We started to potty train our 3-year-old daughter about a week ago, after she showed the initial signs by asking to wear underwear "like mom and dad". We explained to her it means she must use the potty or toilet for pee and poo and she appeared to understand.
Potty turned out to be "too boring" and she refused to sit on it, so we showed her the toilet seat for kids we also bought and she was all happy and cheerful, sitting on it without a problem and feeling really adult for using mom's and dad's toilet.
However, ever since then she just holds both pee and poo, and crying when it's finally arriving and causing either a puddle (usually on the floor) or a mess in her underwear. It happened many times by now. Things we tried, to no avail:
- Telling her constantly "you have pee? please go to the toilet to check". Most of the times she just says "no" and doesn't go, sometimes she will go, sit for a few minutes, say "I'm done" without doing anything and go away.
- Taking her to the toilet every 10 minutes or so even if she says she doesn't need to. Most of the time, she refuses to sit and when she agrees to sit, see #1 above.
- After every "miss" explain to her kindly that next time she has to tell us before it happens and go to the toilet. She just nods her head and says yes but... nothing really changing.
She goes to day care, where most of the other kids are already potty trained and while there she does reach the toilet in time (they also have toilet seats for kids) though not always, but it means she can tell when it's coming.
What else can we do at home to encourage her to use the toilet? Why the different behavior between home and day care?
Worth to mention that during the night she still wears diapers, we prefer to wait until she's trained during the day before starting the nights.