What to do now...

hi. Sorry about the long winded post ... just wanting some advice about the next step.

my son is turning 3y in a month or so. We have been actively TT for the past couple of months.
At age 18 months he started ( unprompted) taking himself to the toilet, taking off nappy, doing a pee, pulling nappies on, flushing then trying to wash hands.. the whole lot. I was so stoked!!! However this only lasted a month or so ( change in daycare centre/ my job now 30hr/wk at this time probably the problem). Since then we have tried on and off, (with reasonable success with #1 but not #2s) but backed off at times when he refused to sit on the loo/ potty. I figured this way he would TT in his own time when ready....

Anyway for the last couple months he will only go to the toilet for pee/ poo when he feels like it... we have tried sticker rewards, allowing him to choose wearing undies vs pull ups, and other incentives ( staying at his friends house overnight if goes to toilet all the time).
We have even tried saying that the #2s want to have a poo party in the toliet and see their friends ! wink this actually worked for 2 days or so then novelty wore off. Hes not scared of the toilet and even tries to get in and flush the loo at any opportunity. Daycare say he using toilet 1/2 the time for #1 otherwise goes in pull ups/ undies. at home on good day he does 4-5 wees and 1-2 poos in toilet. other days not.

the problem is that at times he is NOT having accidents, atleast 2-3x a week he is waiting until i go out of the room, (usually) taking undies off, doing the business, putting undies back on and coming in giggling about where the #2s have ended up ( lounge floor is his favourite), telling me that "poos should go in toilet" but he wanted then to be where he put them. Sometimes he gets angry when i clean up the mess.
we have tried not to make too much of fuss ( thinking this would make it worse), just saying yuck and reminding him that if he wants to wear undies he has to use the toilet.
I''m now 25 weeks preg with baby #2 and still got m/s, and gagging over each mess i have to clean up. I wouldnt mind if were accidental messes!!!

Would REALLY appreciate any ideas/ things that have worked for others in this situation!!!

Toilet training is hard for most people so dont be to hard on yourself.

I worked in day care for many years so have helped a lot of parents tt their children and i can see 2 big things that may not b helping you and one is PULL UPs i know i am on the huggies site so shouldn't say this but by putting them on him you r making things worse, they r the same as a nappies regardless of what the advertising says about them, to ur son they r the same and they r his safety net, he is refusing change which is very normal but u need to stop being so soft on him and tell him straight he is a big boy now and he goes potty he will get a reward for going to the potty and will get no attention for accidents.

Have u tried putting a little potty in the lounge room that way when he goes he may be willing to do it in there rather than on the floor then after he gets the hang of that u could slowly start moving the potty towards the bathroom.
Consistency is key if you say no more pull ups u have to mean it even if it means 10 accidents a day no pull ups not even when u go out, he is smart and will hold on if he knows at a certain time or situation u will put a pull up on him, u need to b one step ahead.

You can do it and so can he just stick to one thing and dont change ur tactics just because he might relapse a bit doesnt mean it isnt working, just keep going and he will get the hang out of it but those pull ups need to go.

Goodluck

I agree that pull ups or any other nappy pants delay toilet training. They know its a nappy so will go in it.
When we decided to TT DD1, I put knickers on her regardless of what we were doing that day. She had an accident in the middle of a shopping centre early on, but that didn't deter us & she was fully TT (with the exception of 1 or 2 accidents) within 2 weeks.

I don't have any advice about the "accidents" in the lounge sorry. My reaction would probably be to get mad & send him to his room for time-out, but I'm sure that wouldn't help the situation.

I would go back to basics, get rid of the nappies completely (except for sleeps), continue with the reward system & give lots of praise for going to the toilet/potty.

Good luck

We have been going through a similar thing with DD2. She has a marble jar and every time she goes toilet she gets a marble. When her jar is full she gets to pick a toy from $2 shop. If she wets she loses a marble and it takes her longer to get a toy. (please no judgment unless you know the story behind doing this) SO far it's working really well and we have only been doing it a week, we are now down to 1 accident a day roughly. We started by putting her back in knickers as we had been swapping and taking her every 45 mins to 1 hour.

Thanks for the suggestions. yep i think you are right that the pull ups are not doing anything to help since he KNOWS when/ how to go already.

I have tried the potty a couple of times, he just makes racing car noises and scoots around the floor on it, so we decided early on to just go with a toilet. He wont even use a training seat insert ( he tells me "ïts for BABIES")and will use my parents toilet ( if he wants) when he is at their house.

3 lil monkeys: i like the idea about the jar/ marbles, i am sure he would get the idea pretty quickly. We are still trying with sticker chart at the moment but he seems to be getting over that too, saying he has enough stickers already ( sigh!).

Lizyd : i think you are right about not letting him go back to pullups after undies, i have just bought a bulk lot of undies off trademe today and once they arrive I might get him to help me put all the pull ups in a bag and leave them out for the nappy fairy... leaving him just with drawer of undies.

My only concern was kindys attitude of if my son has a couple wet/dirty undies then they want to put him back in a nappy for rest of day ( as i was told today). I dont think the mixed message home vs kindy is helping either!!!