# almost 4 yr. DS just doesn't want to give up diapers...



## 3girls1boy (Nov 20, 2001)

It's not like I haven't done this before and my three girls were all over 3 before they got into underwear, but my son just doesn't want to do it and I am TIRED (after 12 and a half years) of changing diapers.

You've heard that kids who wear cloth diapers will get out of them sooner because they can feel when they are wet--NOT TRUE! They are just so used to feeling it that they don't care. At least that has been my experience anyway.

In December, when my son was 3 and nine months (which was the age my last most reluctant potty trainer had finally decided to do it) I was just so tired of it that I told my son that he would just have to try wearing underwear and if he insisted on wearing diapers I was just not going to let him do anything fun anymore (no TV, computer, no trips away from home because I didn't want to haul around the wet diapers anymore) and he did okay for several weeks. Then a few weeks ago, he just stopped getting to the bathroom (a little passive aggression here?). I suspect part of it was that I stopped giving him sugarless gum every time he went, but he seemed to be doing fine after a couple of weeks, so I thought he didn't need that anymore.

So then a couple of weeks ago, I just put him back into diapers and determined not to say a thing about it (that is what seemed to work with my daughter who was 3 and 9 months when she finally did it), but just the other night, I just felt so mad and frustrated when I had just put a night diaper on my son and he said, oh I peed.

I got a bunch of little toys and wrapped them up and said that he could get one for every 3 times he successfully got to the bathroom, but that just caused more problems, because he wanted the toy after only one trip.

I asked him tonight, what he wants to do, wear diapers or underwear and he said underwear, so we are going to try again tomorrow, but I swear this is wearing me out (not to mention that I feel upset--though I try not to show it--every time I have to clean up the rug or furniture)

Anyway, I know he's feeling pushed but for gosh sakes the kid is nearly 4 (which I must admit, back when I was the mother of one kid, if I heard of someone in this situation, I would have thought, "What's wrong with this kid?!") Any words of advice? BTW my son has absolutely no physical or emotional problems that would be getting in the way of this--he's just stubborn.

Jeanne (mom to DDs 12 and a half, 9 and a half, 7 and DS 4 weeks away from 4)


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## stafl (Jul 1, 2002)

there is nothing wrong with your son!! He'll use the toilet when he's ready to do it. It is my opinion that it doesn't matter what you do, what bribes you use, or even if you punish them, they will start consistently using the potty when they are good and ready, and not before!







Hang in there! And check out some of the many previous potty learning/training threads in this forum. My oldest will be four in a couple months, and with her it was a matter of picking my words carefully. She didn't want to wear "panties" but she does like wearing "underwear" - what-ever







so I call them "underwear" and she's been using the potty ever since (except to poop, we're still working on that).


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## joesmom (Nov 19, 2001)

Do a search for my posts about this. Joe was over 4 when he trained. I waited till he was ready & it was so easy. No struggles, no hassles, no messes.

Of course I was only 4 years in- after 12 years I imagine you are getting tired of diapers. But your son hasn't been in diapers for 12 years, so... try to just be patient & wait till he's ready.

Joe never had an accident & never peed the bed.


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## TiredX2 (Jan 7, 2002)

First







you should really frustrated.

Secondly, just a reminder--- boys usually train around 6 months AFTER girls, so statistically your DS is still "ahead" of your DD who trained at 3.75.

I don't have any real advice (besides just backing off). Any way you would consider disposables just to give yourself a break? Will he poop in the toilet (I *hated* dealing w/poop but really didn't care about pee)? What exactly are you tired of? Could you get some happy heiny trainer type pants that he could take on and off by himself? What is he getting out of not wearing underwear? (does it mean he can concentrate on what he is doing without interruptions, is he getting extra attention, is he trying to cement his role as the "baby", does he not like being near the toilet alone...)?

