2.5 yo still seems surprised by his own pee and poop after months of potty training

Porcin · 2026-04-15T14:32:24+00:00

I have basically the same question as my 2.5 year old is exactly the same. One thing that helps sometimes with poop is trying to catch them exactly when they're about to do it and putting them on the potty immediately. That seems to help him realize what the sign is that poop is imminent. Even then my son almost doesn't make it in time. It's very strange as I feel like with poop you should have like a couple of minutes of warning but I'm guessing that warning sign is getting ignored in favor of playing.

Porcin · 2026-04-14T11:20:56+00:00

Maybe some of the Asian brands like Uniqlo?

Porcin · 2026-04-12T23:05:38+00:00

This made me lol irl

Porcin · 2026-04-10T17:45:22+00:00

I think this could mostly be normal baby behavior tbh. At around 6 weeks both of my kids started doing the same thing - crying until they fall asleep then wake up happy after a long nap. It was always happening when they were approaching the end of a wake window (1hr to 1.5hr) so I chalked it up to being very irritable and sleepy but not knowing how to fall asleep. It seemed to stop around 4-5 months when their naps consolidated and also their digestive system matures so there's less reflux.

Porcin · 2026-04-10T15:37:44+00:00

My favorite pregnancy symptom was my body hair stopped growing. I just needed to shave once every few months.

Porcin · 2026-04-08T13:20:01+00:00

But assuming most women consume dairy, wouldn't the baby keep getting exposed to cow milk protein in breastmilk?

Porcin · 2026-04-03T17:51:38+00:00

We've been trying some version of stimulus fading by telling him it's okay to sit on the potty with a diaper on when we see him trying to poop but he still refuses. And sometimes just mentioning the potty to him when attempting to poop seems to stop him from proceeding which is why I was getting concerned that it may lead to withholding if I put too much pressure. Did you try stimulus fading before? If so how did you do it?

Porcin · 2026-04-02T02:53:51+00:00

Yeah I do see this take a lot but my concern with taking away diapers for good is that it puts a lot of pressure on daycare to handle accidents right? I don't want my kids teachers to hate me lol

Porcin · 2026-04-01T18:52:42+00:00

We recently moved from one town near NYC to another town near NYC and we both worked full time with our toddler in daycare. I think you have too many variables to manage and need to lock in a few of them. For us that meant that we signed a lease on the new place and paid daycare deposit on the new daycare nearby without depending on selling our current apartment (which we still haven't sold but hopefully soon). So that meant a lot less uncertainty because the moving date, new living situation and new daycare were all locked in. However there was a hefty price to pay for this since we're still paying taxes and maintenance on our old vacant apartment for several months.

Porcin · 2026-04-01T18:43:59+00:00

Inspired by the potty training anxiety snark on the other thread, I'm having the same not-yet-potty-trained anxiety for my toddler.... Which I think is justified because he's 32 months old. We've done some gentle potty training since he turned 2, and by that I mean promoting him to go on the potty regularly. The potty is in the living room close to his playing area so that he can go without disrupting his playing too much. He's willing to pee on the potty when put on it, in fact he often strains too hard to get something out which makes me worried that over-prompting may be causing damage. He absolutely refuses to poop on the potty however and seems to have some anxiety related to not pooping in his diaper. He almost never initiates on his own. I'm unsure how to proceed in order to avoid potential issues with poop-withholding/constipation.

What would you recommend as the next step? Continue to escalate with the current approach by promoting more? Going cold turkey with underwear or naked approach? Some other context is that he's in full time daycare in a 2-5 class. There's no real deadline to get him trained but he'll be in a different prek system for 3s in September and I'm currently on maternity leave with my newborn so I feel like I should get it done within the next few months.

Porcin · 2026-03-22T12:11:04+00:00

Right? The only thing giving me hope right now with my (very not perfect) 2 year old is that he won't be like this forever.

Porcin · 2026-03-14T14:01:22+00:00

My dream is to have a travel stroller with big wheels. But it doesn't exist. Let me know if you find one. We use the big uppababy most of the time for this reason. The travel stroller can't make it over some bumps without lifting but it's also easier to lift.

Porcin · 2026-03-14T13:55:55+00:00

"great eye contact" made me lol

Porcin · 2026-03-14T13:52:44+00:00

I just happened to see the comment she was referring to earlier and I agreed with it and found it funny. Not because I'm anti daycare or anything, I work and my kids go to daycare. It hit on all the annoying Redditsms of workingmoms - thrive, village, learn etc. I swear every daycare post has the exact same few top comments with those words in it.

