Toilet training my 4 year old DS.....HELP !!!

Ok, last week DS#3 turned 4 !!! :o

He starts kinder next year. I am going out of my mind....for about 6 months now I have been trying to get him to toilet train with no success !

He goes to daycare and has done 3 wees on the toilet for them and thats it ! None for us at home.

I have ramped up the training over the last few weeks. He is wearing undies through the day. We have had 4 "accidents". Within 5 minutes of putting a nappy on he wees.
Tonight being the most recent "accident"... DS had been in undies since 2.30pm and had been sat on the potty numerous times between then and 9.30pm - NOT one single wee in that whole time - 7 hours and no wee !! He is holding on big time (did the same thing at daycare the other day too) He got off the potty (I'd had enough) and went to his bedroom to get his "puppy" to cuddle and next thing he is calling out to me ! I knew straight away that he had wet himself :rolleyes: He hates it - freaks out "oh no, I'm all wet now" "get my pants off" but he wont wee in the toilet/potty !!

I lost the plot ! I got angry with him tonight :redface: I am so over this ! I know that me getting angry is not a good thing but farout....

I feel like I dont have time to wait till the weather warms up (November) - I want him to be confident when he goes to kinder and at this rate he wont be. I am over the nappies etc, he doesn't poop properly either. :wall: He does a 10c piece worth at a time. Currently has a sore butt because of the constant little poo's. His poo is soft but he seems to constantly let a little bit out then stop. Not sure what the problem is there. I am at the point of getting a referral from my Dr to the paed.

My other two boys were well and truely trained by this age and it was quite easy.
I know all kids are different but this is really testing me. He just seems so stubborn...

I am worried about him getting an infection ! Holding on for that long is not a good thing !

Anyway, sorry this is long - it's turned into a vent and a cry for help !

Please throw all your ideas at me - I am really, really desperate !! :(

Thanks in advance !

xoxo

My dd is 4 next week and is only just getting it. She uses the toilet like a big girl rather than s potty. We had lots of regressions due to me going to hospital twice and us moving.

We stopped the nappies all together and use a reward chart. We started with rewarding her with something (little toys) for no wee's in clothes and now doing poo as well. We had the same issue with the holding on to the poo and had to use para choc as it was hurting her to go. She even stayed dry for 40 minutes in the car and during Disney on ice.

We found yelling sent her backwards, we went from pretty much trained to her going on the carpet again. It's been 18 months for us.

Hope you can work out what works for your Ds.

My advice would be to back off completely for now. Totally ignore all toileting and go back to nappies full time. He needs to be comfortable about releasing wee and poo. He sounds like he is constipated too because a little bit of runny poo escaping often happens with constipation (it comes down around the compaction).

After a few weeks I would gently encourage a discussion around toileting, but try not to put expectations on him...he sounds like it's become sensitive and he's ashamed of it. I would also openly show him his wee and poo in his nappy in a really positive way...talk about digestion and food and how interesting and wonderful poo and wee is.

You need to banish all negativity so he can feel free to eliminate without shame. I think that's why he is holding it in.

Good luck

Big hug - We got DS1 toilet trained over Easter when he was just over 3. On the whole it wasn't too bad, but I did see red on a couple of occasions where he kept pooing in his undies.
Fortunately for us he didn't take too long - I basically said "no more nappy except for sleeps" and we let him wee in the yard to get used to not weeing in a nappy. I think he did - and still does - enjoy the novelty of weeing on the toilet.
Poos in the toilet took a bit longer to achieve, but the lure of a lollypop whenever he did a poo in the loo was enough to entice him to get into the habit of doing it there, and not in his daks.

Maybe a bribe might work on your son? Not necessarily a sweet - maybe a new book or toy if he does wee/poo in the toilet for a whole day. We only did the lollypop treat for the first couple of weeks, then eased off. Now he'll just happily poo in the loo (... but mum and dad have to "go outside!!!". Sigh).

Good luck hun - at least he's at an age where he'll "switch on" pretty quick once he "switches on", if you know what I mean.

Thanks,

We have'nt been consistently trying for the 6 months - it has been very on/off, depending how he reacts and what we have on at the time.

We have tried rewarding with a choc frog and stickers - no success.

The poo that he does do is not runny but softish like it should be - occasionally he will do a proper poo but definitely not a regular thing.

After I growled at him "why did you do wet your pants ? Remember we said to do wees and poos in the toilet" etc I had massive Mummy guilt :( I know that I need to keep things positive but I am at the end of my tether. Things have been pretty full on around here lately and I have been pretty stressed so yes, I lost my cool but I am trying so hard not to !

Anyway - today I am not going to worry about training - he will be in nappies. My Dad's partner passed away this morning :crying: so I am going to go and support him and its not the time or place for concentrating on toilet training.

Thanks ladies :hug:

I will definitely be updating any triumphs !

Keep the ideas coming please
xo

Ok personally, I'd give him 30 days off. Give him 30 days of not even thinking or speaking about toilets and potty's and wees and poos.
Then, I'd take away every single nappy. DO NOT keep any at all. None. Get him to wear jocks, grab him a toilet seat with steps ( I found that DS at 3 much preferred the big boy toilet over the 'baby' potty.)
Explain to him that now he is 4, he is a big boy and at kinder, all the big girls and boys have to use the toilet as there are no change tables. He will be able to use the toilet like Mummy and Daddy whenever he likes :)
I would also use a reward chart. I actually grabbed some pixar cars stickers off ebay and we decorated DS' toilet seat with them. He loved running back into the toilet and counting all the stickers.

NO NAPPIES. Once you take that last one off, do not go back. Explain to your DS that there will not be anymore nappies. He will have accidents. Make sure you've got lot of clean sheets and one of those bed pad things and just let him go for it.
I never asked DS if he wanted to go to the toilet. I just constantly said to him "let me know when you need to go to the toilet". ( I loosely followed the 3 day potty training program - by loosely I mean I picked what I thought DS would respond to and stuck with it 100%).

It took 4 hours for DS to become day wee trained. 2 nights to become night wee trained and 2 weeks for him to be fully trained day and night including the poos. The poos were the hardest to get his head around, but we got there alot quicker than any of my friends children seemed to have.
In the end TTing for DS was easy and that's not something I thought would happen with my stubborn little man. I imagined months and months of frustration.
I also a couple of times got frustrated... but I really tried not to get frustrated in front of him. I know how hard that is :S

Anyway, that's what I've done. It worked really well.
I hope you have success with your next time training.

Good luck!

When you use the sticker chart - did you get him to draw it up himself? Thats what helped aricyn I think, he did it up with my help, stuck it on the wall with my help and then he would stick his stickers on there himself.

Mind you, he's been toilet trained for over a year now and doesn't have any accidents HOWEVER, he wet the bed last night. Sucky thing? IT WAS IN MY BLOOMIN' BED!!!

Sorry to hear about your dad's partner, let me know if you need anything :comfort:

I found a great book in Kmart called Toilet training for boys and it has a flush button included. It talks about going to the toilet ans says that sometimes accidents happen.

GS took this with him everytime he went and we read through it. As he relaxed we had success and within a couple days he was hardly having any accidents. A nappy was still used at night but he soom learnt to get up and go if he needed to.

DD also used either a smartie or a small animal toy as a reward. GS had turned 4 before he was interested. We have a seat that fits under the toilet seat and a low but wide stool for climbing on. If you visit parents often either take the seat with you or get them to get one.