Adventures in Potty Training

Posted on March 22, 2009 by Jon

Some toddlers are potty trained before they’re 2 years old. Some toddlers even managed to get potty trained in less than one week. Then there’s Olivia…

Olivia has been potty training since late summer, and she’s definitely make some progress. In fact just last week, she went poop and tried to wipe herself without any help. Before she was finished, she did call out from the bathroom “Daddy, can you come help me?” I went in there to find she was holding soiled toilet paper in one hand, a clump of poop in the other hand, and there was another clump of poop smeared on the bathroom floor. But no matter… at least she tried.

She does great going poop in the toilet. I can’t even remember the last time she pooped in her pants. The problem we’re having is going potty. I guess the girl just loves to pee in her pull-up.

She does great at daycare, but not at home

Let me rephrase that last statement. What I should have said was… I guess the girl just loves to pee in her pull-up at home.

Olivia does great going potty at daycare. She hasn’t had an accident while at daycare for many weeks. In fact, as far as daycare is concerned, she’s basically done being potty-trained. Yet when she’s home, the girl refuses to go potty. If we simply ask the question “do you need to go potty” she almost always gives us an angry and emphatic NO!

Olivia does great going potty at daycare.

I believe that something we did in the past must have formed a trigger. Perhaps we nagged her too much to go potty. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s there, and we’re stuck dealing with it now.

Now we’re trying all types of incentives to convince her to use the potty. Every time she goes potty while at home, she gets to put a sticker on a chart we keep on the refrigerator. We’ve also tried giving her a jelly bean after each successful trip to the bathroom. These incentives have worked sporadically, but often Olivia could just care less.

Patience and perseverance are probably the answer

I suspect that there’s not much we’ll be able to do to proactively correct this behavior. My  guess is that we’ll just have to wait it out. As she gets older, she’ll hopefully just grow out of whatever trigger causes her to not want to potty at home. And as long as Shan and I don’t put too much pressure on her, hopefully she’ll be fully potty trained before we know it.

What about you?

Do you have any potty training stories to share? Do you have suggestions for how we should handle this situation? Please share them in the comments section below.

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  • http://ethiopiatofargo.blogspot.com Theresa Held

    I heard to put the pull-up over underwear so the child can feel that they went. I haven’t tried it personally as we are just in the beginning stages of getting Maya to go potty. She will do everything but actually go potty or poop in the toilet. I figured the kids will go when it is right for them. I’m not going to push it too much right now.

    Theresa Held’s last blog post..Maya’s big girl room!

  • http://cheneymabel.com Cheney

    My daughter is 3yrs 3 months old and she is pretty much in the same place with the potty training – she goes more often at day care than at home and it is very frustrating. At least you know you are not alone!

    Cheney’s last blog post..Boo-Ya(hoo)

  • Jami Force

    My son is going through the same thing! I am just happy to know I am not alone, he too does GREAT at daycare, everyday they tell me how he didn’t have one accident but as soon as we get home, and i ask do you need to go potty he says “NO”
    if I put him on the potty he cries, so I don’t want to force him, plus after the crying fit he has on the potty and no potty, he’ll go sit down and potty in his pull up.
    If anyone knows a way to get around this “fear” I guess you could say of peeing at home, let me know PLEASE!

  • Becca

    My son knows what the potty is for, and all that, but every time we ask him if he needs to go potty, he crosses his arms and yells “NO POTTY!”. So one day I decided to let him walk around naked from the waist down and said if he had to go pee-pee to use the potty. He said ok. So eventually he walks over to the potty, and I get all excited, thinking my master plan had worked. And just in the moment I was congratulating myself, he stands beside the darned thing and pees all over the floor. What a crushing defeat!

  • http://dadtrek.com Jon

    Don’t feel too bad Becca. It’s almost 3 months after I wrote this, and believe me, Olivia takes 2 steps forward, 1 step backwards all the time. We’ve had entire weeks where she pees in her pants right after we get her home from daycare. Other times she hasn’t had an accident all day or night for an entire weekend! We’ve just decided to hang in there and keep finding ways to encourage her to go potty. We figure it’ll come eventually. :)

  • outoftricks

    Have you made any progress???? My son does the EXACT same thing and would love some advice!

  • http://dadtrek.com Jon (DadTrek)

    Yes, Olivia doesn't have accidents anymore. She still needs a pull-up overnight, but does fine during the day now.

    I believe that what brought us to this point was simply her development as she got older every month, combined with our constant encouragement. I'll admit that a few times I scolded her for not going potty when she knew better (even though the experts would say that was wrong of me), but Olivia gets stubborn and sometimes wouldn't go potty simply because we were encouraging her to do so. However over time, she kept having fewer and fewer accidents, to where she now doesn't really have any.

    So hang in there!

  • http://www.startpottytraining.com Potty Training

    wow that really is different, most children have an issue going poop instead. I think the big issue is you are still using pull ups. Use big kid underpants and everything should just click. Your child is used to peeing in the pull up so that’s exactly what she will keep trying to do. when you use big kid underpants it is new to them and makes the change to the potty much more easier overall.