# Potty training



## father_of_2 (Oct 27, 2017)

If you've been following my other thread, you know that my wife and I can't agree on which directions the sun rises and sets, much less anything else.

This is true also for potty training of DD2. She will be 3 in April so it's time to get serious about it but my wife keeps insisting on putting her in underwear on the weekends instead of pull-ups, which results in me having to clean up pee from the floor, twice from the couch, and even poop-filled panties, which DD2 thinks is downright hilarious.

My wife will put her in panties, not tell me, and then go nap, leaving me to clean up when the inevitable happens.

I've told my wife on multiple occasions that she's nowhere near ready for panties but like everything else I say it goes in one ear and out the other.

So, two questions for you all:

1) Since I'm going to have to co-parent until I can get my wife out of the house, how do I communicate to her effectively that she shouldn't be wearing panties until she's ready?

And

2) She needs to be potty trained and she's not taking to it as quickly as DD8 did. She's a brilliant kid who will have a full conversation with you, with full sentences, but has always been slow in transition periods. Have any of you dealt with a kid that was difficult to potty train and, if so, what did you do to ultimately be successful?


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## sunsetmist (Jul 12, 2018)

M&M bribes worked best--hey that was a long time ago, but it worked. Training takes consistency so your wife would have to agree.


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## talesofthe-twofoldmother (Dec 18, 2019)

I do not understand the panties right now... A lot of people say no panties, nothing but panties works... 

My DD3 is so intelligent, but she was so inconsistent up until recently! 

Your DD should not transition to panties until she has a good success run at least a week strong of going to potty! 

We made it fun for DD3, we took her and bought her panties with themes, and talked about how pretty they were and that if she was a big girl and used her potty that she would get to wear her pretty big girl panties 

I thought we would never get her trained, sure she still has the occasional accident but in time she will get the hang of things. 

I hope you and your W can come to an agreement if she wants your daughter to wear the panties already without being trained... make her clean the messes up lol.


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## pastasauce79 (Mar 21, 2018)

She'll go potty when she's ready. 

When my first child was about 2 years old, I went to a great talk about potty training from our local children's hospital. I learned their organs have to be ready and matured to be potty trained. Every child is different and sometimes, during stressful situations, potty training could be difficult. 

My daughter was out of pull ups during the day when she was about three and a half. It took longer at night and nap time. Some nights she was dry but it wasn't consistent until she was about 4. 

I remember I used stickers as a reward. Nothing big. She had her little potty she used until she was ready to use the regular toilet. 

My son was a lot easier and younger when I potty trained him.

Every child is different. I would suggest you keeping her in pull ups until she's dry, without accidents, for at least a week. Nap times and night times are going to take longer so keep her in pull ups or diapers until she wakes up dry. 

You can buy a water resistant mattress cover and absorbent pads and put them under the sheets to make clean up easier when your wife doesn't use pull ups. 

It would be good to find a potty training class for your wife. She needs to understand what's going on in her daughter's body.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

We didn't have pull ups when my kids were small so it was pants or nothing. Thankfully they all caught on very quickly, before 2 for the first two, and 2 1/2 for the third who I had left longer as I was coping with mums death. 
Consistency is the key. For mine it was nappies off pants on and off we went. No going back and forth from nappies, pull-ups and pants.


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## Spicy (Jun 18, 2016)

I used Skittles and was done in under a week with both.

If your wife isn’t communicating to you what your daughter has on, grab her and take a look, problem solved. If she’s in panties, get her switched to pull ups during your watch.


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## bobert (Nov 22, 2018)

You need to sit down and discuss different potty training methods. There are many different methods and not every method will work for every family and child. My first two kids were accident free at 15 months and were completely independent before 2, my third is 3.5 and "trained but not reliable", and certainly not independent. 

The important thing is being consistent. 

If you cannot agree on a method, then agree on a timeframe. ie) You will do one method for x amount of time and then try z method. Don't switch methods too quickly.

Personally, I've never used rewards or bribes. That was my wife's choice and I stuck with it because it worked for my 3 kids. 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.oh...are-rewards-the-magic-trick-to-potty-training

The problem with using panties before she's trained is that they feel too similar to a diaper or pull-up. Try going naked (at home), then commando, then undies. Use pull-ups (or whatever, we use cloth so I'm not familiar with what's used) for the car. Use them for naps and at night as well, unless she is waking up dry.


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## sunsetmist (Jul 12, 2018)

So, you know by now, it is actually the parents who are trained and the child just catches on.


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## father_of_2 (Oct 27, 2017)

Thank you all for the great advice. She's making progress - woke up with a dry diaper this morning and then went all day at daycare without wetting her pull-up. I think we just need to be consistent and take her to the potty every 1-1.5 hrs, with an incentive of some kind.


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## Tilted 1 (Jul 23, 2019)

What worked for her to stop the pacifier? Or maybe just get the pull-up or what suits you best before she takes her nap, or the spouse will be on clean up detail.


