3 year olds and the bathroom

Jo · Guru

3 year olds and the bathroom

Jo · Guru

Kevin is mostly potty trained now but still has an occasional accident and is still in a diaper overnight.

He still needs a lot of help with pulling up his underwear and pants (forget buttoning).

He's not very independent, and this worries me about his preschool.

Juni · Guru

Owen has been potty trained for a super long time. Took him a while to be poop trained but he has been doing that for a while now.

However, he still doesn't wipe himself and I am trying to get him to do that in case he has to poop at school. I will talk to his teacher about their policy next week - the bathroom is downstairs from their classroom.

He is still in a diaper at night - dry about 50 percent of the time. I honestly think he is dry most of the time when he wakes up and consciously pees in his diaper because he is too tired to go to the bathroom. No diapers at naptime. He's barely three, I'm not going to worry about the night time diapers for a while.

apies · Guru

jake potty trained at 27 months. it was totally random - i put the little potty in the family room and he had no interest that morning. later that afternoon he sat on it. by the end of the weekend, we were done with diapers.

he has had an occasional accident since we've been living with jammi - i think he's been a little overwhelmed with the changes and unwilling to leave 7 year old tyler's side during playtime.

he doesn't wipe by himself - i still insist on that since he has, um, mushy poop (sorry, tmi). but he is completely independent with pulling up and down his pants and underwear. no buttons or snaps yet for him.

Sonya · Guru

Josie's totally trained (again, totally led by her own initiative), night and day. She was day trained at 2 and one month latter, I noticed she was always dry when she woke up so i figured, what the hell, I'll try her diaper free at night. She's had 3 night accidents (one in my bed last month - grossssssss) in that whole time. She has a giant bladder and she sweats like a faucet at bedtime so I think that helps.

She wipes pee but not poop and can dress herself.

I think they all figure this out in time.

beckhamgirls · Senior Member

Katie peed on the potty (at home) for the first time yesterday and pooped today!!! It's been tough for me, because Mary Beth pretty much potty trained herself. Katie was very adament that she was NOT going to go potty. She said she didn't want to. We bribed with candy, tried just taking diapers away, all kinds of stuff to no avail.

BUT, the other day we saw a Chucky Cheese commercial. She said she wanted to go. I told her if she starts peeing and pooping in the potty we will have a little party for her at Chucky Cheese. Well, those were the magic words, because now she's all about it!!!!

I'm really hoping that in a month or two someone will drop out of the preschool she was supposed to go to so she can get back in.

Supafly · Guru

I know Kate is on the older side of this group, but I thought I would chime in. She is, needless to say, fully potty trained. But she flat out refused to do it before she turned 3, lmao. She is such a stubborn kid. Once she turned 3, I reminded her that she had promised me she would do it, and she begrudgingly agreed.

She was independent with pants pulling up and such from the start, unless I put her in things with buttons or snaps. She didn't want pull ups at nap, and only would wear pulls ups at bed-no diapers. But that was fine and she didn't need them for very long. She has been in undies at bed for a long time-I forget when she gave up pull ups for good.

This was last fall. But she still has accidents once in a while. Not terribly often. They either happen 1) in the middle of the night if she forgot to pee before bed and didn't have a nap (she is a HARD sleeper, and when she is really tired, she will wake up, but only make it part way to the potty if she really has to go) or 2) when she is playing with others and doesn't want to take a break. For the longest time, she would just stand there and pee all over herself while she cried about it-no attempt to stop the pee or rush to the potty. But in the last few months, she finally will stop herself and run to the potty.

Her accidents are minor and only maybe a couple times a month, if that, but the girl is almost 4!!! (Anna had one accident-literally-and that was the first day of potty training. She was a potty training superstar! So in comparison, Kate has had a harder time with it)

Oh, and she wipes herself. And she does pretty well. They use the wet wipes for poop, even though I know now that we really shouldn't flush even the flushable ones.