I also wanted to respond to this. I'm going to try and be gentle, but this rubs very close to some really sore spots with me:

Quote:

It's not like I haven't done this before and my three girls were all over 3 before they got into underwear, but my son just doesn't want to do it and I am TIRED (*after 12 and a half years*) of changing diapers.
I am #8 of #9 and I well remember my mom saying things like this all of the time. It was very hurtful to me and very frustrating as well. It wasn't MY fault that she had already changed diapers 15 years, buckled seatbelts 18 years, took kids to wherever however many years... all it made me was ANGRY. Why were my needs (as #8) so much less important than the kids before me. Why did when *they* did something have to determine if I was doing it right? I am sure you are not saying this, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Good luck!!!


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## meowee (Jul 8, 2004)

hi! My DS did not potty train until he was five. Even then, he had accidents until he was six.

Before anyone reading this gets all judgemental, let me say that one of my other DC potty trained the day before her 2nd birthday-- that's right, technically she was still 1 year old.

I can honestly say it had nothing to do with anything I did-- I did the same sorts of things with both. They just do it when they're ready.

What I did with DS, when he was 4 1/2, because I was starting to panic that he woud be in diapers till he was 8 (I had heard stories...), is that I took off his diapers for lengthening portions of the day. At first I started with 2 hours, and extended it to wake up to 3 pm. During those hours I put underwear and super-thick (absorbent) sweatpants on him. at the same time I found something he loved to do (computer) and told him, every half hour, that he could not continue to use the computer unless he went to try to pee. Even with the every half hour attempts he still peed on the floor a lot. It took him 6 months to get the pee thing, and the poop came about a month before his fifth brithday.

So that is my suggestion, to start with 2 hrs a day when he can have no diaper on, and must try every 30 min to pee. Then slowly lengthen the amount of time you do this. I also gave him a few M&Ms every time he peed successfully in the potty.

I know it's gross-- I've been there.


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## shaylahc (Nov 2, 2004)

I don't know if this will work for you since you use cloth diapers....

But on another board I used to frequent there was a woman whose son was 4 and did not want to potty train. For him it wasn't an issue of not being able to. It was just that the diapers had become such a habit for him that he did not want to give them up. Anyhow, one day she informed her DS that since he was such a big boy they didn't make diapers in his size anymore. His response? "Oh all right". And he potty trained that day!

If it were my child, I would break out the undies, be prepared to clean up lots of accidents, and never look back.

Good luck!!!!


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## chel (Jul 24, 2004)

I have a 4.5yr dd that wets the bed almost every night but refuses to wear diapers (cloth or disposie). Times when I really need her to be dry (week long camping where I can't wash), dd would usually take off the diaper in the middle of the night. Currently I do my best to wake up in the middle of the night and take dd to the bathroom.
I would so rather be in your shoes of a dc needing a diaper and wearing it than having a dc that needed a diaper and refusing to wear one.


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## littlest birds (Jul 18, 2004)

I have had an interestig time with toiletting with my ds, also. He was absolutely zero interested in potty, till he wa 3 1/2. The suddenly he started doing it. Two weeks later he was dry all night every night. He was great at pottying!

But as he started paying attention to other things, a few months go by and he starts having a lot of daytime accidents, inconsistently. Might go w/o an accident for weeks, then have 3+ per day for week. And he started fighting it. He literally would stand or sit there playing and squirm and wiggle and jump and squeeze his leg together and wouldnot stop what he was doing. Sometimes he even would tell his pee not to come out. Eventually he would pee and he didn't care about being wet. In fact he would deny it and would not want to change pants either. It has sucked so much. He would have poop accidents occasionally even, usually as he ran to the bathroom too late to make it. Poor child these ones were devastating for him--he would be running with his hand on his crack trying to hold it in with this horrified look on his face.

He is 5yo now and we are still trudging through these daytime accidents. We still have to tell him to go potty when he does his pee-pee dance although he is much better about it since I put him in a diaper for about ten minutes one day. I remind him frequently. We still deal with "change your pants" now "change your pants" hey "are your pants wet" now "take care of these ones and keep them dry" ....

He gradually gets better but it has been really frustrating.

