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Juniors

10th Jul 2018

Mum ‘close to tears’ after trying to potty train her son

Olivia Hayes

As we all know, every child reaches different milestones at various times.

However, this mum has asked an online forum about what to do since her child is nearly 5-years-old, and has yet to learn how to use to toilet.

She begins by saying:

“My son will be 5 soon and is still not “getting” potty training, we have as much diaper free time as possible, lots of praise for attempts on the potty but we are getting nowhere.

“His nursery preschool have dismissed my concerns repeatedly telling me he’s on the ‘later stages of normal’ for boys and not to panic.”

She goes on to say that she’s losing her patience with it and doesn’t know what to do.

“I’m getting frustrated with it, I know no other children his age in diapers and I’m worrying as school is not far off, he’s bright as a button in every other area but this.

“I’m close to tears over it. WE tried not too long ago to go in underpants, this lead to days of wetting with no regard to the state he was in. He just doesn’t seem to care.”

One mum replied to the poster and said:

“This is probably what’s confusing him. You will probably need to go cold turkey as someone else said. It’s ok for him to do it in the nappy but not when he wears pants. It’s hard for children to know the difference. Also a lot of people may disagree but you should let him know you are not very happy that he has had an accident.”

While another wrote:

“Could you get a second opinion from another doctor?

“While 4 years old isn’t unheard of in regards to potty training it’s not exactly common to see, it’s understandable that you are worrying.”

What would your advice be in this situation?