HELP! My son is being potty trained and has held his pee for 17 Hours now!?

Question

We started potty training our son 3 days ago - he "threw away" all of his pull ups (and was excited to do so), but now he seems to have "performance anxiety" and has only gone on the potty 1x in the last 3 days. The rest of the time he's either had accidents or held his pee between 10-17 hours now. The last time he went was at 4pm yesterday (had an accident). He woke up at 3am and sat on the potty until after 4am saying he had to go (over & over) but nothing happened. We've tried running water in the background to get him to hear it and go, relaxing him, giving him books to read, sitting in there with him and reading to him, giving him rewards (we've tried 3 different kids), EVERYTHING.

I feel so sorry for him I'm almost in tears. I don't know what to do. Anyone have any experience with this? We don't want to go back now and put a Pull up back on him (he says he doesn't want one on anyway) but I also don't want him to get a UTI or kidney infection! Serious help only please!

Answer 1

My older son had that problem.  I put the pull-ups back on.  Don't make a big deal about it.  When he's ready, he will go.  You can also try this trick.  I used it to help my younger son p**p on the potty.  It worked like a charm.

Get some marbles and an empty shot glass. Fill the shot glass with marbles (so you know how many will fill it). Then empty the marbles into another small container. Tell your son that every time he goes to the potty, he will get to pick a marble and put it into the shot glass. When the shot glass is full (all the marbles are now in the shot glass again) your son will get to go with you to the store and pick out what ever "surprise" he wants...any toy. I took mine to Dollar Tree and it was a treat for him.

Answer 2

I agree with snowbarb, let him pee with some males, even outside on a bush.

Answer 3

1. give him privacy....don't stand outside the door saying "did you pee, yet?"

2. Go back to the pull-ups without making a big deal of it.  "Oh, look.  We still have some pull-ups.  Why don't you wear them today."  NOT "Well, since you can't pee like a big boy, you have to go back to pull ups."

3. Put him in the bath tub with comfortably warm (not hot) bath water.  Nature will take over from there.

4. Have you "confused" him by call his p***s, his "pee-pee" or something like that?  So that he might be thinking you are wanting to flush his p***s instead of the urine?  Little boys brains don't think like an adult woman's (Well actually neither do big boys/men's brains! ha!)

We have successfully raised three boys -- all potty trained on their OWN schedule, but all by the age of three.  (You don't mention how old he is...they do have their own schedules for development.)

added comment -- ---

Be careful that the praising him for sitting on the potty is not what he's actually seeking so that he's delaying peeing so he can sit on the pot longer and get more praise.

Answer 4

If you have other sons or your little boy's daddy - even another kid he plays with, have them come over and the two of them can "go" a the same time.

Have him "water the flowers" outside, anything to ease his anxiety and make going fun!

Answer 5

I think for his health, you need to put a pull up on him just until he is regularly using the bathroom.  Explain to him that it's okay if he has an accident but to try to get to the bathroom if he needs to go.  At least this way, he hopefully won't hold it which is not good.  It's better he have an accident then cause himself harm.  

Maybe his desire to be back in underwear will be the motivation he needs to stop holding it.

Answer 6

My son enjoyed aiming for things in the toilet so we put cheerios in there and had him aim for those.  Going outside like the other person said is fun for boys too, but you have to be careful of that cause my son only wanted to go outside.  Boys are very difficult to train.  My son was almost 4 years old before he completely got the hang of it.  Don't give up!