I don't know why but he just gets pee on his clothes and there are pretty much no spots on the floor or furniture. I guess because he stands and moves around a lot. idk


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## Greaseball (Feb 1, 2002)

At his age, maybe he can clean himself up? Maybe you could tell him that he can wear diapers if he changes his own.

We are trying to get our 3-year-old trained this year. I keep her dressed in cloth Gerber underwear around the house and I have her sit on the toilet every hour. She almost always pees immediately; if she doesn't go I have her sit there for 10 minutes. If she gets impatient I bring her a book, or sit in there and read to her.

She doesn't get punished for wetting her pants, but if we ask her if she needs a change and she lies about it, she loses her TV and desserts for the rest of the day.

I used to give chocolate for success; then one day she stopped asking and I just stopped offering.

At night and out of the house we have her in Pull-Ups. We don't bother with toileting then. We'll take it one step at a time.

As for bedwetting, I'm expecting we will deal with this for a long time. Both dh and I wet the bed until age 10. Well before that age, every morning I would just strip the bed and wash the sheets. So it's not like my parents had to do any work at all. (And FWIW, I never wet the bed while at a sleepover, even though I'd wet every night at home.)

I already do about 3 loads of laundry a day; adding in a child's sheets won't make much of a difference.


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## trinity6232000 (Dec 2, 2001)

3girls1boy I don't know if my recent experience will help, but I sympathize with you on this. My dd is 4.5 and just potty trained this month. I never worried about it. I bought her a potty at about 2.5, she has two books about going to the potty that she loves to read, and for about the past year she would use the potty to go #2 but would not wear underwear.
Last month we went to her grandmothers house for dinner and she saw her cousin (who is younger) run upstairs to use the bathroom. She asked about this, what is she doing....blah blah. I told her Hope wears underwear and uses the potty to poop and pee. The next day I asked dd if she wanted to wear underwear and for the first time ever she was excited about it and said yes! Not one more training pant.
What has surprised me is that not only have we not had one accident, but she stays dry all night as well. I knew that someday she would just pick it up and it would ultimately be her choice. At almost 5yo, I was slightly worried.


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## PM (Nov 19, 2001)

Quote:

She doesn't get punished for wetting her pants, but if we ask her if she needs a change and she lies about it, she loses her TV and desserts for the rest of the day.
Linda, what would a punishment be? I can't phrase that in a way that sounds friendly, though I tried!









My dd stopped using diapers when she was two weeks shy of four. The only thing I really tried before that was to make a potty available. I don't think I ever pressured. I knew that several things had set her back. Can you think of something that may have traumatized your ds? What happened with my dd is that she was at the garderie in Paris and her best friend was going to start "maternelle," school for 3 year-olds. The friend was working on using the potty at the garderie so she would be "ready to go to school." For over a year my dd repeated that if she used the potty she would have to go to school.

Then, the first time my dd peed in the potty, at around 3 1/2, I clapped and made a huge deal about it (Don't they tell parents to do that?). Well, my dd is highly sensitive and she wanted no part in being celebrated and having mommy raise her voice and jump around.

So I just waited. At a certain point, she asked to start preschool. So we took her to the school and had an interview with the director. The lady said that dd would have to be in underpants. So we left. Dd wanted to know why we left, so we told her very matter-of-factly what the lady had said. Dd never mentioned it again, but when she did stop using diapers, about two months later, she said, "Now you can tell the lady that I can come to school."

She had about three pee-pee accidents (actually a couple of months AFTER getting rid of the diapers) and one poo-poo accident. Never had a nighttime accident -- except on a night train that was so dirty she couldn't bring herself to pee in the toilet.


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## Greaseball (Feb 1, 2002)

By punishment I meant taking away some privilege such as desserts or TV. I was getting frustrated at dd never telling us she needed a change, or even saying she didn't and running away with poop running down her legs. So we started asking her, and then if she said no, we'd say "If I check, and it turns out you do need a change, there will be no more TV today and you won't get a dessert." She's been truthful ever since, and has recently started telling us as soon as she has an accident.


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