Thankfully, it was a non-issue for us with preschool because of her fall birthday. But I have a couple of friends who have been scrambling to get their 3 year olds trained to start preschool in a couple of weeks-and they have been stressed!!

daisy · Guru

C is fully pee-trained but does have minor accidents (ie, dribbles or wet underwear, but can stop it and get to a toilet before there's a puddle) IF she's too busy playing to be bothered with peeing. she holds it till the last second, and we're working on that.

she can pull her underwear on and off, and doesnt wear anything with snaps or zippers - she wears dresses only, so this isnt an issue. she's also good about sitting on a regular toilet with no potty seat, and is good about holding her dress out of the way, and wiping herself.

pooping, she still asks for a diaper. she still holds it for up to 5 days at a time. i still need an enema on hand, and she still needs miralax. she's horrified of the whole idea of poop. she pooped a little bit on the toilet the other day by accident while peeing, and literally threw up, she started crying so much about it. i dont know how i'll EVER get her to poop on the toilet, seriously. it's really worrying me. i just dont make an issue at all about it, but it isnt getting me anywhere. and i know she wont ever poop in preschool bc like i said, she holds it for a week at a time. it's HORRIBLE. :(

nighttime trained? no way. not yet.

Sunshine · Guru

Lance is about 80% pee trained and can pull his pull-up down/off by himself with shorts. Not even close to poop trained, although he has done that on the potty maybe twice.

He's getting better about asking to go to the potty (and not crying wolf a ton, which was frustrating in the beginning), even when we're out and about. And he's dry at night about 50% of the time.

I'm not in a terrible rush since he's not going to preschool this year or anything, but it would be nice if he did make more marked progress soon, lol!

Oh, and if he wants to he *can* do the entire thing by himself (including hand washing) for just pee, although he's often unmotivated to do it and calls for help. He's getting better about it though.

Michele · Senior Member

Anna's been fully trained for awhile. She did it on her own about a month after she turned 2. She has a bit of OCD and it would freak her out to have an accident so they are pretty much non-exisitent. She wakes at night and goes to the bathroom by herself now to go potty which I am glad she finally figured out how to do.

They all figure it out at different times. Anna was out of pull-ups before Lauren was.

mctex · Guru

daisy wrote:

C is fully pee-trained but does have minor accidents (ie, dribbles or wet underwear, but can stop it and get to a toilet before there's a puddle) IF she's too busy playing to be bothered with peeing. she holds it till the last second, and we're working on that.

she can pull her underwear on and off, and doesnt wear anything with snaps or zippers - she wears dresses only, so this isnt an issue. she's also good about sitting on a regular toilet with no potty seat, and is good about holding her dress out of the way, and wiping herself.

pooping, she still asks for a diaper. she still holds it for up to 5 days at a time. i still need an enema on hand, and she still needs miralax. she's horrified of the whole idea of poop. she pooped a little bit on the toilet the other day by accident while peeing, and literally threw up, she started crying so much about it. i dont know how i'll EVER get her to poop on the toilet, seriously. it's really worrying me. i just dont make an issue at all about it, but it isnt getting me anywhere. and i know she wont ever poop in preschool bc like i said, she holds it for a week at a time. it's HORRIBLE. :(

nighttime trained? no way. not yet.

Kelly, this was totally us. Victoria would cry hysterically, asking to be taken to the doctor, when she had to poop. She was in this terrible middle ground... she was aware enough of it to where she was uncomfortable going in a diaper, but too afraid of it to go on the toilet.

I had this book (called Everyone Poops, in case the link doesn't work) that was given to me as a joke about 15 years ago for reasons I will not go into (ha!), and we read it a bunch of times and I think it (along with the temporary miralax) really started to help. The book really worked for V because she's a huge animal lover... but in searching for it on Amazon, I saw there are others that might work/be better, too.

Once we started treating it as a fear instead of a medical problem, the transition went much faster.

Hope she gets past it soon. I know how awful it is! :(

mctex · Guru

Victoria is totally trained, too, although post-poop wiping still requires some assistance (although she doesn't always think so, I disagree).

Alexandra trained her. It was the most awesome thing ever. It was completely at their initiative, and who was I to interfere. <snicker>

We did have the problem I just mentioned where she was scared for a little while. But other than that, it was shamefully easy.

It's how I know I'm done having kids. These two were so easy to train, I know if I tempt fate I'll get walloped with the payback. And I'm way too old and grouchy these days to handle that kind of karma. :)

I'm glad, because she's going to be starting preschool September 1st. That's assuming that I ever get off my azz and pack and get us moved, which I am really having trouble doing...

