Dd driving me insane.

[crl]

Dd, turned three in April, showed a lot of interest in using the potty earlier this year so we started potty training. At first she seemed to be doing well, quick progress, interested, very motivated by m&ms. We were down to about one pee accident a week, always in the bathroom like she just didn't quite make it in time.

Then, she had gone in a fruit strike and seemed potentially constipated to me. Her Ped said her abdomen didn't feel backed up but gave me free reign with miralax if I thought it was needed.

Then she started having more and more pee accidents. I started giving miralax. She also complained once that it hurt to pee. I took her back to the Ped who ruled out a UTI.

She continues to have multiple pee accidents a day. She has a hissy fit when I ask her to go potty, frequently even if I offer a bribe. But if I let her go on her own schedule she pees all over the bathroom floor a lot more often than not. Today she had peed on the floor twice by ten am. I was so frustrated I just put her back in diapers.

When I took her post nap diaper off, it was dry so I said do you want to go potty before I put a clean diaper on? She said yes, ran to the bathroom bare bottomed and peed all over the floor.

I think this is a behavioral choice she is making at this point. I am not sure why. I have not made a big deal about the accidents, though I do remind her each time that pee goes in the potty. I tried having her clean it up, but she actually enjoys that. (Yuck!). I tried offering m&ms again for peeling in the potty. Didn't help.

So where do I go from here? Stay with diapers for a while and try again later? Tell her only kids who pee in the potty get wear princess skirts and dresses and change her into pants the first time she pees on the floor? Offer some other reward (not sure what, she doesn't have much currency that I have found and doesn't seem to get delayed rewards)? Something else?

I am at a loss and would appreciate any thoughts.
Catherine

[rin]

Wow, this sounds *exactly* like what we went through with DD. In our case, I was 100% sure that it was behavioral; she would say she didn't have to pee, then would look right at you, and pee in her pants.

At first, I was getting irritated with her, and would talk with her about how pee only goes in the potty, not ok to do it on the floor, etc etc.

Then I started to suspect that was not doing it, so we switched gears. We tried to just give the pants-peeing as little attention as possible, and to make the cleanup her responsibility. When she would pee in her pants, we would give her a towel and tell her to clean the pee up off the floor, take off her wet pants/underpants, and take all the wet clothes/towel to the washing machine. (Obviously a lot of this required help/guidance from us.) We also tried to remove the thrill for her WRT defying us w/the pee and to switch the focus, so we tried a tactic of just giving her a hug when she peed in her pants, saying we were so sorry that she had wet pants now, and then giving her lots of attention for the cleanup process, so lots of praise for being such an excellent cleaner of pee messes, lots of talk about how she was really getting good at cleaning up pee messes, how she was practicing so much, etc. To further kill the thrill, so to speak, we also told her that since it was now her job to clean it all up, from now on she could pee wherever she wanted (pants, potty, floor; this part sounds super gross but she was already peeing everywhere so I figured that we had very little to lose on ths one), but that of course we wouldn't get to do a lot of fun things if she was always so busy practicing cleaning up pee. We had a few incidents where trips to the park/grandparents' house/etc were cancelled because we were "so busy cleaning up pee we didn't have time to go".

It didn't get better overnight, and I have no idea if our approach helped or if she just naturally grew out of that phase, but a shift happened once we switched tactics and she does not intentionally pee in her pants anymore. . .

ETA: Diapers would not have worked for us, since DD just took them off. For us, she was fully aware of the whole potty story/where pee was supposed to go, I think she was just exploring her control of the situation. We didn't make her wear pants/etc after a pee incident, but I did make a point of only taking her least-loved pants/etc for backup clothes when we were out and about.

[gatorsmom]

How old is your dd? IMHO, I think you should just put diapers on her again and forget about potty training for a few months. She doesn't sound ready. I wouldn't take away princess outfits until she can pee. I think you'd be setting yourself up for a power struggle.

[hillview]

To further kill the thrill, so to speak, we also told her that since it was now her job to clean it all up, from now on she could pee wherever she wanted (pants, potty, floor; this part sounds super gross but she was already peeing everywhere so I figured that we had very little to lose on ths one), but that of course we wouldn't get to do a lot of fun things if she was always so busy practicing cleaning up pee.

Ok I LOVE this. It so sounds like something I would do but before being a parent we all would have said WHAT? I may try this with DS2 hitting me :)

[crl]

How old is your dd? IMHO, I think you should just put diapers on her again and forget about potty training for a few months. She doesn't sound ready. I wouldn't take away princess outfits until she can pee. I think you'd be setting yourself up for a power struggle.

She's three. The thing is I am sure she is physically ready. We were down to about one pee accident a week for a couple of months and she hasn't had a poop accident in months. You are right that I'm not interested in a power struggle--one of the reasons I waited until she started taking diapers off and going to the potty on her own to even try potty training. But I am truly wondering if delaying just means delaying the power struggle--is this just a personality thing?

The doctor did not want us to go back to diapers as dd had a bit of rash/irritation and she said diapers would make that worse.

Oh and dd has taken her diaper off a couple of times to pee on the bathroom floor. At first I assumed that taking the diaper off took too long and she couldn't make it to the potty but given the now distinct pattern, I'm assuming it was deliberate. So it is possible that putting her back in diapers won't work at all.

I wish cleaning up the pee would help, but she LIKES doing that. So it seems really counter productive to have her clean up the pee. Maybe I should try saying absolutely nothing and putting her in her crib while I clean everything up. It's somewhat logical as it gets her out of the way for me to clean.

Thanks,
Catherine