# "I HAVE TO GO POTTY!"...Bedtime battles.



## festivefeet (Jul 27, 2008)

I have a three year old.

She goes potty right before bed. But after stories and prayer and the lights turned off....there is some silence, then...."I have to go potty Mama". "You just went", I will say. She replies, "I have to go again". Okay, so I give her one chance to go down and try again. She poops or pees (normally saves #2 for after we have gone up) then we go back to bed.

More silence....."I have to go again Mama". Ugh. "You just went twice, I really don't think you need to go potty honey, you need to lay down and go to sleep". (We parent to sleep by the way). But then she will scream and scream as if I am torturing her and then she goes down one more time, lets out an ounce of pee and goes back up. I explain that that is the last time she is going potty and we go back up.....but no matter when I tell her that it's the last time, she will continue with the battle to go again to procrastinate.

How do you handle this behavior?

Thanks.
J.


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## Mama Poot (Jun 12, 2006)

Ugh our 2 year old, Henri, does this. I just simply ignore it, offer him another book or more milky, and ignore the requests to go potty. Because before then, I kept giving in and it morphed into "I have to go potty", "I need water", "I want a banana", "Watch tv!!!!", etc.....I would find a way to nip it in the bud before it spirals...we had about a week or two of pretty ridiculous bedtimes because of Henri's procrastinations.


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## Mrsboyko (Nov 13, 2007)

We are right there too. These little ones are smart, huh?
We bring the little potty into her bedroom, so if she needs to go, she gets out of bed and sits on the little potty. Less distracting than going to the bathroom. Once she is asleep, I remove the potty from her room. It would be wonderful if it worked that well in reality, but the way it usually goes is:
"potty!"
"you already *tried* to go 2 times, you don't need to pee anymore"
"POTTY!"
"No more potty, sleepy time."
"POTTY POTTY POTTY!"
"Okay, fine, potty." She gets out of bed and sits on the potty. I wait 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, fianlly I tell her it is time for bed, potty time is over. She has still not pee'ed.
"No! POTTY Potty!!!" *Enter hysterics about needing to pee for the next 10 mins*

Exhausting. I really don't have any ideas, just commiseration. DD has only been PT'ed for 2 months so it is still pretty new to her. Maybe over time it will deminish?


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## Sasharna (Nov 19, 2008)

My 3yo DS started doing this a couple months ago. After I saw it was becoming a stalling habit, I told him I wanted him to finish all his bathroom stuff before he got into bed. I also told him that he was welcome to get up again, but that he would have to trade me one of his favorite toys (and not be able to play with it the next morning until noon). I said that I need my evening time for me to play and relax, and so if he is going to take part of it away, then he's going to lose out on a part of his play, too.

He only traded me a toy for two nights, then went back to emptying his bladder fully before lying down.

We went through the same process with his last BM of the day, which he was saving for after bedtime. Now he usually goes about 6 pm and is a lot less crabby in the evening because he's not holding his poop in past the urge to go.









ETA: We're not expecting him to stay dry through the night yet. He has been potty trained for 18 months but doesn't give signs of being ready to night train.


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## orangekoolaid (May 21, 2006)

do you have a portable potty you can keep in the room for her? instead of having to go out of the room? so giving her a choice of not going or going in that potty.


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## Mama Poot (Jun 12, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *orangekoolaid* 
do you have a portable potty you can keep in the room for her? instead of having to go out of the room? so giving her a choice of not going or going in that potty.

We tried this too. It worked for a little while, but Henri uses the "big potty" most of the time now, and the last time I suggested the one in their room he screamed "NO!" and flipped the potty over







I still keep it in there, because the 3yo will sometimes use it in the morning.


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## PGTlatte (Mar 7, 2004)

I've never done anything about it. When we tuck DS1 in I tell him if he needs to get up to use the toilet that is fine but otherwise we want him to stay in bed.

He is 5 and still sleeps in pullups so I want him to know it's really really really ok for him to get up to use the toilet at night, and we won't ever get mad about it, as long as that's what he got up to do and then goes back to bed.

I suppose if he got up and said it was that but then was doing other things, we would just walk him back to bed and tell him to please not get up except if he needs to pee.

Reading the other responses, I get the idea these little ones want attention by getting up over and over again. Our DS1 is older, almost six. So if he gets out of bed to pee, he's not going to get any attention for it, as he can go do the whole thing by himself.

Our DS2 is three and not all that interested in potty learning yet, and certainly not at night. But when he decides to come out of his room at night for whatever reason, we don't make much of a big deal out of it. We just tell him to go back to bed and usually that is enough. Once in a while we walk him back to bed. But he does not get much attention out of it. It's rare for him to get up at night for something he actually needs help from us with.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *festivefeet* 

How do you handle this behavior?

Thanks.
J.


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## DahliaRW (Apr 16, 2005)

We did the little potty in the room when it was an issue as well. We told ds he could use it, and then let us know so we could empty it. We didn't give him any extra attention other than making sure he was back in bed. After a week or so he realized there was no point and stopped getting up/stalling before going to sleep.


