Potty nightmare!!

My daughter Madeline (3) potty trained just fine and hasn't had any problems since in her six months of complete dryness. Her twin sister, Zoe, on the other hand, went from being "perfectly" potty trained to regressing progessively to the point of wetting herself completely several times a day. I think that for Zoe it was partly the move and partly the fact that she is no longer the "baby" (even though she is the twin Zoe was psychologically the baby of the family). Anyway, I just keep her in pull-ups now. She has demonstrated in the past that she is physically capable of being fully potty trained and she has had the trip to the doc to rule out UTI. She just has some reason - conscious or unconscious - for not keeping herself dry right now. Sooooo I keep her in pull-ups to prevent the physical mess as well as the embarrassment it seems to cause her (it didn't help that the other two kids started making fun of her when she wet herself). I'm going to keep her in pullups for a few more weeks and then sit down and talk to her about it. I'll decide what to do from there.

Jennifer

[SueC]

since Maya has a 1 year old sister who is starting to walk, say words, etc. It might be her way of getting attention.

[SueC]

I think I am going insane--Maya (our 32 month old) basically potty trained herself right when she turned 2. We weren't even working on it, she just started using the potty chair so we switched her over to underware (except at naptime and bedtime--she has never been trained while she is asleep). Anyhow a few months ago, she started dribbling in her panties. She didn't like being wet so she would immediately go change her clothes. I'm pretty sure she was doing it on purpose so that she could change--she loves picking out her own clothes. This eventually evolved into her completely peeing her pants several times throughout the day. At that point, I started painting her toenails as a reward for staying dry. Miraculously, she quit peeing her pants and everything was peachy. Then she started doing it again, and the toenail polish was no longer a reward for her. Then I bought plastic training pants and told her if she had an accident she would have to wear those. Once again, she stayed completely dry for over a week. As of yesterday, she is once again having accidents. So today, I put her in the plastic pants and she has peed her pants twice so far. I am at my wits end. I have already taken her to the doctor to rule out a UTI and she is fine. I'm positive she has complete control over this and it is driving me crazy. I have thought about going to the sticker reward system, but I really think she is past needing a reward every time she pees in the correct place, and I could easily see her becoming manipulative by peeing her pants every time I try to phase out the rewards. I would love any insight or advice!

By the way, I also took her to the doctor to rule out UTI. Hard to do when your child will not pee (no urine sample). In the end, we've discovered through trial and error that Grace is sensitive to soap. She gets an irritation minutes into her bath. We now only use soap-free products, and she has not had one problem since. Dove Baby Wash works well, as it's soap free. All of the Disney character bubble baths are problematic.

In the end, I also think Grace liked the attention her regression garnered on her. So I think that fed into it a bit as well.

Janet, we use Aveeno fragrance-free products (my kids get eczema at the drop of a hat). They work very well getting my stinky kids clean and have yet to cause a rash or flare-up.

I really do think Zoe's potty training regression is about attention as well. I think it's on a pretty unconscious level with her though. She loves her baby sister so much, but I think she really thought of herself as the baby of the family....

Jennifer

My twins girls potty trained at about two and a half years (a year ago). Everything was great, until Grace got a urethra irritation from a bar of Ivory soap in her bath. After FIVE days of being afraid to go pee pee (it stung, poor little girl), she would explode and go pee on the floor once or twice every 24 hours. She held it for 22 hours one time. I tried everything, including giving extra fluids and using Pull Ups. She would not wear Pull Ups (screamed), and could easily hold the extra fluid (bladder the size of Texas). When she finally got over her fears (took almost a week), she regressed to going in Pull Ups and in the baby training potty. It was along while before I could convince her that going on the regular toilet wouldn't hurt if going in the training potty didn't hurt. For my daughter, the regression was all about fear. She wanted something safe and familiar.

Janet

Sue,

My youngest put me through incredible potty ups and downs...and just when I thought he was done, he started to have accidents at night again....Finally, at age 3 1/2 (knock on wood ) we have it all behind us.

He is now obsessed though with anything potty..and he INSISTS on having me sit with him and on giving me a play by play as things...progress. This includes when we go to public bathrooms and has involved such embarassing comments uttered loudly: "Now I'm making a monster poop, now I'm making the banana poop"...I apologize to anyone who is not yet a parent or hasn't yet made it to the potty-training stage. I have truly lost all sense of shame.

It reached a point where I refuse to take him to the bathroom in public places if I can avoid it..and so this week when we were at the Mall of America, I made Thomas take him...and...Thomas came out with his face bright red carrying Alex . Apparently, it wasn't good enought to comment about his own potty prowess...he gave a play-by-play on what he thought was going on in the stall next to him as well....and Thomas had to stand there and help Alex wash his hands next to the poor 'victim' in the other stall.

Ahhhh, the joys of parenting!!



Kris

[SueC]

That had me cracking up Kris! Maya often comments on what other people doing in other stalls "is the lady going potty mommy?, did the lady fart, mommy?" or if she sees someone leaving the bathroom she will ask very loudly if they went potty. I find it pretty embarrassing and I never know how I should answer her.
I have sort of reached an "epiphany" about our own potty training problems so I'll see if my new approach works!

Alex does the same thing! Funniest example: Sophia was having her first "real" bath after coming home from the hospital (cord came off). So, Jon was excitedly videotaping it. We were in the bathroom doing this when Alex comes in needing to use the potty. We thought nothing of this - he's five and we didn't pay attention to him. UNTIL you watch the tape and here him groaning and grunting loudly and then saying things like, "Wow this is really a big poopy" and "That smells pretty bad". It's really hard not to crack up listening to him on the tape - someday it's going to really, really embarrass the poor kid!

Jennifer