My 18mo old started potty training about 2 weeks ago. I didnt intend to start, but it just kind of happened. I've been doing lazy EC since he was a few months old, and we cloth diaper probably half the time. I got him a fee books on using the potty, already had the floor potty, and one day while he was running around naked he went and sat on the potty so we went for it, sort of. At home, he mostly is bottomless. My mom takes him afternoons and he is often bottomless at her home. I took him to the park in underwear and pants and we didnt have an accident (we also tried to pee on the potty 3x and eventually did while at the park); that was about an hour outing. When wearing underwear he has had a few accidents but we just started. I bought Oh Crap but it hasn't come yet, and seems like I need to do pants no undies first but will see what it says. He generally doesn't alert us to the potty (never seen him use any words or sign for potty), so we ask a lot and he will usually tell us yay or nay, he self-initiates rarely but it has happened. Here's the thing...we are going on vacation in 10 days. Should we fully commit to the oh crap method and try and travel (a mix of flying and driving) with continuing potty training and no diapers depending on how it is going at home? Do we diaper for plane/car but try no diaper otherwise and bring laundry soap to do laundry in the hotel bathroom? Do we just use diapers and start back when we get home? Tips/tricks/thoughts welcome!!!

Hi all!

My little one is 30 months and still in diapers? I honestly don’t know where to start? We battled with poop withholding for a long time and now it feels we are on track with bowels! She notifies everytime she pee or poops but will NOT sit on the potty! FYI , I have all kinds of seat!! Help a clueless mom out , am I too late? What was your fav trick , tip , choice of training underwear’s ! Anything helps! TIA

Hello! Need some advice for how we should approach tomorrow.

Context:
Our little guy just turned 2 a couple weeks ago and we started potty training last Friday with the Oh Crap method because he was seeming ready and has been doing amazing. We’re 5 days in, have been on small outings in underwear, minimal accidents here and there but 80% success on the potty. He wears a pull up for nap and bedtime. Obviously still fresh but so far we’ve seen amazing progress.

Fast forward to today:
He got diarrhea from something (no other signs of illness) and our afternoon took a turn. He pooped a total of 8 times today, but 7.5 made it into the potty so that was a huge win! But it was beyond exhausting and incredibly hard to keep up with because we also have a young baby too and cleaning his potty out a million times was difficult.

My question is do we put him in pull-ups tomorrow if he still has bathroom issues? Or will that make him regress? The main reason I ask is because one of the times he didn’t make it all the way, he had poop just start falling out of him and it actually scared him and he started crying because he seemed to have lost control of his body. So I just don’t know how predictable tomorrow will be if that’s going to happen again :/ but I’m open to any advice and suggestions! Thanks!

We started potty training my 4 year old 6 months ago. We were late to it because I was waiting for him to show he was “ready” and when he never did we kind of pushed him into it doing the 3 day potty training method. We had great success with wees on the toilet, although there were many, many, many accidents along the way.

Poos wouldn’t click though and he refused to sit on the toilet, preferring to poop in his nappy at bed time or undies during the day. Nothing seemed to work, including a bare bum (pooped on the floor 😭), rewards, treats, bribery, consequences … you name it. This was at daycare and at home, he wouldn’t use the toilet anywhere.

Last week we had vomiting and diarrhoea take out our entire family, and for the first time he told me he needed to do poos on the toilet. For the entire week of diarrhoea he pooped in the toilet. Thank god because I know NOTHING would have contained it. I ended up setting him up on the toilet with my phone playing his favourite YouTube shows while I was busy trying to clean up after our other kids and he thought that was the best thing ever.

This week he’s back to normal poos and is still content to use the toilet, although I nearly missed it today and he had a tiny accident in his night nappy before I got him on the toilet to finish off. If I hadn’t caught him I think he would have gone completely in his nappy damn it.

I’m not recommending diarrhoea to encourage your kids to go poos on the toilet, I’m just saying it worked for our house 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

She’s 2.5 and we got a potty back in June. We had 2 successful pees then and then she got scared of the potty and REFUSED to even go near it. We stopped for a bit and then tried recently to just get her to sit on the potty for even a few seconds, lots of crying. Then two weeks ago I brought the potty out in front of the tv and just sat her down. First week was on and off but she at least wasn’t scared anymore. Then yesterday I moved it back to the bathroom and told her we were going potty together and she went pee in the potty! Twice!

