Is this normal for potty training?

[Happy 2B mommy]

DD just decided that she wants to wear big girl panties, but still doesn't want to even sit on the potty. Needless to say, I've been cleaning a lot of accidents and I'm sick of it. Do I force her to sit on the potty every 1/2 hour? Do I go back to diapers?

Any suggestions?


ETA Mods, this might be more appropriate for the Butts forum, but I'm posting here because of more traffic and I'm desparate for help!

[BabyMine]

Does she even try to go on the potty or does she totally bypass the toilet? To me it doesn't sound like she is ready. You could put the diaper on then the underwear on top.

[bluestar2]

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[randomkid]

When it comes to potty training, I think anything can be considered "normal". My DD was just the opposite of yours. Even after she was potty trained and had no accidents for many, many months, she still wanted to wear Pull-Ups, esp at the sitter. Finally, when she was 3 years, 8 months, she was going from in-home daycare to a daycare/preschool setting. I transitioned her then by telling her diapers were not allowed at school. She FINALLY switched to underwear full time and never looked back.

I agree with a PP to tell her that she has to sit on the potty before she can wear underwear. Let wearing underwear be her reward. That would be a lot better than having to do stickers, M&Ms, etc. When it comes time to sit on the potty again, tell her that if she doesn't do it, then she has to take off the underwear and put the diaper back on. Hopefully, this cycle will keep her in underwear and going to the potty often enough to avoid accidents. If she has never sat or gone on a potty, she will need time to figure it out and will likely still have accidents for a while. I used to put DD on there, she wouldn't go, then as soon as she got off, she'd pee. It's normal to them to go in their pants/diapers, so it takes a while for them to "get it". I remember the first time DD peed in the potty. I made such a big deal about it, explained to her that she did it right and she just sat there on the potty looking at me with the most confused expression ever - it was really funny! However, after that she understood what she was supposed to do when I put her on there.

Good Luck!

[citymama]

IME, potty sitting and success happens long before big girl panties are introduced. The panties can be an exciting reward for sitting on the potty every day x number of times a day. We did a reward chart, and every time DD sat on the potty she got to put a sticker on it, everytime she did something in the potty she got another sticker (2 stickers for poop!). And when she had a certain number of stickers we took her to choose her big girl underwear. Needless to say, she didn't actually fit in the undies she chose! Which is good, because we ended up needing to do Hanna trainers for the first few months before we could even consider regular underwear.