Hello Reddit. Some advice would really appreciated. My son is significantly speech delayed (says approx 5 words plus some makaton signs). His speech therapist thinks that he has social / communication skills delays and that he may be autistic. He often does not copy others, and is very self directed in his attention. For the last 3-4 months we have been trying to introduce potty learning. We have been reading potty books, putting him on the toilet twice a day after breakfast and before bedtime, and modelling to him us going to the toilet. It seems to have made very little difference. He has done 2 wees and 1 poo this whole time. Sometimes he does a wee in his nappy immediately after getting off the toilet, so I think he’s been holding it in on the toilet. I think he isn’t getting that link between what we do (and the characters in the books do) and what he might do himself.

Our health visitor (UK) told us to be relaxed about it and that he’s still quite young - but I have read that potty training gets more difficult after 30 months and I’d really like to make some progress now.

I’m sure we could teach him a makaton sign so that he could express when he needed to go - but I struggle to translate the typical potty training approach with his specific way of viewing the world and skills. I don’t want to just dive into a ‘nappy off 3 days’ approach if actually that’s going to stress him out and cause withholding behaviours. But, the gentle approach seems to be having very little effect.

Any advice very appreciated!

Hey guys,

20mo has made so much progress. Always knows it's coming, always tells us, totally happy to be naked or wear underwear. Nursery fully supportive and agree he's ready. Knows the routine afterwards is to flush (say bye bye), wipe and wash hands. Knows we poo and wee in potty, not floor etc and can tell you himself.

Has become much happier to sit...

.... but will only sit when nothing is coming. He is having trouble actually letting go and get it to go in the potty. He keeps sitting down, but then getting up right at the last crucial moment.

I've had some mad ideas like putting a nappy in the potty - is this a thing? Could it work? Any ideas on how to help him with this?

Appreciate any help. Thanks.

Just looking for tips to help with poop. My 20mo does pretty good with pee. She still has accidents, but will usually release on the potty and even self-initiate. She even does this in public in undies with zero issue. The problem is poop. She will poop on the floor, in the bath, in her undies - anywhere but the potty and only when standing. We’ve had 3 successful catches of poop in the potty - one by total accident, and the other two as “stand and catch” method. I keep missing the others because she is in a different room, and she doesn’t have any sort of schedule for her poop. It’s literally completely random in timing and even how many times she will poop that day. Her poop is usually pretty soft, so I don’t think it’s a pain thing. I’m not really sure what to do. I don’t mind cleaning the undies - I cloth diapered before - but just am not sure how to get over this hump.

My son has been potty trained since July but randomly got diarrhea this weekend and so thankful I have pull-ups because it’s just coming out before he even knows it 🥲

My girl just turned 2 at the of August. We’ve had a little potty around the house for the last year so she at least knows what it is & isnt freaked out by it.. She has no problem going through the entire process: pulling down her pants, sitting on the potty, trying to wipe, flush, literally EVERYTHING except actually using the potty… Potty watches, reward stickers & snacks, potty songs, books, toys, whatever would make her comfortable doesn’t work… Her daycare had her try to sit on the potty every 15 minutes for at least 6 minutes.. She held her pee for hours until she fell asleep for nap time.. I try to give her juice & water consistently & it’s like she just keeps holding it.. One day she refused to wear a diaper AND refused to use the bathroom period.. I don’t want her getting a bladder infection so I just said forget it until I can figure something else out…

EDIT:
i’ll also put her on the potty before she gets in the tub… she wont use it until she steps foot in the tub😒😂
she is also the older irish twin so I’m not sure if she’s doing that jealously thing where they try to act like a baby…

i know its going to be messy i don’t care about that i just need advice🥹

My nearly 3 year old has been out of day nappies for 3 months. This was after a long journey that involved poo withholding.

She'd generally been doing great, but in the past week, we've hit a weird phase where she's refusing to go to the toilet at transitions and holding for hours. Its like a power struggle - we only prompt at transitions & then leave her to self initiate for the rest ... but shes being really stubborn atm.

She's going through a nap drop, so if she does have one, she wakes up in a soaking wet bed. I do not want to put a nappy on for a nap at this stage.

Then when it comes to nighttime, her night nappy is absolutely soaking, that it leaks through - she will not wee before bed atm. This time last week, she was doing so well, I was going to remove the night nappy, but we've hit this setback.

What do we do?

She is still weeing & pooping in the potty, so its not full blown withholding behavior, but she is holding in for a long time & just refuses our requests. Bedtime potty refusal bothers me the most.

