Massive PTing regression

[TxCat]

Ugh. So grand plan to take away pull-ups at nap/nighttime totally failed and might have precipitated a massive backslide. We did about 4 days of no pull-ups, first night no accidents, but then pee accidents every time for nap and night. We didn't get mad, we're just very matter of fact about everything and then brought pull-ups back for nighttime. Should note that DD1 did not start pooping in the potty during this time either - just withheld, despite miralax daily. However, DD1 has now been having poop accidents in her underwear multiple times a day since then, and occasional pee accidents too. She doesn't care about being dirty at all. She'll just be in the middle of playing, or at a friend's house, or out at a restaurant and just poop very matter of factly.

What in the world do we do now? Not only is it super gross, esp. when we're out in public, but if she has repeated multiple accidents in school, they will kick her out until she is re-potty trained. I feel like such a parenting failure. Sigh.

[georgiegirl]

Don't push the poop issue. It always backfires. Tell her she can poop in a pull up. She just needs to ask for one.

And don't push the nighttime issue. That's physiological. My kids were dry at night pretty early on (2.75 for DD and 3.25 for DS), but lots of kids were pull ups when they are 4, 5, 6, and beyond. I have some friends who have school age bed wetters, and they've been told age 8 is the age when it becomes an issue. My best friends little girl just turned 5 and she wears pull ups at night. She's super smart and reading already, but she just can't hold it at night.

Id let Dd know it was okay if she wets the pull up at night and if she poops in one. Eventually she will poop on the potty and stay dry at night. No need to waste so much time and energy on something that will be accomplished easier when she's ready.

[goldenpig]

Do you think she might be constipated? DD had a regression when she was 3.5 or 4 (I can't remember but it was way after she potty trained) where she kept having a lot of pee and poop accidents multiple times daily, and it stopped after I gave her Miralax for several days. She also gets super constipated when she has a lot of dairy, and so I try to minimize dairy and avoid bananas and give her fiber gummies and sometimes even the glycerin suppository. Fortunately I don't have to do Miralax very often.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

i agree iwth georgiegirl..i would not push the nighttime issue. my DS is 3.75, has been PT'ed for about 6 mos now and he still wears diapers at night. He wakes up dry 90% of the time but 10% of the time it is wet (when he is super tired, deep sleep, etc) and I can't be bothered to change sheets in the middle of the night so we use it. I think it's also a security thing for him too...he has gotten very, very upset at the times where i forgot to put a diaper on him at night and he peed in the bed. He often reminds me to put a diaper on him at night!

and about pooping in the pants..my DS did that for months. he did it a couple times in public too. luckily he only did it at school twice. but he would do it at home every day. yes, it was frustrating. he was just scared to poop on the potty for whatever reason. there's no amount of great parenting that can overcome that quickly, so don't feel bad.

[westwoodmom04]

I agree with pp, I would pull back and put her back in diapers for naps/evening or maybe all together. Regression is very common with a newborn in the house; they see the baby getting "attention" during all the diaper changes. I wouldn't use pull ups though, that just confuses the issue, plus they are less absorbent and more prone to cause rashes if she actually is peeing/pooping in them. If she doesn't care about being dirty, she isn't entirely ready to be potty trained. I'd wait another month or two, then try again.

[TxCat]

I agree with pp, I would pull back and put her back in diapers for naps/evening or maybe all together. Regression is very common with a newborn in the house; they see the baby getting "attention" during all the diaper changes. I wouldn't use pull ups though, that just confuses the issue, plus they are less absorbent and more prone to cause rashes if she actually is peeing/pooping in them. If she doesn't care about being dirty, she isn't entirely ready to be potty trained. I'd wait another month or two, then try again.

School won't take her in pull-ups or diapers, period. So, since she had been PT'd as far as pee was concerned since end of April, with no pee accidents at all for the last couple of months, I'm hoping we can get back to that somehow. It feels like everything went off the rails on Thursday. I feel like school might give us a week or two to work on things but beyond that I doubt it. They might not even give us that since they aren't licensed to have diapered kids in her classroom.

