Potty training tricks for very stubborn kid?

[krystee]

My son turned 3 in January. He is physically 100% ready to PT. I can tell he knows when he needs to go, and when he’s done, he immediately asks to be changed. The problem: he REFUSES to get anywhere near a toilet. I have tried fun potty books, potty episodes of TV, putting a fruit loop in the potty to aim at as he pees, small potty chairs and regular toilets....nothing. I have also tried bribing, and daycare has offered an M&M to kids who use the potty and offered to give him one if he tried. Nope. (My other son just needed the M&M offer, and from that moment on, he was trained. It was so easy, it was obscene. I deserve a challenging time now, I guess!)

I have six months before he NEEDS to be trained for preschool. Any tips? Should I just show him an empty diaper box and tell him diapers are gone and we need to be in underwear now?

We haven’t actually tried potty training beyond getting him comfortable on the potty (which hasn’t worked) because I have always liked the plan of letting the kid be ready and lead. But he’s a big three-year-old, he is physically ready, and I am very over diapers.

[sparty04]

If it were me, I'd wait until he's a little more mature. That being said, we just potty trained DS3 and he will be 4 in May. He's mostly been pooping on the toilet since summer, but couldn't care less about being wet. DH set a timer for every hour and made him sit on the toilet. After less than a week he's had no accidents and is now in underwear.

We rewarded him this past weekend with a toy of his choice from Target.

Good luck!

[dcn]

When ds2 was around 3.5 I told him there were no more diapers so he would wear underwear now and go potty in the toilet. He was super resistant before that. I won’t say he caught right on but after 3-4 days he had the hang of it. Poop took awhile longer and we threw some undies away but again, he got it eventually. He was starting preschool in august and I decided to go full out in June.

I know it’s cold out now but we also took a 15 hour road trip that summer and he just LOVED peeing in the grass on the side of the road. I probably could have let him just hang out outside the first day or two of training and had less mess!

[dcn]

If he’s just 3 I’d probably give it a few more months. Summer is a good time to try! Both my boys were around 3.5 when they potty trained.

[heygrey]

I tried on and off from just before 2 until I gave him an ultimatum at 3y10m and told him there would be no diapers at 4. A couple weeks before his 4th birthday he asked for underwear and has had zero accidents (he’s almost 7). He was clearly ready before, but ridiculously stubborn. It had to be on his terms.

[joy]

Kids can be ready in all ways except the big one - wanting to use the potty. And that is when you have to admit that they aren’t quite ready yet.

My daughter was 3.5 before she agreed. I stressed, I assumed something was wrong, I pleaded, I wrote posts here.

In the end, she did was these wise ladies said she’d do: one day, she was all in and never looked back. She was trained in two days and rarely had an accident.

I would say back off and revisit in a few months.

[icedcoffee]

I’d either try the 3 day method and say diapers are gone or back off and try again later. No wrong choice. But either go all in or back off.

[beerlover]

I would probably back off and try again in a few months. I had a similar experience to joy and also wrote posts here about my kid not giving a F about potty training. It did take him a little longer, but right after he turned 4 he just "got it," started wearing underwear, and never looked back. He never had any accidents either after that point. He was physically capable long before then and had been using the potty to varying degrees of success, but wasn't mentally ready to go all in full time until later.

[acr]

My DD was like this. Soooo head stong and did not really buy into the conventional methods. We did the Oh Crap method just after she turned 3 (naked for a few days) and it was ok, but she fought every time we prompted her. So, like others said, we backed off. She didn't care enough about being out of diapers & it was early pandemic days when we were so overwhelmed.

We tried again about 6 mos later when she was going to return to daycare. That went a lot better + the expectations/routine at daycare was very helpful. We also just went with the messsage "you know your body, you will go when you need to" and that continues to be ok. In like 2 months, she was totally potty trained, including night.

[noodleoo]

Feb 10, 2021 8:17:10 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

I’d either try the 3 day method and say diapers are gone or back off and try again later. No wrong choice. But either go all in or back off.

Ditto this.  We did the 3 day method when DD1 was 2y9m.  It was one of the hardest parenting things I've ever done, but she was pee trained in 3 days and poop trained in 3 weeks.  It is a commitment though.  DD2 is 2y4m and I'm kind of itching to potty train her, but I'll wait until she's a bit older.  It seems like it will be easier since we're home all the time anyway, but she's pretty stubborn so we will see.  Anyway, I think you need to decide if you want to take the lead on potty training (ie. 3 day method) or wait for him to be ready (which might be a long wait).

[gerberdaisy]

DS was very similar, he was ready, knew when he had to, all that, just refused the potty. Flat out refused and loved pull ups. Then literally overnight a month ago he went to undies and its been so easy since. We had been trying it more and more, but he just suddenly stopped resisting. (Robot toy videos on you tube also helped). We've had less than a handful of accidents and they were really small ones. So much easier than training DD at 2.5. So I would say wait. I stressed about it too, but so glad we waited until he was more ready.

