u/LowerEngineer5576

I have a chronically interrupting toddler. He generally listens and cooperates on many things, but he seems adamant on making sure I never have a conversation with another adult. I see lots of posts here about interrupting toddlers and how to manage them, but they all imply that the toddler has something to say—mine doesn’t. He just doesn’t want the adults to talk. Whether I’m talking to my husband, the pediatrician, a friend, a cashier, a restaurant server—it doesn’t matter. He will start pleading with me to stop talking and will not give up. “Mommy no talk! Mommy don’t talk! Please mommy don’t talk! I don’t want you to talk!” I’ve tried ignoring, I’ve tried giving him an explanation in advance “the doctor is going to come in soon. Mommy needs to tell the doctor how you’re feeling.” I’ve even tried including him on the conversation and bringing it down to child level so he can participate. Ive tried briefly pausing the convo and giving him a prompt (you can say “excuse me”) or briefly correcting him and going back to the adult conversation. I’ve also tried being stern and enforcing punishments, but it’s hard to find a consequence that makes sense for this type of thing. If he throws a toy, for example, I can take the toy away. If he refuses to do something I’ve asked, I can count to 3 and say if he doesn’t do it by himself mommy will help/make him. But if I’m in the middle of a conversation and keep getting interrupted, I get so overstimulated and can’t hear myself think. I also have a 2 month old who is often nursing when this happens, so the overstimulation for me is just so freaking stressful. It takes everything in me to stay calm.

Last week we were at the pediatrician for my toddler’s stomach virus and we had a medical student shadowing the doctor so we had 3 different visits to the room for questions and exam. He interrupted me constantly “mommy don’t talk! Don’t talk! Don’t talk!” Louder and louder every single time the medical student and/or doctor tried to talk to me. After the first time I tried to calmly explain my expectations and set the boundary. He still did it. I got the kids into the car afterward and broke down in tears. Only then did he acknowledge that something was wrong and said “mommy feels sad.” I didn’t let him watch any TV for the rest of the day because that was a threat I had to follow through on, but he seemed completely unaffected by that consequence.

Anyone have any tips? I’m losing my mind.

Hi, I’m a parent of a 2.5 year old boy in a day care/preschool part time (3 days/week). We love the school and staff so much but potty training has caused some drama I’m not sure how to handle.

My son started showing interest in potty training, and we have a new baby at home, so we excitedly dove into the process. I’m on maternity leave and had my brother staying with us for an entire week, so it was the perfect time for me to be able to focus on helping him learn. Otherwise my husband and I both work full time and would be challenged to concentrate this much on potty training.

I decided to pull my toddler out of day care for a week and do some intensive potty training, weekend to weekend (11 days in a row). I asked the day care director in advance, told her my plan, and asked her how I should send him back to school after the 11 days. She said if he’s having 1 accident per day or less, underwear were fine. We aligned on the reality that it takes time and I’m under no delusion that he would be completely potty trained in less than 2 weeks, but I thought it would be confusing for him to go back to wearing diapers after switching to underwear at home.

In the 4 days prior to returning to school, he had only 1 pee accident and zero poop accidents. He regularly pooped on the potty, communicated when he needed to go, and even went independently without prompting several times. On Sunday night I messaged the school to let them know we’d like to send him in underwear to keep up the momentum he’d made at home. I sent 5 pairs of extra underwear and pants, plus a pack of pull-ups and checked in regularly the first day back.

Day 1: 1 pee accident, afraid of school toilet and refused to try. Held it most of the day.

Day 2: 1 pee accident, sat on potty at school, pooped on potty at school, but didn’t pee.

Day 3: 1 pee accident, sat on potty happily anytime he was asked to, but didn’t successfully make anything.

This reads to me as significant progress in 3 days. His teacher however has appeared less than enthused each day and has asked me to start bringing him in pull-ups.

Each day when I brought him home, he was in a pull-up with underwear on top. I’m confused by this and don’t understand the point of underwear on top of a pull-up. I ask the teacher what’s the thinking behind this, and she cannot give me an answer (“it’s just something we do.”)

I asked if we could try underwear with pull-up on top, so he continues to feel wet and works on his communication. My worry is that as long as he’s in a pull-up, he has no motivation to go to the potty because he knows he can just pee without consequence and not be pulled away from play. The teacher said she would be fine with this compromise.

As soon as we got home, I asked my son to wash his hands (standard habit when we get home, because baby sister) and he had a complete meltdown like I’ve never seen. He started sobbing saying “I don’t wanna sit on the potty!” And went up to his little potty, picked it up and threw it across the room. This is so unlike him and completely out of character (both the attitude towards potty and the aggressive throwing). I backed off after that, but after he calmed down he still peed on the potty at home 3 times before bed with no issue.

Clearly, potty training at school is stressing him out. I can tell his teacher is stressed too. I know almost nothing about their approach, how often they’re taking the class, what exact they’re doing,… but I feel like they’ve given up on him and just expect him to be either in diapers or perfectly potty trained, with little tolerance for this in between phase.