Re:constipation - I'm suspicious that it might be at play, because DD1 does tend that way, but we've given her Miralax 4-5 of the last 7 days. Thursday-Saturday she's had multiple poop accidents each day - at least 2 per day, but she had 5 yesterday (plus one wet accident). With that frequency of pooping, we haven't given Miralax yesterday or today, but maybe we should continue a small dose just to keep her regular for a while? The fact that she's had 2 pee accidents in 3 days makes me a little more suspicious of constipation...

I'm thinking maybe sticker chart just for staying dry/accident-free and/or rewards like when initially PTing, and she gets diapers/pull-ups at sleep time at home (which is when she used to poop). For school, I'm going to talk to her teachers tomorrow but otherwise just cross my fingers and hope for the best? And I guess just say that poop either happens in pull-ups/diapers or the potty and leave it at that? Reasonable plan?

I'm printing out all of these posts to give her on her 18th birthday...

[georgiegirl]

I think that's a reasonable plan. Hopefully she will stop with the pee accidents once you take the pressure off the poop training. Both of my kids were in miralax until they pooped on the potty regularly. Neither ever pooped at school while they pooped in pull-ups.

Good luck! And I'm sure she will appreciate you keeping these discussions to show her when she's older. :)

[BabyBearsMom]

Just wanted to say that I'm sorry you are going through this. I'm sure it is stressful :(

[westwoodmom04]

If the school is licensed to do diapering for the twos, they usually don't make too much of a fuss with some accidents in the threes, so hopefully that is the case at your school. I experienced it firsthand because both my kids weren't potty trained until after they turned three. Even before being pottytrained, however, my kids wouldn't pee or poop the three hours they were at preschool (they could control the timing and I guess didn't want to call attention to themselves in that way), so maybe your dd will do the same? No real advice, but the less you act like you care (as hard as that may be), the more likely she is to go on the potty, so I like your plan of giving a choice.

[AnnieW625]

I wouldn't stress about it, she just turned 3. I think it is awesome that kids younger than 3 potty train, but seriously it seems like here and IRL that the more kids I run into who trained before 3 have accident issues once they have been trained for about 6 to 8 months or in my neck of the woods when there is a new baby around (and the magic baby spacing in my area is definitely between 2 and 3 years) and they just completely regress because they know that having an accident will get their parent's attention. DD1 had a few accidents between the time she was 4 and 5 and I am pretty sure that some of those, esp. the ones when she was just 4 were due to her wanting attention from myself and DH. TBH most neuro typical, non genius 3 yr. olds won't have the same impulse control as an older child or adult and they will have accidents every now and then.

My DD1 didn't night train until she was about a month shy of 5/1/2 and at first I thought I was a huge failure, but then I just had to let it go. I let her pick out her pull ups and she wasn't embarrassed to use them. No one had to know (although that wasn't an issue because she wasn't having sleepovers) either, but when she told me one day that she would wake up from her nap at daycare to go pee I told her she needed to do that at night. I waited for her to tell me she was ready and she had no issues what-so-ever training, she had one accident the first week, and maybe one the second week.

DD2 on the other hand has been night trained and had two accidents (maybe, but I only remember one in the middle of the night) since she trained at 3 yrs. and 1 week. DD2 on the other hand has only had a number of pee accidents and it is usually en route to the bathroom and one time she did poop on purpose in her panties, and that time was the only time we got pretty mad at her for it.

TBH just realize that if you decide to not stress out about night training your baby or day training her at this time realize it is okay and there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying pull ups to use at night time. Other than those few accidents DD1 had when DD2 was a baby to get our attention she was always very good about telling us when she had to pee and rarely had an accident outside of our house.

[Green22]

I have been here. My DD was basically trained when she was 2 years old except for poop, then regressed for about a year and a half. It is beyond frustrating. I gave up pushing on poop. She is 3.5 and JUST about a month ago decided to poop on the potty. Part of the issue was constipation/painful poops. I reduced her dairy intake and did some miralax and that helped significantly.

If the accidents at school are really bad, maybe consider a pull up? I know they might not like it/want it, but they have to understand regression and they probably want to clean it up less. You have a new baby and I bet that is a big part of it (it was for my DD). Good luck and hang in there.

