You know what sucks?
Potty regressions.
From both kids at the same time.
It’s been a rough week or so on the potty front here at Casa in Progress. Both kids have been reliably trained for quite a while. Rebecca since about March, and Daniel since the end of the summer. A small handful of times they’ve come home in the “spare” clothes from school, but generally it’s no problem at all.
Until last week.
Suddenly, BOTH kids are having accidents left and right. Initially, I almost blamed my own push to get rid of the little potty chairs. While both kids are perfectly capable of using the large toilet, they were often still using the little chair. And I was just plain tired of them taking up space in our small bathrooms, not to mention cleaning them and the inevitable spills when the kids wanted to dump the contents by themselves. So I sold them to another twin mom, and nobody minded. But then there were several “almost made it” accidents, and I second-guessed my decision. Maybe I was too hasty?
Except the accidents are even more random than that, now. Half the time, they are literally STANDING STILL in the middle of the living room, or sitting in their chair at lunch, and WOOSH. “Mommy…… I peed in my undies.” OMFG.
For the love of pete, the pee laundry is really getting on my nerves. The Oxi-Clean supply is being depleted. We’re blowing through our big bottle of Nature’s Miracle. I can never seem to fully get rid of the pee smell in the bathroom. (I know, now you’re DYING to come to my house, huh?)
I’m at something of a loss. The kids are already potty trained. They know full well HOW to use the potty, and have demonstrated themselves very capable over a long period of time. There is no apparent anxiety with regard to anything bathroom-related. So I’m really not sure where to go. I’m certainly not putting them in pull-ups during the day, that just seems like a gigantic step backwards. A sticker/reward chart seems a little silly for something they’ve already accomplished, though if it would get us through this, I’d be happy to spend a few bucks on some sheets of stickers.
I can only hope it’s related to a growth spurt or something similar (they chowed through an entire bunch of bananas today), and I have to assume it’s one of those “grit your teeth and get through it” phases. I’ll try to up the active reminders for preemptive potty breaks, but even those were not immune from the floods today.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do YET ANOTHER load of laundry.
ugh! this is frustrating. i’ve dealt with regression so many times myself with my circus…all five clowns. it is normal and it is literally true that they become so engrossed in whatever they are doing that they pay no intention to their body’s cues.
weren’t the kids sick recently? sometimes that can be linked to regression too…as well as stress or life changes.
hope this is all very temporary for you.
laura recently posted..Day 8
My diatribe into Tales of the Little Potty was about to be a leather bound multi-volume set. I’ll leave you with this nugget of “great” parenting.
We tried everything with Ben. We had many, many setbacks thinking that he was getting it only to be met with bags of poopy underwear daily.
In the end it took all out shaming. Yes, therapy inducing shaming to break him. I conspired with his teacher at his Montessori school last year. Anytime he pooped on himself, she quietly walked him over to the Toddler house to change him and to check out what babies were doing while he was missing the fun in his class.
It took a couple of weeks, but he never pooped again on himself. He also pointed and told me only babies were allowed in the “bad building” every single day until the end of the school year.
My advice is try to get the teachers on your side to help during the day in whatever way they recommend that supports what they are trying at school.
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I say ignore it and it will pass. I suspect other stressers (new baby coming, preschool) or growth spurts are the culprit. As tough as it might be, try not to make them ashamed of their bodily functions.
Hang in there, hopefully the pee smell will be gone soon.
From all I`ve read (a lot), regressions are expected until quite late (5-7yo usually, but in some families – yes, it’s partly inherited – nighttime accidents can happen until adolescence and only then will stop. I’ve met those people, too, and they turn out normal, hehe.)
I agree it is probably school- and baby-related. Don’t know what is happening on those fronts, maybe you have been extra tired or involved with baby stuff and they need your attention?
Julia recently posted..2 anos
A lot of the advice around regressions and accidents is to have them take responsibility for it themselves, as much as possibly. Stop fun play, go get new clothing, put pee-soaked stuff in the basket, help mom clean rug—all that jazz. No yelling or anything, just—Ok, now you have to stop what you’re doing to help me clean it up. Honestly, I don’t think I’d offer any more potty reminders. In fact, I might offer fewer. Just take all the focus away and see what happens…
When Abigail was having some issues at naptime ‘not getting to the potty’ I left clean clothing out and told her she was going to deal with it—-I wasn’t coming up when she had an accident. She hasn’t had one since and it’s been 2-3 months. Taking away some of the attention and making it a pain makes accidents just less “rewarding” for kids and more of a pain for them, like they are for you. Good luck—may this phase pass quickly.
We went through this a couple of times with our girls, and found that reinstating the reward chart actually was helpful until they got back on track.
And yes, it probably is related to a growth spurt, or school, or who knows what. My girls went through their most significant regression when I started working from home (go figure).
This too shall pass! Hopefully before all of your carpets are ruined.
This sounds awful. I’ve heard of potty regression, and that it’s totally normal, but I’m just hoping we’ll be lucky enough to bypass it altogether. I can dream, right?
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We’ve had a few wet spurts like this as well. Mostly w/ Zach — he’ll be great for weeks, then it is a couple of days of accidents at home, at school, wet bed at wake up. Then it goes away again. The child sleeps like the dead so i just have to accept the occasional wet morning because he usually doesn’t go at all at night. We do immediately change, and talk about how we don’t want more accidents. Once he had one at home about 18 seconds after I did remind him to go — just too busy playing. LOTS of chatting about that one… Hang in there… like every other phase, give it a couple weeks and it changes again. In the case of 3 year olds, they pick something else to make you batty, right?
In the past few weeks, I’ve found out that twins run on BOTH sides of my boyfriend’s family, and then I found your blog, and omfg… I’m scuuuurred.
I probably shouldn’t share this but my 7 yr old still has potty accidents. Although his pediatrician says it’s normal, I have a hard time accepting it. Bleh.
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