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Ally&Tommysmom · #1 (**permalink**) 04-27-2005, 10:53 PM

First of all, this is long...sorry...i hope you make it to the end b/c i could use your insight.
I'm new to the potty training board. My name is Christy and I have a daughter who is 2.5 yrs, Ally. She shows signs of being ready... shows interest when mommy or daddy go to the bathroom, knows when she has to go to the bathroom, can hold it if not wearing a diaper, but REFUSES to go in the potty chair.

We've been trying for about a month now. She's pee'd twice (dribbled...just maybe a TBSP of pee...definitely not emptying her bladder) and she did poop on it once (i caught her trying to go and happened to take her diaper off at the perfect time where she knew she had to crouch over the potty.

I don't know what to do. I was almost crying today. I just feel so useless. I feel like the worst mom ever. I know that I'm not the only one and I know that she's not doing this to be rotten or anything. But I am SOOO upset and don't know what to do. I try not to show my frustration to her and we don't punish her or anything, but here's a rundown of what happened tonight.

After dinner, we put underware on her. We figured that it wouldn't be a huge deal if she has an accident, but maybe if we tell her that she has undies on and she needs to tell us when she needs to go that it might be a good start (i didn't really care if i had laundry to do or anything).
She did great as far as not going in her pants, but she never really peed in the potty. She was in the undies at 6:30pm. By 8:30 she was showing signs of needing to go. Crossing her legs, jumping around, holding herself, etc. But she would scream and cry (BAWLING) everytime we would mention the potty chair. She did sit on it a few times and dribbled out a tiny bit once at about 9pm, but definitely didn't go all she needed to go b/c she was clearly uncomfortable (crossing legs, holding herself, etc) after she did her little dribble. She even held it in the bath. The whole time she is asking for a diaper (in the bath and out of the bath). She even asked to get out of the bath about 2 minutes into it (which she never does). When she got out of the bath, we put undies back on her and again, told her that if she needed to go potty that she could go on the potty chair. She would periodically sit on the chair (not being forced by us, but just b/c she is a very 'rules oriented kid' and did not want to go on the floor) but she would cry for a diaper. She refused to go. Finally, by 10pm (an hour past her bedtime) I had to give in and put her in a diaper. She immediately went. It was so much that I had to change her right afterwards b/c she would have leaked by morning I'm sure, if i hadn't.
I hope no one things horrible things of me for putting her in the position to hold it that long. I felt that since she did not want to go in her undies that she knew she had the option of going in the potty and we were really encouraging that. But for some reason she's freaked by it. What can i do???
I don't know what to do now. I don't want her to think that if she holds it long enough that eventually we'll give her a diaper. 1) it can't be good to hold it that long and 2) i don't want her to realize we gave in eventually and that she just needs to be stubborn and we'll give in 3) it's obviously just not working.

I should also say that we are very kind to her about the training. We didn't force her to sit or yell at her or punish her or anything. We were saying very positive things to her and telling her it's okay to go on the potty and that mommy goes on the potty and daddy does and friends collin and kaylee do, etc... She was in her undies the whole time while playing and just sitting on the potty when we noticed that she was acting like she had to go...sometimes she would sit there for 20 minutes or so, but most of the time it was 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there.

Thanks for any insight. I'm really baffled. She is my first child and I'm already dreading dealing with my 2nd born (a boy - and they say boys are harder) and he's only 4 months old.

Christy