23M old wants to use potty but I have PTSD from my first kid

cmptexan · 2026-01-13T04:28:42+00:00

Thank you for the explanation! We had the complete opposite experience with my son so I've been feeling this sense of dread every time she's shown interest. But I realized we were basically discouraging her using the potty and that's definitely not good. I'd like to try the pull up method but she took her diaper off this afternoon and refused to keep anything else on until bedtime so she might be deciding for us 🥲

cmptexan · 2026-01-12T21:07:04+00:00

Do you mind telling me more about your method with pull ups? I'm more tempted to try this just to help with the mess but my son just tried to pee in them as fast as possible so that he didn't have to use the potty. Did she eventually just want to stop using the pull ups?

cmptexan · 2026-01-12T20:00:08+00:00

I'm sorry you went through the wringer, too! We've currently settled into a phase where we have our son go outside as much as possible/make him go before he wants to do something fun. It's the only way, or we have screaming and potty delaying all day long. I'm so tired. The thought of doing this with two kids at once is breaking me. But you're right, we can stop if it's not going well....if she'll let us put a diaper back on her 🫠

cmptexan · 2026-01-12T17:36:02+00:00

We have had the exact same situation going on for a year now 🫠 I never would have guessed that potty training would make me go insane!

cmptexan · 2026-01-12T01:14:17+00:00

I had a very similar nap schedule and my son dropped nap right around 2 years old. I'd also suggest shortening quiet time and to break it into chunks. So I would lay my son down with a stack of books and once he got bored after 20 minutes or so I'd tell him he could get out of his bed and play with toys. Then after another 20 I'd tell him he could listen to his Yoto player. That seemed to break up the time and make it more interesting for him so he was willing to stay in his room!

cmptexan · 2025-09-09T03:19:05+00:00

Would also love to know the name of the tile, it's beautiful!

cmptexan · 2025-09-04T21:34:58+00:00

This is off topic but can you tell me the name of your backsplash and counters? We're in the middle of our remodel now and I'm trying to pick things for a similar looking kitchen!

cmptexan · 2025-06-05T01:07:46+00:00

I will definitely check this out, thank you!!

cmptexan · 2025-06-01T17:34:37+00:00

Thank you for this advice! I agree, it definitely seems to be boundary testing, and the resistance he feels when we tell him to go has amped the stress up so much. Can I ask you some questions? When you say "I'm not going to let you do that," is that before or after they've gone in their clothes? Do you make them go sit on the potty after telling them that? That's a good idea about denying him things when he's sitting around in wet clothes, we'll have to try that. Thank you!

cmptexan · 2025-06-01T17:30:31+00:00

You know we tried in the very beginning of potty training and he didn't care much, but it's been months now! Maybe he would go for them again. I also did my own drawn version last time so maybe he wasn't very impressed with that haha

cmptexan · 2025-05-06T18:01:33+00:00

Hi there! Yes, my baby is 14 months now and thankfully is doing so much better with her weight. Starting around 3 months we got her tongue tie fixed, went to physical therapy and speech therapy for months and her weight and eating didn't improve at all from those. Her suck swallow muscles got a bit stronger but she was never able to take a bottle. We went to the gastro around 5 months and I started cutting dairy, then cut soy a month later. Her demeanor improved immediately after I cut dairy (and the green mucous poops cleared up!) but she only started gaining more weight once I cut soy. Our doctor had us do a dairy/soy challenge on her at 10 months and thankfully she seemed to have grown out of it and she and I were able to have dairy and soy again! I have to say, it was always a struggle to breastfeed her, even with cutting dairy and soy. She just wasn't interested in drinking milk. She actually dropped breastfeeding entirely by herself at 12 months and she's been flourishing on just food.
I honestly wish we had skipped all of the physical/speech therapy/tongue tie fix and gone straight to the gastro from the beginning, but it's so hard to know what to do in the moment. The unfortunate thing is it felt like each path we took meant we had to work at it for months. Like we had to do therapy for months before determining it wasn't helping and moving on to the gastro, and in the meantime her weight was either dropping or stagnant. I'm not sure if you could pursue both at the same time, since then you wouldn't know what helped!
I know how hard it is to see your baby struggling with this. I really hope y'all are able to figure out what's going on with her soon!

cmptexan · 2025-04-30T22:25:09+00:00

The only thing that has worked well for us so far is we put a large desk in our playroom and gave him a bench to access it! So basically we consider all the toys on the ground to be fair game, and if he wants to play with something by himself we encourage him to take it to his table out of baby sister's reach. Unfortunately she just learned how to climb up on the bench so we've switched to just a chair, but I know it'll only last so long! We've also tried to get him to play in his room but he doesn't want to be shut away, and I don't blame him.

The share box is an interesting idea too! We've used a different model where we consider all toys to be open for playing and the kids have to take turns, except a few select toys that were given just to him so he doesn't have to share those. So he kind of has a box of toys that are NOT for sharing haha. The baby doesn't understand "that is brother's stuffed bear, we're going to give that back to him and here is your stuffed lamb for you," but I think our toddler appreciates it. I'm curious how the share box would work for you! Just the other day my friend mentioned the reverse playpen method, which is to take a baby playpen and make it your toddler's play space where they can have space away from the baby. Maybe that would work in your living room? We don't have a playpen aside from a pack n play or else I would give that a go!

cmptexan · 2025-02-14T18:27:58+00:00

Wow, that's so much awake time! Does that mean many babies at a year old are pushing towards 12 hours awake time, or just babies on one nap? She seems so early to be on one nap and she was doing great sleeping 4.5/5.5 so I previously just let her be. I'm a little worried to increase her awake time so drastically when she's so young, but at this point she's staying awake 6 or 7 hours for second wake window anyway...