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## hillybilly2785 (Dec 29, 2019)

My two girls were both different. The first was fully potty trained during the day at like 2.5-3. She still used pull ups at night until about 3.5..towards the end though, I’ll admit it was my laziness in not wanting to strip her bed down in case of an accident so I kept the pull up on her and she just used it because it was there.
The second, who just turned 2 has been using the potty off and on since around 18 mos, but has been without a pull up all day (even naps) for about 2 weeks. I still use a pull up at night but she’s dry pretty often. What worked for her was just seeing how excited we were when she’d use the potty. Cheers, high fives, and yays made her cheer and be excited with us, and she kind of has fun running over to use the “big big potty” even if she doesn’t go.


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## Trickster (Nov 19, 2011)

Our daughter was almost 4 years old and still not potty trained. My then wife would say she wasn't ready. In reality, she stayed dry all night since she was 18 or so months and first thing in the morning, she would go in the corner behind her doll house a pee and poop in her pull-ups. I knew she was ready and had been for a very long time. She just refused to get on her potty.

So one morning, I took off her pull-up before she had to go . She went in total meltdown mode wanting to put on her pull-ups. Against her mother begging to let her put them on, I didn't let her. So our daughter did her normal ritual and went behind her dollhouse in the corner and pooped and peed on the carpet. I didn't yell or react in any way, but her mom wanted to put her pull-ups back on, proving she wasn't ready. I refused. A couple hour later she wanted her pull-up again, but ended up peeing by the door of the bathroom. By dinner time, she actually used her potty. Potty trained in one day. Since that time, she only had one accident a few weeks later while at the zoo. 

Personally, I think she would've been ready at two years. She needed a little push.


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## Adelais (Oct 23, 2013)

Trickster said:


> Our daughter was almost 4 years old and still not potty trained. My then wife would say she wasn't ready. In reality, she stayed dry all night since she was 18 or so months and first thing in the morning, *she would go in the corner behind her doll house a pee and poop in her pull-ups*.


The bolded reminds me of our oldest child. At 3 he would peepee in the potty but refused to poop there. Instead he would back up to a wall and poop in his pullups. I'm not sure why he bothered backing up to a wall, but I think he thought he had privacy there?

When we put him in cloth trainer pants he held his poop for 4 days until we had to give him an enema in the tub. (Dr. recommended) 

He hated that AND SO DID WE! After the 2nd enema he decided he would rather poop in the potty. I think it was a control thing, because he grew up to be very stubborn.

Our 3rd child potty trained herself at 2. One day she decided she didn't want to wear pull-ups anymore and put on her training panties instead. She had one peepee accident and changed her panties herself!

Children are people and they are all very different.

With regard to your daughter, I don't know any 12 year old (who has all their faculties) who still pees and poops in their pants. She will learn sooner or later. 

With regard to your wife, tell your wife that if the two of you can't get on the same page, then she had better let you know when she is not going to be around whenever she puts your daughter in panties, because the next time she puts her in panties and takes a nap or leaves and your daughter has an accident, your wife is going to find dirty panties on top of her own pillow. If that is too drastic, then think of something that works for you.

ETA: the daughter who potty trained herself still wore pull-ups at night, and she kept them dry. She has grown up to be a self-controlled, decisive and self-reliant young woman.

Our son still does things randomly and doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes. He learns everything the hard way.


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

If I were in the same situation, I'd wake up my spouse and tell him to clean up the mess.


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## Affaircare (Jan 11, 2010)

#1 - My son saw that daddy didn't wear a diaper and at 2yo came to me and said, "I don't want to wear a diaper any more"... so HE came to ME and I knew he was ready to try. We got him Ninja Turtle underwear and said that if he went all day dry and clean, he could wear them. Then we took him potty every hour, and used the cheerio trick to teach him how to aim. If he was dry and clean, he got a skittle. If he pee'd or poo'd in the potty he got a skittle. If he was not dry or clean, we didn't punish but he didn't get a skittle or the Ninja Turtle undies. It took him one day to "get the hang of it" (and he had a little more trouble with #2 than with #1) so the next day he was dry and clean...and "earned" his Ninja Turtle undies. We let him wear the undies during the day, and pullups at night, but still let him go potty at night if he woke up. 

#2 - My other son was 3yo and hadn't even mentioned potty training or having an interest or anything. We asked him, "Would you like big boy pants and learn how to potty?" -- he'd say "Nope" and move alone. So we didn't train him. THEN he wanted to go to pre-school (cuz his big brother went to school) and we told him "You can't go to school until you are potty trained!" and lo and behold, he was interested! We used roughly the same routine, but it took son#2 a couple days to get the hang of it...like a week maybe. We still took him every hour, but he couldn't tell the feeling of "I've got to go" until it was too late sometimes. 

#3 If wife insists on putting DD2 in the panties, then when DD2 messes up, wife should be the one cleaning it, not you. Now I realize that's a "should" and you do it to try to keep the peace, but in real life you are teaching wife how to treat you, which is a) no need to listen to you, and b) no need to experience the consequences of her (wife's) choices if she pitches a big enough fit. Let her (wife) pitch a fit! The natural consequence of putting an unpotty trained DD2 in panties is cleaning up the mess. It's okay to allow her (wife) to learn from her choices.


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