Toilet training resister! 3 and a half and he just won't do it!

Hi,

My second son just will not toilet train. He's generally a stubborn kid and this is no different! He is on Lactulose as he would hold his poo and become constipated but that issue seems to have subsided since we took the 'pressure' off to go on the toilet. We just ask casually now if he'd like to go to the toilet from time to time. We've been doing that for months. On occasion he will go do a wee using the toilet but it's probably only 2-3 times a week.

He just doesn't care about the whole 'big boy' thing or having a dirty nappy or bribery or praise. I'm much more of a 'wait until he's ready' type but it's getting a little worrisome as he'll be in kindy next year.

Has anyone got anything that worked for a stubborn toilet trainer?

P.S. Using a potty or toilet makes no difference.

Not really useful advice - but my DS is not quite 3 and a half and we only started making any real progress when he started wearing his sisters clothes! We have 100% success rate when wearing his sisters stuff (whether at home or daycare) but only a 30% success rate with poos when wearing his own. I don't think is coincidence as I had noticed it but not said anything to daycare and then they mentioned it to me. I let him choose which clothes in the morning and if he chooses hers we don't have any issues. My only theory is he 'feels' like an older child when he is wearing her stuff (he does look up to her alot) and that reminds him to use the toilet.

Kids are just plain weird sometimes :-)

My DD1 was nearly 3.5 and showing absolutely no signs of toilet training. I did the bootcamp thing. We stayed at home for a week straight between Christmas and New Years. I plied her with drink after drink and made her sit on the potty every half hour. I slowly moved it to every hour, then every few hours. It involved many tears and a lot of bribery to get her on the potty. But by the end of the week she was pretty reliable.
It then took another year to transition her from the potty to the toilet. I would suggest if your DS has no preference for the toilet or potty then go straight to the toilet.

My DS was the same - would be fine in pants, then need a nappy to relieve himself. Wouldn't use the loo at all.

Until... DS's bestie visited and used our loo. Overnight TTing, few accidents, dry at night too. Fantastic! He was about 3.5 too, but almost 4 before he was confident enough for pooing on the loo (he did have to tidy himself up after accidents).

DS1 was 3 years 7 months before I one day just decided to put him in undies and send him to CC as was over the nappies! He did very well and no issues and had 2 accidents only in 2 weeks and both were when got distracted on way to toilet, poo's took a week. Night TT he told us on his 4th birthday was not wearing a nappy to bed as he was a big boy!

DS2 was 3 years 1 month and was relativly easy just needed push at start to go. However poo's in toilet took him till 4 years 5 months before he would not do in a nappy! He would put on a nappy do a poo and bring us wipes and a bag to change him!! (would hold on allday if we were out or at CC) No matter what sort of bribes we tried nothing was working, so we stopped saying anything about it and in the end he told me 1 day he had done a poo at CC, ad next day I said hay go to a poo in toilet and he did!! End off issue.
He is no where near night trained as often wet in morning but night time is a developmental shift and can take till age of 7 for night.

Good luck it will happen.

My DS is nearly 3.5 and still has the odd accident. I have discouraged the potty and gone straight to the toilet. He is keener to do poos on the toilet than wees.
I must say one strategy I used was to leave him in a stinky or wet nappy for a few minutes longer than I might have before TT then go REALLY slow to change him. I would say how much quicker he'd get back to a game/TV show if he'd just gone to the loo himself.
He now sometime wets his pants if he's really busy with an outside game.
I found using his busy nature helped and making sure using the toilet was faster than a nappy change helped.
Good luck it's a tricky stage and I'm glad I won't be doing it again.

Wow, thank you all so much for your replies.

It's reassuring to know we're not the only ones. He doesn't care about sitting in a dirty nappy (thanks for the suggestion about going slow with changing him though). We did try the 'bootcamp' style thing but found it made him more resistant and he would get very upset when we made him sit on the toilet so often. We've bought him his own jocks but maybe we'll try him in his big brother's jocks! When we put him in jocks he just wets through them and doesn't care. Argh!!

Thank you for all your suggestions.

My dd1 was incredibly stubborn and wouldn't train no matter what I tried. She eventually trained when her younger sister toilet trained, she was one month past her 4th birthday.

She still wears a pull up to bed and doesn't care that both her younger sisters are night trained. She has told me she will be wearing pull ups when she is 16 so at least I don't have any teen pregnancy concerns with her.....

Hi

You are certainly not the only mum who is finding toilet training tough. I recently came across Toileting tots in Perth. They work with families to gain toileting success. Check them out they might be able to help.

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Not really useful advice - but my DS is not quite 3 and a half and we only started making any real progress when he started wearing his sisters clothes! We have 100% success rate when wearing his sisters stuff (whether at home or daycare) but only a 30% success rate with poos when wearing his own. I don't think is coincidence as I had noticed it but not said anything to daycare and then they mentioned it to me. I let him choose which clothes in the morning and if he chooses hers we don't have any issues. My only theory is he 'feels' like an older child when he is wearing her stuff (he does look up to her alot) and that reminds him to use the toilet.

Kids are just plain weird sometimes :-)

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I just went with the wearing his sisters clothes and then one day he did a poo at daycare when he had chosen to wear his own clothes and we haven't really looked back since. He doesn't wear her clothes so much now (he has his own tinkerbell undies now) and have only had the odd accident in about 6 weeks and always when not at home and he wasn't able to find me.