuuuuuust before.
I refused to push Alexander. I tried to suggest the toilet, used bribery, etc. but he wasn’t the least bit interested. I kept the conversation going but there was no pressure. If I asked him and he said no he didn’t need to go/want to sit on the toilet, I didn’t bother. (I never used a potty, he uses a seat on the regular toilet)
Daycare insisted he was ready and he needed to be trained and they put him in underpants everyday and everyday I brought home 3 changes of wet clothes. And then he just refused to pee all day and I told daycare he was going back into diapers or into another room.
He potty trained in a day at 3 yrs 3 months. He was ready, he decided he was a big boy and would wear only underwear (he used to wear underwear over his diapers for a while). He hasn’t had an accident since the day he started wearing underwear full time.
Malka is a stubborn little girl and she’ll do it when she’s ready and not a moment before. You can either go with the flow or all be miserable trying to change her course.
(btw it was candy that finally got him to sit on the toilet – love hearts to be exact).
i have nothing to add but wanted to send you guys some support. if she were ready, she’d do it. right now she’s taking it all in and processing what she’s learning and when she’s ready it will happen virtually over night. i know you guys already know this stuff but it’s easy to second guess yourself when it’s being shoved down your throat. i agree that if you push too hard you will likely get the opposite result. hang in there!!
You’ve probably thought of this, but…
Is she using a separate potty seat or a ring on the toilet? It occurs to me that she is a big girl and that the little potty seats may be uncomfortable for her tushy. Maybe the ring would work better for her?
Also – and again you’ve probably already been through this with her – but does she know that a) it’s okay if she “messes up” b) she will always be your baby, even if she’s using a big girl potty? and finally, since it seems like she gets some comfort out of being in diapers, maybe say, okay try potty at school and you can use diapers at home?
Oh how I dread this.
The Girl really just potty trained a month ago (at 3 yrs 2 months) and she had shown readiness and successfully pottied since before she was 2. I think your plan to wait until 3 and then go full force is good. That’s what we did and it only took a month of constantly wet underwear before she got it. 🙂
What happens if she doesn’t potty train right now? Is there some kind of penalty?
If she’s not ready, she’s not going to do it. It has to be her decision. Sanna is among the youngest in her daycare room, and she’s one of the few who uses the potty full time during the day. Several of the 3+ years kids are frequently in diapers–it’s not like she’s abnormally late in learning to use the potty full time. You can encourage potty use, but you can’t force it (without making everyone miserable, that is).
the only thing that we are realizing, is that the friends she’s made in her current class are moving “up” to the “red room,” and Malka will be staying in ‘the yellow room,” until she’s potty trained. But it’s not the end of the world, of course.
Thank you all, for the affirmations.
I will echo what folks are saying above. Another thing to remember is that children of that age have so little control over their lives, and pottying is one of the things they CAN control. So choose your battles wisely!
I have heard of many children who do what others have said above – that one day, a child just decides to get going and they never have a potty accident again (barring illness or extreme circumstances.) The little boy I nannied for in college did that exact thing. One day when I was getting him dressed he wanted to wear the ninja turtle underpants. I explained that he could wear them but that he must put his pee and poop in the potty or he would have to go back into a diaper. He agreed and never looked back. His mom thought I had some magic touch but really he just decided that being able to wear those underpants was worth going in the potty. One day, something will motivate Malka and she’ll decide to do it.
I had heard of character undies working (as in you don’t want to pee pee on the princess). Right now, much to my dismay, m&m’s bribes are getting Owen to use the potty- that, and he lurves to pee on the grass. we’re in the midst, but he won’t do it on his own, it’s all the nanny. She’ll be fine, she’ll do it when she’s ready.
I pushed with Kevin and it took over a year before he was finally accident free. Over a year of pushing and consequences. We started around 2.5 and he was darn near 4 before he was totally “trained.”
I decided I would never go that route again. With Eliza, it was all her lead. It helped that I was staying at home at the time and that she LOVED to be nekkid.
We had a couple different potties available, mostly because we live on a mult-level house. Kept one in the living room even, as gross as that sounds, it worked wonderfully!
Eliza learned in no time and it was totally stress free for all of us.
I’m with everyone else….I say when she’s ready, she’ll do it. Have you let her pick out some big girl panties? Even if she doesnt wear them right off, having them in the house could be a good motivation. I know you dont care for Princesses, but they have all kinds. Eliza even had some boy undies because she loved Go Diego Go and there werent girl panties with Diego on them.
Ah well, you know, I’m the one with a kid who wasn’t potty trained until after his 4th birthday. I figure – it wil happen when he is ready. I didn’t realize that it would take THAT long to be ready, but it did. When I tried to push him, it just stressed him out, and so I’backed off. Took several times of thinking he was ready, then backing off when he showed signs of stress, but we got there eventually. Even C took until he was close to 3 (but think that’s just because he didn’t want to stop whatever he was doing to pee.)
My big revelation was taking the Big Girl thing completely out of it and making potty training just about wet and dry. I figured, why should potty training become this momentous decision for the child about whether they are going to Become Big, when really they are becoming big anyway whether they choose to or not? When I reframed it that way in my own mind, all of a sudden it felt like it put both of us on the same side. I had been having a hard time with the idea of saying “What a Big Girl” for success, because it felt to me like that implied judgement of accidents, or that somehow she was doing this FOR me (make me happy and proud, etc.) This way focusses on the common goal (all we both want, really, is for the underwear to be dry); the judgment was completely out of it. I could say, “Good job! Peepee in the potty! Wow!” or “Uh oh. Elmo got wet. We have wash him. Let’s look for some dry ones.” I could remind her before we got in the car by asking, “Is Elmo still dry?” and she would answer “YESSSS!” and I’d give her 2 thumbs up.
The other thing was I totally didn’t know she was ready — it was not bothering her at all to be wet or dirty in a diaper. She would go in the potty 1-2 times/day and the rest of the time refuse to try. But I decided to put her in underwear for a few hours one Sat. AM just for practice — to see if that would help her motivation. I thought she would go back into a diaper when we went out to do errands. HA! She wanted to keep wearing the underwear. I was very nervous that first time out, but she was fine — we were out for 1.5 hours with no accidents. She did have accidents 1-2 times/day for the next few days (including one in a shopping cart seat — ugh. Travel with paper towels AND baby wipes!) but you could tell she was really working hard to figureit out. It was very impressive to watch her get it, and it made me realize it really is the child who does the work in this case!
So trial of underwear really does help sometimes.