For some reason, she felt empowered.....and didn't need to control you with the potty issue. For a lot of years, kids learned not to soil their pants well before the age that is the norm these days....do you suppose we have suddenly evolved into a species of creatures with late maturing bladders? Do you suppose your great-great grandmother washed on a washboard the diapers and other clothing, or her children for 4 years?...2 or 3 at a time?....and stoked the fire and made her bread etc? I know my children pottied themselves by 2 years.....and I know my brother and I did.....and I know that my grandmother said her children were trained before 2 ( my brother is 10 years younger....and my grandmother lived with us...so she expressed her opinion.....a lot!) It seems that Freud started the whole "anal retentive" thing. We used to put a child on the potty at 6 months for a little while at a "certain time" each day. If by chance, they performed....the bells and whistles all went off! But...it got them used to the potty....and I used that time to put on my face, brush my teeth and curl my hair. Now it seems we are afraid of scarring a child's psyche by putting them on the potty too young.....but not afraid to give them Karate lessons at 3. A child that has never worn a disposable, nor a pair of waterproof pants will be very uncomfortable when wet. And you'd be surprised at how fast they catch on to how nice it is to always have a warm, dry bottom. I think that after...or about...age 2 it becomes a control issue.....the child is using the potty issue to have some control. I belive it's the same sort of thing that sometimes leads teen age girls with parents who are perfectionists to become anorexic. It's the one area of their life over which they have total control.....when to eat and when to poop. I suggest finding another area of her life to control....like total choice on what to wear.... But....please don't misunderstand.....I wouldn't want to return to the cloth diaper, wash board days for anything!! Linda C

I have another story! This happened yesterday and while it didn't seem funny at first it did after I cleaned the mess up! LOL We laid DS down for a nap and his father put a diaper on him so he wouldn't end up with a wet bed. He told DS that just because he had a diaper on did not mean that if he had to pee or poop he couldn't take it off and go. DS said, "Okay, Daddy." We then went back to our room and watched Trading Spaces and thought about taking naps ourselves. After a while we hear DS coming to our room. He's holding his blankies and when he puts them down, my fiance' sees something on him. He then realizes DS has poop on himself and he asks where his diaper is. I started seeing pictures of the times he pooped and ripped his diaper off and smeared it everywhere. I jump up and dash to his room and scan for a mess. I don't see or smell anything. Then I see the door to the 1/2 bath off of his room is open. I look in there and there is poop on his stool, on the toilet seat in two places and the handle on the toilet and also some in the sink. He had the used some toilet paper to clean up some of the mess and looked in the soap dispenser for some soap but it was out. I start questioning him on where his diaper is and ask about the garbage and he says, "Yes." But there are no dirty diapers in the garbage so were searching for a diaper again. Then we realize that DS realized he had to poop so he went to the bathroom. He took the diaper off and threw it in the garbage and then crawled up on the toilet and held himself on it. He must have sat back pretty far so that's how the poop got on the back of the seat. Then when he went to slide off his butt would have rubbed on the front part where there was more poop. He then must have gotten the toilet paper and wiped himself and gotten some poop on his hand from trying to do that himself, which he then got on the handle when he tried to flush and then in the sink when he tried to wash off. He even demonstrated what he did on the other toilet and it all adds up. He was so proud of himself! I hated having a mess but it has to be a good thing when a almost 3 year old is willing to go and clean up his own mess! LOL I also knew a little boy who thought you could pee anywhere. My father, his girlfriend, my brother and I and the gf's three younger boys were at a local fireman's carnival. We all got on a ride except for the 3 year old. While the rest of us were on the ride, Brett decided he had to pee. He told his Mom and my Dad and her were looking for a porta potty or something. Meanwhile she looks down and there he is peeing right in the middle of the crowd. We don't think anyone saw him though. ~Leslie~

There are many schools of thought on pullups (just like there are for cloth as infants). You have to try them and see if they suit your needs. Only you know what works. Folks I know with more than one child say potty training is not text-book, and with each kid it was totally different. One niece learned in one day and was 100% potty trained forever, even at night. The other niece just had her own ideas LOL and took forever. I also tried the 'put them in big-girl pants and let them soil themselves and they'll hate it' method. HA! DD could care less that she had pee or poop running down her legs. She could sit in it and never say a word! What seemed to get her into it the most was two things: 1) I told DH to not pee standing up when she was around - the one time he did it totally confused her, so while she was learning, he made sure to lock the door so she was not totally confused. 2) I always took her to potty with me, and I verbalized everything I did. That got her to want to be like Mommy and try to make the sound in the potty.

My son, 9/27/98 is a bit over 3 yrs. He is a big boy (95th percentile) about 43 lbs. We could never find the cloth training pants that would fit him, only pull-ups had the extra large. Alst night we went to cloth underwear, and we made a big deal out of it. They were space man under pants, and they were really cool. He had an accident about 2 hours later. He hid in the play room and pooped in his pants. We took him to the bathroom, and told him that he had to help us clean him up. We told him that this would have been alot easier if he had gone in the potty and not so stinky. We told him that he needed to go on the potty, or we would need to go back to diapers. He was not about to go back to diapers, so he begged for the big boy pants. He stayed dry all night and got up this morning to go potty at 6:30 am. I think we are going to stay with the big boy pants and retire the pull-ups. I am sure that this is a messy road in the future, but, if he knew to go and hide to poop, he knew could have gone to the potty. We sent a few pairs of underwear and pants to pre-school this morning and started our journey. He cried when I left him, this is not like him. He held onto my legs and buried his face. I think maybe he knows that this is the beginning of being a big boy and maybe by moving away from pull-ups will distance us. I am not sure, but I reassured him that I loved him and that I was am very proud of him. I told to he need to go on the potty today, and I waved to him through the window. I hope this works. Jainie