I genuinely do not want to create extra work for the staff at day care. I respect and appreciate them so much and totally understand they can’t watch my one child for cues and recreate the home environment there with multiple kids.

Today we sent him in underwear with pull-up on top. My husband dropped him off and told me his teacher looked annoyed. I’m officially confused.

First the director tells me underwear works as long as it’s 1 accident per day, but then after only 3 days of 1 accident per day, I’m told to bring him in pull-ups. Then, the teacher agrees we can do underwear underneath but looks annoyed when we do it.

What I need help understanding is: (1) what’s with the underwear on top of pull-up? Is this normal, and can anyone explain the logic behind it? And (2) if I send him in pull-ups at school when he’s in underwear at home, won’t this hinder his progress and make the training process take longer? Or do kids actually one day magically start preferring the potty even if they’re wearing a diaper?

Any advice would be appreciated, as I would love to get aligned with the school and come to a more positive place.

I’m on maternity leave with my second baby. First is 2.5yo. We’re done after this, so this is my last maternity leave and probably my last extended break from working full time.

Baby girl & I have gotten into a nice groove with sleep, breastfeeding and growth. I’m all healed up, she’s healthy and more awake during the day now. I’m finding myself a bit bored and lonely at home all day.

I would really like to take advantage of this precious time I have with my kids. I have only the baby on Mondays/Tues/Weds while toddler is at preschool and both kids Thursdays and Friday mornings (husband works half days Fridays).

I need ideas. What are some things we could do now that would be fun, bonding time, not too much stress to undertake and that I can’t do once I’m back at work?

Preferably something social and/or outside of our house. Please and thank you!

TL; DR: My 2yo son is refusing to make pee or poop on the potty, but knows we want him to, so he’s using the potty to delay bedtime/transitions/other tasks.

Context: Around 19-20 months old, he started showing interest so we tried sitting him on the potty. It was positive, no-pressure, and pretty easy. He pooped on the potty 5 times and we thought we were creating momentum.

Then we weaned off breastfeeding, moved into a new house, switched to toddler bed, and started day care part-time all within a span of 2 months (December-January). Potty progress came to a screeching halt, and he started having meltdowns at the mere suggestion of trying to sit on the potty. I was due with baby sister in April so we decided to hold off and just wait until the dust settled on all of that change.

Since then, he’s adjusted pretty well. He loves his baby sister, loves school and has started showing interest in the potty again. Completely unprompted, he has been bringing me his potty-related books for bedtime, asking to watch Ms Rachel’s potty video, and is suddenly willing to sit on the potty again. We have step stools, we have the little potty, and we have the small seat attached to a step stool that fits over our toilet, so he has 3 different options and seems fine with all 3.

The problem is, he wants to sit there for 30+ minutes and watch Ms Rachel or sing along to the “potty time” song on my phone, or read his potty books, but he produces nothing in that time. No pee, no poop (even if I’d just caught him straining in the corner asking for privacy 5 seconds before sitting him on it).

He’s also learned to strategically ask to potty when it’s time to go somewhere, put shoes on, eat dinner, or take a bath or go to bed. If he doesn’t want to do something, he has learned he can delay it by up to half an hour by sitting on the potty.

We’ve tried the approach of letting him because it’s overall a step in the right direction that he’s interested again and not scared or having meltdowns over it. But it’s really stressing us out to have this much disruption to our routine, and we are exhausted with our newborn, and he knows it. We don’t have the fight in us that we used to, and my husband and I have zero time to just talk this out together and come up with a plan or strategy.

So we’re floundering. We’ve consistently offered rewards, talked about why he needs to learn, stayed patient and calm and positive, and I feel like if I can just get him to go ONCE he can have a win and start to get the hang of it. But nothing happens, and then he sneaks off and goes in his diaper. Then he tells us things like “poop goes in the potty!” And “if I go potty, I get a treat!” He has a good grasp on the concept and is very smart and aware of what is supposed to happen. We’re at our wits end and falling asleep with “po-o-o-o-tt-y time” stuck in our heads at night.

We have NOT tried the commando method, the 3 day method or going diaperless or letting him pee “anywhere” because day care won’t support those tactics. I don’t want him getting kicked out of school for peeing in the sandbox in the yard (this actually happened to my husband as a kid), and school won’t let us send him in just underwear until he’s gone a certain period of time in pull-ups without an accident.

He also refuses to try to learn the other steps of going to the potty himself (pulling up and down his pants, flushing, wiping) and insists we do it even when we’ve tried to teach him.

Honestly I feel very in over my head about this and have no plan. Idk where to start. He’s our first kid and we need a low-pressure, low-effort approach that is feasible with 2 working parents and a newborn sibling. I am on maternity leave until July, but I still have no concentrated time all day to focus on him because I have a newborn. We are so tired of changing his giant poop diapers when he’s very smart and very aware of what he should be doing.

Is there a recommended book or training method that isn’t the 3-day commando thing? I know everyone does this so it shouldn’t be this hard. Please help.