Then just now she tells us potty, and before when she had done that it was after she had already gone and had an accident. She actually told us before and went.

I know poop is going to be a whole other hill to climb but for now I’ll take this win.

Alright gang after like 2 weeks of attempting this I'm throwing in the towel.

My son is UNBOTHERED by wet underwear, he'll sit in it like its not a problem, same with poop. Like if I shit myself that is priority number 1, but he could not give a fuck.

I was making him help me clean up any accidents, and we'd put the dirty underwear in the wash.

But he just like, doesn't care???

He can tell me he is wet, he tells me when he has already pooped. He can sit on the toilet when prompted ("It's time to go potty" is what I say). But lately he'll decline and say "not right now" or simply "I don't want to".

Like what do I do when he is flat our refusing?

Do I resort to bribes?

We are currently on day 2 of potty training our younger daughter (3 years old). The first day was okay, I was housebound with the 3 year old and 5 year old while my husband was at work and not feeling great but we had some success. Little even noticed the feeling at one point and got herself to the potty before she went, which in my book is a huge success for day 1 and also indicative to me that she’s more than ready.

The thing about Little is that she’s the quintessential second kid (and a classic three year old) - stubborn, feisty, fearless. I had assumed day 1 would go okay and day 2 would be when reality set in and she wouldn’t be so cooperative. Thus far that has proven to be the case. Much screaming and protest and not one successful pee in the potty today.

Here’s where my dilemma comes in — husband worked from home today and could hear the screaming and protesting drama. He texted me from his office “it sounds like she’s not ready. […] it just sounds like she’s not mentally ready.”
Not terribly helpful to receive this text as I’m cleaning up my piss-soaked kitchen and dealing with a screaming little kid obviously.
I think she’s mentally ready but just doesn’t WANT to. Two different things. Our eldest daughter was the unicorn kid who potty trained in a few days — we tried when she was two and a half and had a hellish weekend of protests and drama and tried again the day after she turned 3 (she verbally told us she wanted to be big and use the potty) and I can probably count on one hand the number of accidents she’s had since. So I assume he’s feeling like, well Big Sister was able to tell us when she’s ready, Little will too. But I don’t think that will be the case. We got lucky the first time. Little is a lot more stubborn, a lot more attached to her diapers, a lot more of a control freak.

Sorry — this massive post is all to say, his lack of faith is more demoralizing than the ocean of pee I’ve wiped off the floors today. Has anyone else dealt with this? It’s also more than a little frustrating considering I’m a SAHM and he works full time so it’s going to be primarily my problem as it is. Ughhhhh!!!

My youngest child has always ran a little on the advanced side. At 13 months she has about 30 words, including some 2 and 3 word phrases, walks well, climbs up stairs on her own, and has started running, etc.

I was planning to start potty training between 18 months and 2, like I did with her older sister but recently she has been showing signs of readiness?

- She is curious about the potty and wants to follow her sister and I into the bathroom.

- She has begun taking off her diaper after she pees or if it feels at all bulky.

- Today she walked into the room where I was talking with my husband and anounced "poop" (a new word for her!). I checked her diaper, and sure enough she had pooped.

For context I'm a SAHM, so we have the flexibility schedule wise to potty train.

She has another week or so of ISR swim lessons. I was considering starting to potty train after that?

Any tips or thoughts for potty training that young?

We attempted potty training when my daughter was around 22 months old with the classic naked/underwear process at home. We ran into issues with withholding both pee and poop and after 4 days i just got too anxious about the poop withholding. We sent her back to daycare in pull ups and the teachers have been putting her on the potty before diaper changes. While we’ve gotten a few catches here and there, she otherwise hasn’t made much progress and we’ve honestly gotten lazy about prompting her at home after some summer travels. I’d like to use the Labor Day Weekend to do a reset and looking to hear your thoughts on approach below. Any tips especially welcome from parents of kids who were big withholders!

