My daughter is 4 years old and is not potty trained. How can I get her to use the potty?

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My daughter is 4 years old and is not potty trained. I feel like we have tried everything, but she will just not go in the potty. We are not even close to accomplishing this task. She claims that she is afraid of the toilet. We have tried incentives (getting her ears pierced, going to build a bear, a party at Chuck E. Cheeses, food, etc.). She wants those things until she finds out that she has to go potty before getting them, then she just simply says she does not want it. We have tried new, pretty panties - she just holds it all day (8-9 hours)until she bursts. We have tried taking things away from her, like her favorite animal that she sleeps with - she doesn't care. We have tried sitting her on the potty and reading to her every hour or so - she will sit there, but does not go. Everyone keeps telling me, she will do it when she is ready, but we have been trying on and off for well over a year now and are not even close. I am at my wits end and desperately need help. What can I do?

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Mommieshops's picture
Mommieshops

Does she have any friends or

Does she have any friends or cousins who are potty trained? My daughter potty trained at 3 finally and she was in pull ups for a long time and those are not good training pants because they feel just like a diaper. Anyhow, I finally got her potty trained over the summer after visiting her first cousins who were a year older than she was. Everytime her cousin went to the bathroom, I sent my daughter with her so she could see another child close to her age use the potty. A week later after returning home, I did not allow her to wear pull ups and told her she had to use the potty and she said "OK." She started using the potty. There were no tears, no power struggles over using the potty. Peer pressure worked great to my advantage.

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wittybutters's picture
wittybutters

just letting you know you are

just letting you know you are not alone. my daughter is doing the same thing. she is 5 and just this fall we got her to pee but are still struggling to get her to poop. we did the whole offering rewards if she would go and nothing worked. until one day i said if you potty your pants you will not get ice cream after dinner and she watched everyone else eat the ice cream. after two nights of not recieving ice cream and having to watch everyone else enjoy the treat the third day she would use the toilet and that night got her treat to enjoy with everyone else. but the last 2 months she's been popping her undies again. so didn't quite work out totally but we are still using the night time treat as a reward if she does well but i think she's getting used to not having the treat and isn't affecting her anymore. just keep trying.

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