Then in 4.5 months if he still isn't ready try the three day method.

[pinkpeony08]

I would back off and wait until he is interested and ready. You can bribe all you want, but ultimately he has to want to participate to have success.

[Mrs.flang]

I'm in no way an expert, but I stressed about potty training DD1 because I wanted to let her lead, but she had just turned 3 and I was getting anxious to be done with it. We halfheartedly tried a few things and then at around 38 months it was like a switch flipped and she just started using the big potty, full time, no accidents (ok maybe like, one accident overnight if I remember correctly), no pull-ups, it was glorious.

So I would probably back off for a few more months and then if he's still not into by May/June, try something else, like the no more diapers thing.

[stephm0188]

Back off for now, but revisit in a month or two.

We did a sticker chart for a toy he really wanted. But we also did a sticker chart for both of us, too. We'd give each other stickers and make a big deal out of it whenever we'd use the bathroom, and the FOMO made him crack within a weekend.

[georgeharrison]

I will say that we did it all wrong. No matter what we did, he wasn't ready and didn't potty train until he was ready. He was one of those kids that just didn't care at all if he had wet (or soiled) pants. He just didn't care. It was horrible and embarrassing, but going back, I would have just let him stay in diapers for a little while longer. My sister has four kids. The first 2, she had stressful potty training with, so for the 3rd, she didn't even try. Then one day when the 3rd was like 3.5, my sister walked in on her using the toilet. Haha.

[blondemoment123]

Following because I’m in the exact same boat.

[lindyanne]

We got a big reward. We went to the store and got something DS really wanted (a matchbox car track) and I left it sitting in the living room. It took a few weeks but that finally did the trick. 

[penguingrrl]

Honestly, back off from it. I spent a long time stressing over my middle kid learning to use the bathroom.

A few months before she turned 3 I thought we were trained. It lasted a week, then she regressed and flat out refused. I kept trying to bribe and cajole her, which led to her screaming her head off when she saw a toilet. I finally backed off and stopped talking about it because she clearly had dug her heels in and wasn’t willing to do it.

We were reaching the point that we were nearing 4 and not trained and I was really starting to sweat it. Then her BFF at preschool looked at her and genuinely innocently asked her why she wore a diaper “like the babies.” Said friend was the oldest, had a younger sister and mom was pregnant, and I had just had my third, so there were a ton of babies in her life.

My daughter came home, threw her diaper out, put on underwear and we never had to train her.

It turns out how they potty train will give you a ton of insight into them. She still is a kid who needs to want to do something for her own reasons, not because her parents or teachers tell her to. So far that has gone fine with school because she wants to beat her sister as far as grades (we don’t compare or show our kids each other’s report cards, but they seem to on their own).

[krystee]

We have progress! When daycare invites him to use the potty, he used to say, “I will never use the potty!” That changed this week to, “Not today, but I will soon.” I’ll stop asking and hope he comes around to it on his own.

[lilac05]

I have often found that the best way for stubborn kids to come around is to act like you just don’t care. Don’t push, don’t react, don’t praise...just check out. If there’s no one for them to fight with, there’s nothing to “win” and there’s no reason to keep up the fight. When the thrill of the fight is gone, they often come around.

Also, I know it seems like the time is coming up REALLY fast...but think about it in terms of his life. 6 months is 1/6th of a 3 year old’s life! That’s a long time! And generally, after 3, kids potty train super quickly. It’s often diapers on Friday, underwear on Monday...VERY rare accidents. When they get it, they get it, and you’re done. They don’t need months and months of practicing to get it down before going to school.

[keh2oblue]

As the parent of two mature and independent toddlers at one time, kids can be stubborn! Neither of my children could be bribed or convinced to PT before THEY were ready. I even had to find a preschool for my daughter that took 3yo not potty trained 😩 It was terrible and probably why I only have two kids, lol.

The good news, is that it does eventually happen...just not always when we need or want it to. I’d back off for now and revisit when it’s warmer and your child can be at the house just in undies for a few days.

[magic]

Another recommendation to wait a few more months (sorry, I know you're over diapers). When you revisit, maybe he'll be one of those kids that's so ready to potty train that they basically do it themselves!

[mccallister84]

Having successfully trained one kid at 2 y 3 months and failed to train another at 2 y 8 months (and counting) I’ll agree with everyone that once they are ready it will happen easily.

DD1 was showing all the signs of readiness and we tried the three day method and it was a disaster. We backed off and one day when I noticed she was pooping I asked if she wanted to go in the potty and she said yes and that was it (well for pee at least - she still requested a diaper to poop in for a year).

Meanwhile with DD2 we have been trying since she was a little over 2 because she is a budding nudist and I can’t keep clothes or a diaper on her. She’s been able to get herself dressed and undressed since before she turned 2. We have tried everything including the three day method more than once and everything has failed. She is so fiercely independent that I thought she would want to potty train right away. Nope. We finally got our first unprompted pee in the potty this morning. Who knows how things will go from here.