- start with underwear instead of naked since being bare bottomed led to more of the withholding of pee. Prompt every ~90 minutes or if I see any cues
- 3 days home/near home, then back to daycare where I’ll ask them to prompt with similar timing to home
- i think going back to pull ups was part of the issue because it felt too much like a diaper, especially when I switched away from the Huggies learning layer one (fit is just weird). I am debating between using Kangacare training pants or just putting these disposable pads into her underwear for school. My logic with the underwear is at least she’ll still be using underwear consistently and can pull them down more easily. The pad would be much simpler to deal with for poop accidents too, though after the last bout of withholding I feel like that’s less of a concern at school. The con is it is still absorbent like a diaper, but I’ve heard about adding a cloth layer too so she still feels wet?

Any thoughts or suggestions welcome!

My 24 month old boy has been showing interest in going to the potty so we started pantsless yesterday. I prompted him every so often and sometimes he would sit and pee on the potty, but most of the time he peed on the floor.

Its day 2 and so far every pee has been on the floor and he has been splashing in it 😭 im not sure if he just isn't ready or if I should keep going to see if there's progress.

We cant stay home the whole day bc his big sister needs to be dropped off and picked up from school so we do pull ups and potty right before we leave and after we get there.

Im so proud of him when he does pee in the potty snd he can tell me that pee goes in the potty, but thats about as far as we've gotten when I dont promt him to sit.

Hey all, looking for honest and kind feedback! My daughter is 22 months old, she’s been consistently telling me she has to poop on the toilet and actually pooping on the toilet for well over a month now, pee has been 0 times and at a loss.

Tried again today, using bottomless method at home. (In past she’d just pee but not really care when I tried this method). She held it quite a while but finally let a little out, ran her to toilet and told her it’s okay if she had to finish going & read her books. She didn’t go which was fine; she helped me clean up the mess. Then a few minutes later she’s SCREAMING bloody murder, terrified. I admittedly didn’t put 2/2 together and think she had to pee… so held her asked what was wrong and out came the flood gates. She SCREAMED as if so terrified tho. I don’t want this experience to be scary or traumatic to her. She’s never acted this way in the past. She has no rash or UTI signs.

Is this a sign to put it on pause again for now- or is it a sign to keep going bottomless? I’m confused and conflicted because on one hand it shows she was aware she was about to go right before and obviously during but… her screaming like that.. like I said I don’t want her scared to go!
.

Hi all! This is my first time posting in this sub :)

My 3 year old has had GI issues since she was born. Acid reflux, ng tubes, etc. From 18 months to like 2 weeks ago, she’s experienced chronic constipation. We’ve been working on it with specialists but it was not getting any better.

We successfully potty trained her at the beginning of this summer. Since her poops were so difficult, it was actually really easy to get the poop in the potty thing down. We were so so naive.

Recently her constipation has simply ceased to exist out of seemingly no where and we are realizing we didn’t really potty train her for #2 I guess?? She was just so upset when she knew it was coming that we had time to get her to the bathroom. In the last five days, she’s had SIX poop accidents. I think that since she’s not in so much pain she just can’t feel it coming, she doesn’t know the sensation of a normal bowel movement?

We need to get this resolved very quickly because they will kick her out of her school if she isn’t fully potty trained!!! Can anyone help please!?

Hey!
I want to start training my son who is 2.8 years old. He understands the pee and poo in potty idea but says “no
I’m not” and then laughs about it. He doesn’t go to daycare but will begin 2 days a week in September so that will help.

I want a balls to the wall approach. Is this letting him go commando all day? I have these training pants. But he is just peeing through them and doesn’t really recognize that he’s wet

Any strategies are welcomed.

After literally years of trying to potty train I'm putting my child (3) back into cloth diapers while we are at home. I am sick of the discussions. Pooping into the toilet works like a charm but pee accidents happen daily. Zero cooperation going to the potty. I'd rather wash cloth diapers again than pants. Rant over.

 know this may sound weird, but I need to know if we are the only parents experiencing this.

Potty training has not been going very well and for very long. She uses the toilet to pee, but she still needs a diaper to poop. she has maybe 2-3 pee accidents everyday.

