Hello!

My two and a half year old daughter is toilet training. We started the process as soon as she turned two. Her previous family day care provider may have caused some confusion in her as she refused to put her in the training underpants that we supplied most of the time and kept putting her in nappies in which case my little girl would just do her toilet in the nappy and not feel anything. My little girl is now with a new provider who is great and is really working with us on the toilet training, and she is wearing training underpants all the time except for when she is sleeping.
Unfortunately, despite everything she still continues to have accidents. She can have a whole day accident free and then the next day or so later she will not tell me that she needs to go to the toilet and will just go in her pants despite me continually asking her if she needs to go. I’ve tried giving her special rewards for making it through the day with no accidents and she has a wall chart on which she gets to put a sticker every time that she successfully goes to the toilet. She has a great understanding of how things work and what she is supposed to do and is almost at the point where she can go completely unsupervised (I just need to ensure that undies are properly pulled down for her)- she gets on the toilet herself, wipes her bottom and then even knows how to wash her hands with soap and then dry them. With all things considered I am at a loss as to why she is still having accidents after all this time. It was October when we originally started things in motion and she has had a really good understanding of what is expected for months now. I could really use some advice!


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  • 2,5 yrs is still young ! She will get there, don’t put too much pressure on


  • give your child time. even though she knows the routine, she is still learning and sometimes kids would rather just play than go potty. i know that my four year old at the time, really loved a show that she was watching and peed on the beanbag that she was sitting on because she didn’t want to miss her show. At this stage she had been toilet trained for two years with no problems so just keep asking your child as you have been and don’t worry about those little hiccups


  • Focus on taking her a lot! Don’t ask her, just say come on beautiful girls let’s hop like kangaroos to the toilet! Make it fun. Take her hand and take that control, but in gentle firm way. Sit her down on toilet and clap. Take her every ten minutes if lots of accidents. Make it the focus for the week. Then she should click and take herself.
    Developmentally she’s just taking little longer. Don’t compare to others.


  • Just stumbled upon a watch that is set for 30, 60, or 90 minute intervals which goes off with lights and sounds to remind them to go. I will be trying this with my twins. Found it on fishpond.com.au and its called Potty watch toilet trainer timer.


  • A friend of mine has a little boy. She makes a game ot it and tells her son that she is going to do a wee. He often decides he needs to go first. I fact he get quite annoyed if he doesn’t go first. In the early stages they attempted to get him to go every hour or so, then gradually extended it to a bit longer time. He still has the occasional accident. He went backwards for about 3 weeks at one stage and flatly refused to use the toilet. He was silly one day and almost fell in. He didn’t use the toddler seat on the toilet for long. He has a little step that he uses to climb onto the toilet. He flushes the toilet then moves it to the hand basin to wash his hands. My toilet is in the bathroom and it is too high for him to reach. He also asks to clean his teeth. It could be that she is so busy playing that he waits until he really needs to go and doesn’t get to the toilet on time. Our older one does the same thing. We also have trouble instilling in her to go to the toilet when she gets up in the morning.


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