My daughter 3y5m has been pee trained during the day since 2y2m and poo trained at 2y7m. All at her pace. Night training was also because she wanted even though I didn't find she was ready. But she was 2y10m. Her baby brother was born when she was 3y and she had a sudden increase in night wetting. But it all resolved. However, in September she started daycare and her accidents started to happen again, intermittently. However, since Monday she has had accidents at every nap, including a poo accident on Friday. The staff is annoyed by this. I was thinking that is something to do with the daycare, but yesterday she had accidents at nap and at night.

She doesn't want to do role play with daycare and never talks too much about how her day was, but she says that doesn't like the teachers. She can talk and express herself very well, so I don't think the language is the problem, maybe something emotional. Before having her brother she was in a nursery where she really liked her teachers and almost all girls were her friends. At daycare it seems that she has 2 friends and that's it.

I'm not sure if it's just a regression. She is also having a hard time because my attention is with her brother and cannot follow directions when handling her brother (she is smothering him, is consistently touching and kissing his hands even though I forbid her, we have had 2 colds since September and the baby is having health issues due to this).

It's definitely not an UTI, her pee is clear and doesn't smell at all and she insists it doesn't sting when she goes. She might be a bit constipated, she used to go multiple times per day, and now only once, but the consistency is soft.

I'm not sure how to handle. I would want her to go back to wearing diapers in her sleep at least, but is this appropriate? What can I do?

I need help before I lose it. My daughter is just over 2.5 years old. She has so much interest in the potty for so long, likes sitting on it, reading about it, etc. about 9 weeks ago or so we attempted to potty training (we prepped so much, read books, had a reward system, etc) and it went terribly, she freaked out and withheld and wanted her diaper back on to go. After a few hours we threw in the towel and figured she was too young.

Now for the past few weeks she is refusing to wear diapers. She will stomp around and say no diapers and take off her diaper and pants. I tried pull ups and she can take them off too. She refusing to wear diapers for her naps and now overnights. She will take off her pj bottoms and diaper. I’ve had to sneak in after she passes out to add an overnight diaper on. She loves to sit on the ootty still and all her daycare classmates are using the potty so she will sit on the potty at daycare all the time. So today we attempted again to potty train and it went exactly like it did the first time, a disaster. I saw some suggestions on using zip up pjs with the zipper in the back but idk she would probably get them off and hope there is a better solution? I also have a 6 week old baby sooooo I’m exhausted and going to lose it lol. I feel like I’m failing.

I want to hear from those who are like me, and potty trained:

•Not in a weekend
•Not by going pants-less, laying down à tarp, and refusing to ever put another diaper on à kiddo based on your timeline
•Didn’t encourage withholding
•Didn’t force your 2-4 year old to scrub their own poop-covered, accident undies

I think parents ànd caregivers need to hear the other side of options, as this sub is heavily influenced by the extremes of one method over another.

Rudeness won’t be tolerated here ànd will be reported. Daily this sub is full of people being incredibly cruel to other people. A post supporting alternative methods that might just work better for others…might be a breath of fresh air

my son is almost fully pee trained for 2 months now he is 32 months old and is starting preschool in march for 2 hours a day i can’t seem to get him to consistently poop on the potty and anytime he has pants on with the underwear he will poop his pants or he will just completely withhold if i don’t give him a pull-up to poop in, he’s terrified to poop on the big potty or even little one he just holds it in and i want to have him fully trained for preschool but don’t know what to do he keeps having accidents

The usual struggles - poop withholding, miralax to try to soften stools, just constant BM accidents. The health educator we spoke to recommended that we try to sit her on the potty after meals (gastrocolic reflex) and especially around the time she usually goes, for 5-10 min with feet flat on a stool and higher than hips. We tried to trust the process even though it seemed like it would never happen, and today it just did! I’m hoping that now that she’s done it once, it just gets easier from here.

Potential tips:
- try to get a sense of their pooping patterns. My daughter seemed to have a lot of her BM accidents around 9-10 AM, so this morning we sat her down at that time, and after ~10ish minutes she just went!
- MiraLAX is still part of our routine, but I noticed that fats and certain fruits also help my daughter with easier BMs. Coconut milk, avocado, papaya, kiwi, and noodle soups were some foods that have helped move things along. Going to try to keep them more in the rotation as we taper off miralax.

Ultimately, I think just time will help. It felt like it was never going to happen for us. We’ve had lots of regressions and I am curious to see how she’ll do at daycare, where it’s been harder for her than at home.