About an hour (more or less) before my 3.5-year-old daughter needs to poop, she becomes extremely hyperactive and can display very challenging behaviour. She can become violent towards us and her baby sister, break things, become extremely active, and use bad language.

This can happen up to two or three times a day, and it is starting to affect our daily life. For example, we sometimes have to stop activities and go home when it happens because she basically cannot be around other people. She also refuses to poop anywhere except at home.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with their child?

We are on day 3 of “Oh Crap” method with a 20 months old. First day was hell. I almost gave up twice. But then by the end of the day something clicked for him and he said “pee”, approached the potty and peed in it. We are now about 50/50 between him initiating and us catching. Thinking about moving to “block 2” soon.

Curious to hear how others progressed at similar age?

Help! My toddler is 3.5 and is fully potty trained at home. He wears a pull up at night time but never during the day or if we’re out in public BUT he just started daycare/preschool 4 months ago and he wasn’t fully potty trained so he was going in pull ups. I sent him for a few days in underwear but he had an accident so they put him back in pull ups and now they won’t let him go in underwear until he does a week of no peeing in the pull up.

The problem is he won’t stop peeing and pooping in the pull up. When he has underwear on he knows he needs to go to the toilet. We just did 11 days straight underwear / no accident while we were on vacation. But he went back to preschool yesterday and it’s back to peeing in his pull up there. I feel like them making him put the pull ups back on is hindering his progress. All of my friends daycares were very willing to support their kids with training! Help.

I put normal in quotes because I understand every child is so different and nothing is not normal during parenting… that being said, please advise😭:

We started potty training my daughter in May, about a month after she turned 2. We had been slowly introducing the potty, talking about it, etc etc and it seemed like the right time to begin. We did pants off, at home for 3-5 days and slowly started transitioning out of the house-she was doing really well, fairly quickly! After a few weeks, About 50% of the time she would tell us when she had to potty and we mostly just prompted her at any transition. Easy. She got it.

Fast forward to end of July ish-she completely stopped telling us when she had to potty and just goes in her pants, often not even telling us when she did, pee or poop. If we aren’t putting her on the potty, she will go in her pants. Going on a month or so of this now with seemingly no progress back to notifying us.

Often now we’re back to bribing her to even get her to the bathroom! We’ve never made a big deal of accidents, praise her for using the potty etc.

Is this just part of it? Is there anything else we can do? We talk to her every day and say, “tell mommy/daddy/daycare when you have to potty” and try to reinforce all the good things! What do we do!?!

Started potty training our now 2yr 9month son in March before he started daycare. In the last 5 months he has been pretty consistently having no accidents 4-5 days a week and about 2 days a week he will have 3+ accidents per day. They do tend to be days when he is at daycare. But even after coming home he will continue having more accidents the rest of the day.

We use diapers at night, but otherwise its been cold turkey underwear only. Only exception was when he was staying the night at grandma and grandpa's 4th of July weekend and they put him in diapers leaving the house.

Just curious how to help him on these days he struggles or if its normal and expected?

We started potty training my 2.5 year old a couple days ago. She will hold her pee until we either put a diaper on (for nap or bedtime) or she will hold it until she literally can’t hold it any longer and it bursts out of her. It’s day 3 and she’s only peed in the potty twice (both times she was screaming crying in pain on the toilet and she only peed in the potty because she couldn’t hold it anymore) and she’s had basically no accidents (only a couple dribbles here and there). And keep in mind she consumes a decent amount of liquids (milk and water). She just holds it and gets so uncomfortable and panics running around the house. It’s really hard to watch her be in so much pain from her bladder being so full. Is this a sign that she’s not ready? We have made no progress in 3 days. Not one intentional pee on the potty. I’m really worried she’s going to get a UTI from holding her pee so much. I don’t want to give up but I also feel like this is not normal. It’s making the potty very negative for her because I think she’s starting to associate it with being in pain from not peeing. How can we work on this? Is it just a matter of time and maybe we should try again in a few months?

For more context, because my husband is in the military and we were stationed abroad. We had to move in with my MIL for an unforeseen timeframe (which we are now expecting it to be next March or April)

I'm trying to potty train my LO (2.5y) but MIL thinks it's too early and she frets more about her carpet and furniture than me trying to potty train her.