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## One_Girl (Feb 8, 2008)

If she goes potty each time then I think you should stop fighting and let her go potty but also cut back on how much you give her to drink in the hour or two before bedtime. You can also make it a boring time by not staying in the bathroom with her and giving her attention for needing to go potty or by reading something while you are in with her, just make it a point not to engage in conversation or rush her with words or looks each time. It helped dd for me to tell a story in the dark, rub her back, or just cuddle while she is in the bed at the same time I stopped talking in the bathroom during the frequent bedtime visits, it made bedtime funner than bathroom time.


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## kolleen9 (May 27, 2006)

Have you considered laying down with her and talking a bit as she falls asleep? Some people don't like to go to bed alone.

-Kolleen


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## Super Glue Mommy (Jan 4, 2009)

If I were you I would ask if her if she really has to go potty again, or if she is just not ready to go to bed...

My son just started doing this. I said its bedtime and he says he wants a drink. I pour him a drink and say "this is your last drink for tonight. when you are done drinking, or when you walk away from the table, then drink time is done. You can have a few minutes." (sets up clear boundaries) after that I say okay bedtime, and he says "potty!" I say, okay, you can sit on the potty for a few minutes or until you go, but if you get up then potty time is over. the limits are clear. He isnt potty trained so I know what this is about, but to me its a reasonable request, I just set clear limits.

After that we go to bed. He hasn't protested so I don't have a lot of advice in that area. I suppose if he did I would approach it the way I handle most protests. I repeat what the limits were - remember mommy said ______. then, i move on to the next thing (redirect his attention) - come one, lets go spell your name before bed! (we always do this before bed, his name hangs over his bed.)


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## ktmama (Jan 21, 2004)

I normally don't "do" anything. If my kids need to get up to go to the potty, they do. Then they go back to bed. Do you have a sense of what she *really* wants? Maybe if you can figure that out, you can discuss with her how she can get her needs met by communicating them directly.

I try to avoid bedtime struggles by doing the routine once (including laying down with dd2 for a few minutes) and then, well, my job is done. She knows if she's not tired she can read or play with her dollies until she's ready for sleep, but after I lay down with her (or sometimes her sister will) I'm "off" for the night (unless there's a true emergency). Given that, she can always come down and eat more food if she's hungry.


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## UUMom (Nov 14, 2002)

Let her pee. Even if she doesn't. I'd not pick this battle. "Sweetie, if you need to pee, go pee".

Honestly, even the most exhausted three yr olds often need comfort & parental presence as they are falling asleep. In fact, many 3 yr olds like to nurse to sleep. (Horrors! lol) Ime, it's not a huge deal to read them to sleep or stay in the room as they drift off. If they know you're there, they let it go. If they think you are out in another room partying without them, they fight sleep much, much more.


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## milkybean (Mar 19, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *UUMom* 
If they think you are out in another room partying without them, they fight sleep much, much more.

You have just described me to a tee.







(or is it T? I don't understand that phrase. anyway)

Even as a grownup I will have problems sleeping if I feel I'm missing something.

OP, since she is actually peeing, I don't see this as control. I know that I cannot sleep if I have even a tiny bit of pee in there...you can imagine what a JOY pregnancy was for me. Next time I'm going to get adult diapers and just let it goooo if I need to, b/c all those up-downs for the toilet exhausted me way too much.

If she wasn't peeing, I would read more into it, but since she IS, I would think she just needs to pee. So less water etc before bed, and if it continues even after that, you might get her checked out for a UTI or something that might cause excessive urination. (note that I'm NOT normally a person who thinks of things like that, but peeing too much now sets of all sorts of alarms in my head since Sept, when hubby was diagnosed with diabetes after being sicker than ever before for a week and peeing every 10 minutes...so it's my own personal issues chiming in there)

DS is 4.5 and one of us still lies down with him as he falls to sleep; whichever parent he wants, even. Just goes faster that way, even when it inconveniences us.


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## sapphire_chan (May 2, 2005)

Squeezing out an ounce of pee each time makes me think your dd could be having the same nighttime urgency issues I had for a really long time (since pregnancy, it seems to have abated, but maybe I'm just not noticing now that I've got a baby to distract me).

It feels exactly like having a very full bladder and needing to "hold it", but then there's practically nothing when you finally give up trying to sleep and go to the bathroom. What helped me be able to go to sleep was to put something absorbent under me so that I could relax about possibly peeing in my sleep. I never did pee in my sleep, but the worry about that, even while telling myself "it never happens, you feel this way every night, just sleep", kept me getting up again and again.

I can only imagine how much worse that feeling would be for a 3 y.o.

Things that made it better (although I never did figure out how to make it stop):
Drinking MORE water, hydration really helped, less water just meant that all the tiny bits of fluid that come into the bladder regardless didn't have any help to get out, emptying an actually full bladder tended to stop the fake-full feeling.
An absorbent small towel as described above.
Going to sleep immediately after using the bathroom, including getting up and doing things until I was more tired if needed.


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## sapphire_chan (May 2, 2005)

If you think she's using it to fight sleep, there's always the suggestion from Cohen's Playful Parenting. After you read stories, etc, tell her you'll be right back after brushing your teeth (or similar task) and then leave and do it and come back.


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