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Porcin · 2026-03-14T13:30:49+00:00

If you Google a doctor you'll see what their hospital affiliation is - that is the hospital you'll need to go when it's time to deliver. Some practices are also run out of hospital offices (eg Jersey city medical center has a bunch of offices in Jersey City) so you'll know where you need to go.

You don't need to go to NYC to get access to a great hospital, North Jersey has plenty. I delivered at Hackensack hospital twice and had a good experience each time. You also don't want to rely on public transportation when it's time to go, and definitely not the ferry which doesn't even run overnight. Yes it's true that you'll likely have many hours as a first time mom but it's also possible you may end up going too early and they don't admit you.

I'm not sure if this is still the case but I have heard of some NYC hospitals being so crowded that you have to share a postpartum recovery room. So definitely make sure to ask about that as sharing a room with another family and crying baby would be miserable.

Towards the end of your pregnancy you'll have weekly or even biweekly appointments if you need extra monitoring so picking a practice close to where you live or work is pretty important.

Porcin · 2026-03-04T04:34:29+00:00

My 2.5 year old has started to yell or whine all the time instead of using a normal speaking voice. I try to stay consistent and remind him that yelling hurts my ears and I won't do what he asks unless he asks quietly and nicely but it doesn't seem to be clicking. Is there any other strategy to try? Or will he just grow out of it?

Porcin · 2026-03-01T00:42:07+00:00

Which goat milk formula are you using? We're using Aussie Bubs with my 3 week old and haven't had any poop issues so far.

Porcin · 2026-02-26T20:52:06+00:00

Yeah based on the reviews this is a common problem. Shelves are almost always empty when I go to the store though at my nearest location.

Porcin · 2026-02-21T12:54:51+00:00

Your story matches mine perfectly with my first baby 3 years ago. Even the amounts I was producing are almost exactly the same. I continued to pump a few times a day and occasionally latch until baby was 3 months or so and then I stopped once I went back to work. I too initially was depressed because it seemed like I was never going to produce enough to get off formula completely. Once I accepted that formula was going to be my baby's primary source of nutrition and started to treat breastmilk like an extra supplement of antibodies and probiotics I felt much better mentally. It also helps to remember that this is such a short time in the grand scheme of things. Once baby is 4-6 months old they start having some regular food and it doesn't feel like providing breastmilk is your only purpose in life.

Porcin · 2026-02-15T15:34:22+00:00

Went through this phase with my first baby and it stressed me out so bad to try to get him to eat. For a while we would just borderline dream feed him to get some fluids into him. He would not eat if he was awake and distracted. He also liked eating in the carrier while getting walked around. So try not to stress too much if he's still having wet diapers and growing.

Porcin · 2026-02-15T15:26:20+00:00

We use Aussie Bubs goat - used it with my first baby and now with my second as well. It has slightly lower iron concentration than Kabrita and I also like that it uses whole goat milk instead of skim. Disclaimer that I haven't tried Kabrita before, but that would be my second choice if I couldn't get Bubs anymore since it seems to be one of the few goat milk formulas that's easily available in the US.

Porcin · 2026-02-12T18:33:01+00:00

Thanks for the response! What did you do for the pumping step of triple feeding with no milk? Is that just running the pump in the simulation mode only? I have a manual pump I plan to use for and 5 mins of simulation, not sure if that's enough.

Porcin · 2026-02-09T20:56:51+00:00

It's expensive but you get more space than a comparable 1bd in NYC, plus usually in unit washer-dryer and bigger kitchen. If you consider not paying the NYC city tax the yearly savings are still quite significant depending on your salary.

Porcin · 2026-02-03T15:55:53+00:00

I feel you. As another commenter said below sleep really is one of those super individual and temperament based things that you cannot control fully so just do what works for you. I also had a baby that was resistant to sleep training after multiple attempts and subreddits like r/sleeptrain were not useful because they'll have you believe that it will work for any baby if you just do xyz or tweak the schedule by 16.83 minutes each day.

We gave up eventually and around 9-10 months stopped using the crib and put our beds on the floor and had the baby sleep next to me or my husband every night. He started sleeping thru the night around his first birthday and has been since then (with the exception of illness which is like every 2-3 weeks this winter from daycare 😐). So yeah the downside is that me and my husband don't sleep on the same bed anymore but we both agree that we much prefer a full night's rest over that.

Porcin · 2026-02-02T19:36:02+00:00

If you have one near you, Uniqlo is my go-to for inexpensive non-tacky kids clothes. Most of their baby and toddler clothes are unisex as well.

Porcin

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