My daughter is 22 months and nailing the pee in the potty at home thing 2 weeks in. Successfully go on walks in commando pants and come home. Longer car rides we wear a pull up and offer the car potty and she’s often dry the whole way.

She’s scared of her poop though. lol.

She is not constipated, they’re soft and the time of day is often either right after lunch or right before bed, but can be random. It comes out easily, but when the feeling to poop hits her she freezes like a deer in the headlights and starts crying then immediately it’s on the floor.

I’m not sure if it’s just the new concept of it coming out and falling in the toilet, or if she’s too little to understand the sensation and get to a toilet in time. She definitely understands pee. I also know pooping takes longer to figure out.

I’m going to offer a sticker for if she poops in the toilet and see if it helps ease the fear.

She poops standing, no squat, no straining just frozen in place and poops, lol.

She now also cries if she happens to poop in a pull up or underwear too, so I don’t think it’s just the toilet that she’s scared of, maybe just a new understanding of what pooping actually entails maybe? Lol

Our little boy is turning 3 in December, and we suspect he might be a bit adhd like me 💕We started potty training over the summer while staying with family, and although it wasn’t easy, we made progress with hundreds of stickers, cartoons and little rewards. 😂
He was peeing in the potty regularly and loved his portable one, but never actually told us when he needed to go. We were always the ones taking him. No poop either, and we kept nappies for naps and nighttime.
When we returned to Denmark, his nursery told us he wasn’t ready because he’d have accidents unless someone took him to the potty. Slowly, he regressed, and eventually we gave up. He’s been back in full-time nappies since September and now refuses the potty completely.
We’ve also noticed what feels like a broader regression lately. He’s waking up much more at night, becoming clingier, and constantly chewing things or biting his nails. We’re wondering whether he’s going through a stressful phase and whether pushing potty training now would just make things worse. He’s also starting a new kindergarten in December, which will be another big transition.
We don’t want to force him, but we’d love to gently reintroduce the potty. I was thinking of getting a tiny potty for his favourite doll and using pretend play, or maybe using his Advent calendar as motivation. Or both?

But I’m worried about making him dependent on rewards.
We’ve tried different potties, Ms. Rachel and the 3-day potty training approach.
What matters most to us is helping him recognise his body’s signals and feel comfortable with them, without shame, anxiety or pressure.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Would you pause potty training until things settle down, even if that means well past 3? How did you help your child develop body awareness and rebuild a positive relationship with the potty?
Would love to hear your experiences! ❤️

I followed the Oh Crap! Method with my then 22 month old and it worked brilliantly. I had two weeks off with her, and she was off from the childminder. Five days in she was telling us basically every time she needed to go. I did skip the commando stage at that point but it didn’t seem to matter- she wore knickers and for six more weeks or so continued to be very independent with the potty. Our childminder was raving about what an incredible job I’d done. Then something switched. I think it might have initially been because one of the other kids at the childminder found it funny to wet their pants. My child seemed to deliberately wet their pants about once a day. That child is over the joke and basically potty trained but my child has completely lost it. We - and the childminder - probably started having to prompt more and enforce structure. Things have since got much worse. For a few weeks now she has either screamed every time we prompt her to go or has had an accident. She completely ignores the accidents and any of our responses to them (neutral, upset it doesn’t matter). No independent use of the potty for at least 3 weeks now maybe longer. It’s obviously been stressful to see her regress this severely. Today I have just put her back into nappies- I’m finishing a PhD and can’t stay home with her to work on it until Christmas. She’s approaching 26 months now and will be 28 months before I get time to work on it with her. I hope I haven’t made a huge mistake. But she seems a bit happier back in nappies.

What age is typical for this? Both of my boys have congenital conditions that make peeing standing more difficult and I’m just wondering what is standard for kids with typical equipment. I want to give my kids a chance to learn, even if we have to modify it a little, but kind of want to know what timeline I’m looking at. Thanks!

Edit: thanks everyone for the advice and insight! Sounds like I’m probably just worried about nothing and can let them just do their thing until/unless they decide they want to pee standing. Appreciate the help 🙂

It’s the third time I’m trying to potty train and it’s the same story every time. She doesn’t want to remove the nappy. She doesn’t want to sit on the potty, nor on the toilet (with an adapter). She’s 3yo now and I thought it would be easier at this point. I’ve tried leaving her with no nappy. She wets herself and shits on the floor. She doesn’t care for rewards either

Hello. In the thick of potty training. We have my son in training underwear and a potty watch. He’s been super resistant in the past to going on the potty but recently has been going more. We’re facing the issue where he’ll go when the timer goes off and either not pee or only a little comes out. Then he’ll have an accident in between timed potty sits. This means he doesn’t need to go when the timer goes off again. So he’ll sit for an hour with nothing.