MommyNicoleof3 · Senior Member

Austin has been toilet trained since March (2 yrs and 9 mos), it took 4 months to get him totally out of pull ups day and night. But since then we have had just a few accidents. He takes his pants and underwear completely off when he does go potty and has trouble getting them back on the right way (like with the tags in the back or even just one leg in each hole) I try and keep shoes on him to prevent the pants from coming off entirely. He can't do buttons or snaps yet either. And no wiping himself. I have to make sure he doesn't poop and then just hop off the toilet to put his pants on....he doesn't even think to wipe. Aye!

supergrover · Guru

Well, poop. We're behind.

Tristen REFUSES to use the potty.

But, so didn't Koda until 3.5, so I'm not panicking yet.

An early trainer would be super nice.

Juni · Guru

supergrover wrote:

Well, poop. We're behind.

Tristen REFUSES to use the potty.

But, so didn't Koda until 3.5, so I'm not panicking yet.

An early trainer would be super nice.

FWIW, I loved my later trainer much much more than my early trainer. Gavin was 3 yrs. 2 months before he had anything to do with it but was trained in two days and has never had a single accident - day or night.

Owen starting training (his choice) around 2 and has been pee trained since pretty close to them but the stages are killing me. Pee trained during the day, then naps, then a looooong phase of finally being poop trained and now onto no diapers at night.

Yep, I much preferred a late trainer. :)

daisy · Guru

mctex wrote:

daisy wrote:

C is fully pee-trained but does have minor accidents (ie, dribbles or wet underwear, but can stop it and get to a toilet before there's a puddle) IF she's too busy playing to be bothered with peeing. she holds it till the last second, and we're working on that.

she can pull her underwear on and off, and doesnt wear anything with snaps or zippers - she wears dresses only, so this isnt an issue. she's also good about sitting on a regular toilet with no potty seat, and is good about holding her dress out of the way, and wiping herself.

pooping, she still asks for a diaper. she still holds it for up to 5 days at a time. i still need an enema on hand, and she still needs miralax. she's horrified of the whole idea of poop. she pooped a little bit on the toilet the other day by accident while peeing, and literally threw up, she started crying so much about it. i dont know how i'll EVER get her to poop on the toilet, seriously. it's really worrying me. i just dont make an issue at all about it, but it isnt getting me anywhere. and i know she wont ever poop in preschool bc like i said, she holds it for a week at a time. it's HORRIBLE. :(

nighttime trained? no way. not yet.

Kelly, this was totally us. Victoria would cry hysterically, asking to be taken to the doctor, when she had to poop. She was in this terrible middle ground... she was aware enough of it to where she was uncomfortable going in a diaper, but too afraid of it to go on the toilet.

I had this book (called Everyone Poops, in case the link doesn't work) that was given to me as a joke about 15 years ago for reasons I will not go into (ha!), and we read it a bunch of times and I think it (along with the temporary miralax) really started to help. The book really worked for V because she's a huge animal lover... but in searching for it on Amazon, I saw there are others that might work/be better, too.

Once we started treating it as a fear instead of a medical problem, the transition went much faster.

Hope she gets past it soon. I know how awful it is! :(

thanks - it's good to know someone else dealt with this. it's been like 2 or three months of this now, which is frustrating bc we were actually making decent progress. she must have had a painful one somewhere along the line and that was it. she holds them till she's so backed up that it hurts to go. vicious cycle.

we do have that book. it was helpful for sure when she was making progress, but now she wants NOTHING to do with it (she throws it across the room) and says "but *I* dont poop! never!!" :(

the miralax helps a lot, but she can still hold it even past that. suuuch a tough situation. at least i'm not worried about accidents at school though. she goes and hides upstairs if she's pooping (even in a diaper) so i cant even do the "get her to poop at least in the bathroom with a diaper and then take babysteps" thing. she just flatout refuses to let me have ANYTHING to do with it. if i happen to walk in the room while she's going, she pushes me out and says "then i'll just get RID OF YOU" :(

she has such a strong will. seriously. i really wonder what she'll be when she grows up. i never find myself thinking about that with R, bc she has such a mild disposition - i feel like she would just go with anything as long as the people are pleasant and her chair is comfy - lol. but cara is one tough cookie.