[123LuckyMom]

If you're giving Miralax and she's having multiple accidents each day, you might, oddly, not be giving enough. What you're describing to me sounds like poop squeezing around a larger blockage. That often causes multiple small accidents a day. Consult your ped first, but I'd do a big clean out this weekend to make sure she's clear. Then I'd keep her on a Miralax dose daily (DS took a full capful each day at age 3.5) and maybe mineral oil, too, for a while, at least for a month, while you work on the PT issues. What you want is to make it impossible for her to hold in the poop. During that time, make her sit on the potty for a good while and give a few pushes every two hours. Enlist your school in this as well. This is a medical issue, so they should comply. She'll get used to pooping regularly on the potty, and she'll love the success! She also will not suffer any constipation related accidents.

Meanwhile, pull-ups overnight or at nap time are just fine. Eventually these will just always be dry, and then you can stop them.

[TxCat]

If you're giving Miralax and she's having multiple accidents each day, you might, oddly, not be giving enough. What you're describing to me sounds like poop squeezing around a larger blockage. That often causes multiple small accidents a day. Consult your ped first, but I'd do a big clean out this weekend to make sure she's clear. Then I'd keep her on a Miralax dose daily (DS took a full capful each day at age 3.5) and maybe mineral oil, too, for a while, at least for a month, while you work on the PT issues. What you want is to make it impossible for her to hold in the poop. During that time, make her sit on the potty for a good while and give a few pushes every two hours. Enlist your school in this as well. This is a medical issue, so they should comply. She'll get used to pooping regularly on the potty, and she'll love the success! She also will not suffer any constipation related accidents.

Meanwhile, pull-ups overnight or at nap time are just fine. Eventually these will just always be dry, and then you can stop them.

You know, I was wondering about just this thing, and was suspicious that maybe she still is constipated and just not feeling the urge to go as well as a result. How do you do a clean out?

[HannaAddict]

You know, I was wondering about just this thing, and was suspicious that maybe she still is constipated and just not feeling the urge to go as well as a result. How do you do a clean out?

Talk to your ped. The forced "clean out" for potty training accidents and backsliding is totally contrary to our ped's advice and they said there is a "miralax epidemic" out there, so much so they did an article about it on their blog. They said some children need it, but it is the exception not the rule, and that parents are looking to fix things that aren't problems and can create problems by going "clean outs" and overuse of Miralax. Kids regress and nighttime potty training often occurs year after daytime potty training and is considered totally developmentally normal. It seems like many, many people (on this board and elsewhere) are using Miralax and often without pediatrician advice/oversight. I would just ask that you talk to your pediatrician in depth before embarking down the Miralax road. Your little one is so young this really can't be considered abnormal yet and you have a new baby, both her tender age and new baby are far more likely to be the cause for regressing than "needing" Miralax in my experience/opinion. I'd really just try and not stress and school should be understanding too all things considered.

[TxCat]

Talk to your ped. The forced "clean out" for potty training accidents and backsliding is totally contrary to our ped's advice and they said there is a "miralax epidemic" out there, so much so they did an article about it on their blog. They said some children need it, but it is the exception not the rule, and that parents are looking to fix things that aren't problems and can create problems by going "clean outs" and overuse of Miralax. Kids regress and nighttime potty training often occurs year after daytime potty training and is considered totally developmentally normal. It seems like many, many people (on this board and elsewhere) are using Miralax and often without pediatrician advice/oversight. I would just ask that you talk to your pediatrician in depth before embarking down the Miralax road. Your little one is so young this really can't be considered abnormal yet and you have a new baby, both her tender age and new baby are far more likely to be the cause for regressing than "needing" Miralax in my experience/opinion. I'd really just try and not stress and school should be understanding too all things considered.

Well, our pediatrician actually recommended Miralax for DD1 starting a few months ago. The topic of a clean-out didn't come up, but he seemed to think that she would benefit from Miralax for constipation that was not responding to dietary interventions, with either occasional dosing or daily, leaving it up to us. And, he uses it for his 4-yo son, so I know he's definitely not in an anti-Miralax camp. I'm not worried about the nighttime potty training at this point, and actually never really was - it was more that the pull-ups seemed to be a crutch for DD1 for pooping. And the brief trial with taking the crutch away has now resulted in DD1 just pooping whenever, wherever all.the.time.