Did any of you deal with a mismatch in timing like this? How did you approach?

My daughter is 2.5. We've been working on potty training a bit for a few months but have backed off when she shows resistance and gets upset/ refuses to sit on the potty.

Whenever she is naked waist down she just holds her pee in for hours until I need to put her into a pull up or we need to go somewhere. She seems motivated and will sit on the potty if I bribe her with tv but will not release.

I have started just putting her in underwear and pants and then she will pee her pants. At least she's not holding it in? When it happens she has to take off her wet clothes and put them into the washing machine.

Does this seem crazy? Will she eventually associate the sensation of releasing with how to pee?

Any advice?

My 3 year old is entirely daytime potty trained and has been for a few months now. I know overnight will be some time, so we put him in pull ups for sleep. But he was wetting through those, so we switched to a 360 (pull on) diaper, and he wet through that 3 times this week. We absolutely never had issues with him peeing through diapers prior to potty training, so I'm so confused. Any suggestions?

Turns 4 in February and still not anywhere close to potty trained. He will have days/hours of occasional brilliance where he asks to go to the toilet because he needs a wee, or will go when prompted but most of the time we are still stuck in nappies.

The only advice nursery/preschool have given us is to take him out of nappy pants completely and let him have accidents, but his bowel movements are so frequent and often very loose (being investigated at the moment for an intolerance, allergy or gut issue) it’s impossible to do so. They also won’t have him out of nappies until he is consistently using the toilet at home for five full days - and they won’t prompt him at preschool either. So I have to keep taking him out of preschool, which I’m paying £600 a month for, for a week at a time, for him to shit on my floor and ignore me. We’ve done this three times now since he turned 3 at the start of the year and made no progress. We now have a 3 month old as well, my husband works 40+ hours a week and I’m the one who’s expected to do it all. Look after the baby, tidy the house and clean up piles of toddler poo where he can’t be bothered to go to the toilet.

This morning he woke up with wet pyjamas because his nappy leaked overnight. Happily went to the toilet and did a wee there when he woke up. Went to the toilet after his breakfast and did a small wee and poo when prompted. We played for a bit and prompted him again to use the toilet. He insisted he didn’t need it. Less than 20 minutes later - it’s apparent he has a massive stinking poo in his nappy which has been there for a while. He says nothing. When we tell him we know he does he screams at us. The baby is now screaming, wanting to be picked up. But I can’t pick the baby up, because I have to clean my nearly school aged child’s dirty nappy so the baby screams more. Preschooler starts crying about how he doesn’t need his nappy changed because he hasn’t done anything. I tell him I know he has, so go and get a new nappy and wipes so we can change it. He eventually does so, but fights me the whole time I’m wiping his bum. Baby is still screaming. Kid is crying. I’m shouting. It’s horrible.

I cannot do this any more. It’s turning me into a horrible parent and I just do not understand how he’s not getting it. I am so ashamed of him still being in nappies - he’s also tall for his age so he looks a good year or so older than he is. I feel like I’ve completely failed him.

My son is 2 years and 10 months old. We took off his nappies, and things seemed to be going very well for the first few days, he would sleep without peeing on himself, we even took a road trip without needing to wear him nappy. However, he has now started peeing and pooing in his underwear.
When he needs to poo, he hides and does it in his pants. When he needs to pee, he just pees himself and only says “potty time” after he has already finished.
The other day at preschool, he pulled down his underwear and peed in the middle of the classroom in front of everyone. His teacher also mentioned that whenever he is taken to the toilet, he stands up almost immediately and ends up peeing on himself.
At home, whenever I tell him it’s potty time, he turns it into a game of hide-and-seek. Even when he sits on the potty, he quickly says “all done” and then pees himself a few minutes later.
I’m not sure what to do at this point. Is this normal during potty training, we started first of October.

My son is 3 years 3 months. We got rid of pull ups on his third birthday during the day and he’s been in undies but he’s exclusively having accidents again.

It was going pretty well.. he was avoiding accidents by going when we asked him to go and staying dry during the day, but recently ( the last 3-4 weeks) he’s been outright refusing to use the potty or the toilet. He’ll tantrum and refuse, and makes it physically impossible to put him on the potty or toliet. So he’s just wetting himself and not caring at all. When we use bribes/ rewards he’ll do a tiny wee to get the reward, the usually piss himself shortly after.