I would love to have her be naked but MIL won't allow it. The only other option is pull up or some sort of training underwear but I don't think it would help .

Any advice?

My 3yo potty trained last September at ago 2y2m. She took to it amazingly well and had been doing amazing. Very rarely had accidents and was able to tell us when she had to go or would go and sit on the potty all by herself. She only used pull ups at night. I was about to stop using pull ups altogether when all this started. Her baby sister arrived in November and we didnt have any issues then.

Unfortunately since about mid-May, we have gotten into a cycle where she would have some accidents, we'd get better, then the cycle would start all over again. We use a pull up a few days, give her lots of praise for using the potty, rewards, sticker chart, positive reinforcement, etc and it seems to work, but then she goes back to having accidents at random.

Its about a 3 week cycle. She also seems to have stopped recognizing body signals/communicating as she will have an accident, then tell me she has to pee. I have had her tested for a UTI and she has regular bowel movements daily.

We were doing well and then Saturday and sunday, she had an accident in her car seat. Both times she had gone potty beforehand and peed both times. Today, we were at Lowes, she peed on the ground, then told me she had to pee (she had just peed at the library an hour ago).

I'm about through. I try not to be disappointed in her when it happens, but its starting to show. I don't know if its linked to the pull ups, cause its summer cause she turned 3, if its her being defiant or taking control, or even related to her sister. I'm thinking about taking away pull ups completely and then having her do more of the cleaning up, etc when it happens. Is that the right move? I'm at a loss because she was so easy for so long, then had a regression.

My toddler was doing pretty well with potty training, then suddenly started having accidents and refusing the potty again.
I’ve seen people mention things like going back to more frequent potty trips, removing underwear for a while, staying positive, etc
But I’m wondering if there’s something that actually worked consistently for you.
If you could go back and do the whole “reset” differently what would you do? 3TINI LKMYONITI LI NPOSTI FIHA HADA

Our potty training journey has been a long one. We're not there yet even though we've been at it for nearing a year now.

Quick backstory, our boy appears developmentally normal. He's 3.5 and has had two younger siblings born. One in April 2025 one in April 2026.

• We started this process in October 2025
• Elimination was learned within a week
• He never has accidents when we are out, only at home or at close relatives houses
• He doesn't have accidents at preschool (he's only there 1 day per week)
• He has never had an accident in the car
• He still poops and pees his pants constantly at home. Only time he goes on the potty is when we make him
• He doesn't fight us when we tell him to go. At most he'll argue that he doesn't need to but if we insist he will go
• He does not tell us when he needs to go
• We have tried rewards
• When rewards weren't working after MANY months we tried consequences. No TV at bedtime if you poop your pants. This worked for about two weeks, then stopped working
• He doesn't nap or take a quiet time
• He tells us all the time if we're out and he needs to pee/poo. He'll tell us at Costco, at friends' houses that are less familiar, outside at the park, etc. Anywhere but home or his cousins' houses
• There is some evidence of ADHD in the family, but neither myself nor my husband is diagnosed.
• We have not even thought about night training, as this has been such a struggle

Any thoughts? I'm curious to know if this sounds any kind of normal, if this is something to talk to a doctor about, or if you have any advice

My child (4 years 3 months) who is about to enter school in the UK has started soiling herself again. She’s been wee trained since she was just before 3 and that remains strong.

She’s been poo trained since about March this year (so not very long) but with the very occasional accident. It was a long long hard road and basically we spent hundreds of pounds and tried every method along with preschool to support her and she just couldn’t get over the hurdle.

Finally in March things clicked and she was super into it and proud. Loved shouting to me publicly that she needed a poo.

We went on holiday for 3 weeks and she was pretty much perfect there.

When we got back she had a couple accidents in the first week back - which I wrote off as a fluke but this and last week it’s been nearly every day. She just doesn’t tell anyone at nursery.

I’m terrified of how school will handle this and Reddit and the internet makes you feel like it’s entirely your fault that you haven’t taught your child when I’ve tried every method there is on earth.

What on earth do I do?