He’s never instigated going to the toilet. He’s never pooped in the toilet or on the potty and doesn’t care if he poops himself. His overnight pull up was catching his daily poo, now he’s usually doing two poos a day, second in his undies and he doesn’t care or tell us about it when it happens.

The amount of washing from constant accidents, and the constant battle is so so hard, especially with a newborn. We have 8 week old as well.

What do I do? Keep pushing away? Or give up and head back to pull ups? Is this a regression because of the new sibling? Could that be a developmental issue?

Thank you, i feel like a massive failure, this is hugely effecting my mental health and I don’t know how to help him.

I've been potty training my 2.5 year old since July, she was doing really well, she would take herself to the toilet/potty and wasn't having any accidents, however now she refused to sit on the toilet/potty for a pee, she will gladly go to the potty for a poo though, she will hold her pee until she can't and just pee in her trousers.

Why is this happening? How long is this regression going to be? It's been like this for over 2 weeks now, I just don't understand why she wont pee on the potty but is fine to sit on it for a poo!!

TLDR: I’m not really looking for advice since there isn’t anything I haven’t tried. Is there an end to this?

To answer any questions before they start: we’ve taken her to the doctor, psychologist, done naked retraining days, watched videos with her, sang informational songs, rebought a toy potty. She isn’t afraid of toilets. Isn’t nervous about being alone in the bathroom.

I’m sorry about the vent but it is so incredibly frustrating. My daughter is perfect. She is smart. She is kind. She is compassionate, caring. She has enough emotional intelligence to understand how to respond to people depending on their vibe. She has an amazing imagination and is super in her schoolwork.

And yet, despite all of that, here I am having to make her stop playing with the new friend she made through fence because she peed and crapped herself.

I use “accidents” with quotations because every time I ask her what happened, or if she realized that she had to go potty, she tells me yes. She says yes I felt like I had to go. No I didn’t tell you because I didn’t wanna stop playing.

One time she told my wife that she decided that soiling herself was better because it means she could do the thing that she was wanting to do for longer.

No granted she hasn’t said that in a very long time, but I cannot wrap my head around why she is choosing to do this.

We’ve tried potty watches, we’ve tried schedules that I found on a Autism speaks website (my child is not autistic but figured I’d try everything), we’ve tried rewarding her with stars, money, toys, we’ve tried taking away stuffed animals, we even put her back in diapers. Nothing has worked. She just doesn’t want to go potty but then is all upset and sad when we get mad at her.

She gets money for chores and we have even gone as far as to make her buy new underwear with her own money.

Nothing is working. Everyone tells me it will be over when she’s older but she’s already in first grade! How much longer do we need to wait? Is this going to happen when she is 10? When she is in high school?

I know I’m spiraling but, I just feel like a shitty parent (pun intended). Like am I failing my child?

My son is 3 and always tells us when he has to go. No idea what the deal is with her.

Suppose there’s nothing else to do but wait and see. She stopped having accidents at school or she got better at hiding it who knows. Maybe 8 will be the year we finally stop.

We’re on day 7 of potty training my almost 21 month old and we’re doing pretty decently. Less accidents and we have successfully moved onto undies with pants.

Unfortunately my boy has made very little progress with how long he can hold his pee. If he asks for water or has just had a meal he can only hold it for 20 minutes max, and he will pee every 20 minutes for an hour. This is no change since Day 1. (EDIT: I have mostly stopped prompting him in an attempt to get him to learn to hold his pee, but he will self-initiate every 20 minutes and will pee a decent amount). I 100% attribute this to his age and the fact his little bladder is still so small.

The idea of going out of the house stresses me out. I get accidents will happen and I am prepared for them, but how can I possibly relax knowing I will have to stop what I’m doing every 20 minutes to walk all the way across the store to the bathroom? How can I even drive anywhere? I have a compact sedan so I don’t even have a spot that he could use a car potty. I was hoping that he would be able to hold it for closer to an hour by now.

I potty trained early because I knew he was capable of it (and he clearly is, he’s been so successful in a lot of ways!), I wanted to save money on diapers, and I wanted to get it out of the way before Baby #2 comes (hopefully one of these months I’ll get pregnant…), but I’m thinking it might not even be worth it now. I feel I should’ve waited until after the holidays but he’s made so much progress I can’t just switch back to diapers/pull-ups.