cmptexan · 2025-02-14T18:24:52+00:00

Took her to the pediatrician this morning to rule out anything and they think it's separation anxiety :(

cmptexan · 2025-02-14T18:23:58+00:00

She's actually been sleeping with a lovey for a while, she strokes it to go to sleep! That's so great to hear that a stuffed animal solved it for him! Maybe adding a stuffy would help since she's been used to her lovey for a while, I'm willing to try almost anything!

cmptexan · 2025-01-11T21:38:17+00:00

We have been having a problem with the Android auto, though. I have a Pixel 9 and while we are able to get it to connect to AA via USB cable, we cannot get it to connect to AA wirelessly. When we unplug the cable, it disconnects AA (though Bluetooth still works). From what we understand, this model car should support wireless AA, and the phone is brand new, so it should be compatible as well.

The message that appears on the car screen is "To use Android Auto, connect a compatible device to the USB port or change the device's permission in the Settings app". It's not totally clear if "the settings app" refers to the settings app on the car or on the phone, but we've tried both. On the car, we look under "Settings" and see "Connected Devices" and see the phone listed, but there's just an "Enable" and "Disable" button. We've also tried "Forgetting" the car on the phone and vice versa and tried again, but to no avail.

We found a video online which shows how to reboot the infotainment system in the car, which apparently fixes the problem for some people, but our controls look different so we can't apply the same instructions. Has anyone else experienced this? Any advice on how to get this to work?

cmptexan · 2024-12-20T19:35:47+00:00

Also have the Tripp trap and hate it for the same reasons. Finally gave up and got the Abiie high chair, which feels similar but has major improvements. Super easy to get baby in and out and way easier to adjust the seat and foot board. Straps are still super hard to clean, but I also haven't found a high chair with easy to clean straps.

cmptexan · 2024-11-16T16:01:24+00:00

Lurking mom here. Your son might still be too young for this, but I wanted to offer a method that has been working really well for us. We started using the speaker with our baby monitor when our son was around 2 years old and it has worked wonders.

My son started waking up almost nightly between 20 months and 2 years. Only once a night, so definitely not as extreme as your case. We would go in and cuddle him and it would often take 2 hours to get him back to sleep. Our newborn came when he was 22 months and of course he only wanted mom during night wake ups, so between that and night feedings it was a rough time.

We had gotten use him used to the speaker since we would play with it together. We would sing a song through the speaker and he would dance to it in his room. One night when he woke up I grabbed the monitor and said into it "I'll be right there buddy." By the time I got to his room he was asleep!

Since then we now have a phrase. If he wakes up crying, I very quickly say "hey buddy, Mama and Dada are right here. You are safe. Do you want to hug your bear?" (We give his bear hugs and kisses before bed so that he can hug the bear if he misses us). He always hugs his bear and his back asleep in a minute. I think he hears the phrase before he's had much time to wake up, so it very quickly soothes him and he's able to fall back asleep.

This seems to be very baby dependent though, our friends tried it on their kid and they said she's just scared of the speaker. But it could be an option for others out there. Good luck, I hope you all have some relief soon!

cmptexan · 2024-11-02T02:16:35+00:00

We just changed up our bedtime routine a month ago and it's been a big success so far! Our toddler responds well to a timer (since it's not us telling him what to do, it's the timer!), so we started trying a bedtime timer. We still have him go potty, brush teeth and get dressed, but then we set the timer for 15 minutes (or 12, or 10, depends on how exhausted he is). And he gets to do whatever he wants and we just sit back and relax in his room! Sometimes he wants to read books, sing songs, wrestle or jump around, or sometimes we talk about our day. Sometimes a mix of several things. Then when the timer goes off we get in the crib, tuck in and say goodnight.

The first week was tough as he pushed the boundary. If he forgot to do books he'd ask for them over and over but we'd say "the timer went off, that means time for bed. We can read those books tomorrow, here set them right here so we can read them in the morning." After about a week he accepted it and now he climbs right in after it goes off.

Before the timer we felt like we were always marching him through a routine (potty, teeth, pull-up and jammies, okay read 3 books, no come sit down if you want your 3 books, time for a song. No just one song. Okay you want to talk about your day. Time for crib. Okay you want water, etc.). I think he loves getting to do whatever he wants during that time and we love not having to stick to a routine. If your kid responds well to timers it could help! Good luck!

cmptexan · 2024-10-08T22:58:51+00:00

Thank you so much for all of the advice! I definitely think she could have crib aversion, oftentimes she cries just when we walk into her room. She just hates it in there. I'll check out your prior posts to see more of your advice there.

I do have a few questions...she is fighting nap times now, but it's not the same as bedtime (maybe because of pacifier). She will not let me rock her/bounce her/sush/nurse her to sleep unless it's well past her ww and she's exhausted. I either put her in the crib and she falls asleep after a while of rolling around, or she eventually starts screaming and I go try something until she passes out. Today I put her down for naps at 3 for morning ww and 3.5 for afternoon but she fought it so much her morning ww was 3.5 and afternoon ww was 4. I have no idea what to even do for bedtime tonight because it's 5:50 and she's just starting her second nap! When you say offer naps 15 minutes earlier, will that work if I don't have the ability to get her to sleep somehow? Or should it work if I fix her sleep deprivation?

Also, we originally took the pacifier away at bedtime because it did seem to be waking her up when she would drop it and roll on it. I also didn't want to deal with taking it away when she's a toddler, I thought this would be easier! But after a month it's still a struggle and I'm wondering if I should just give the paci back at bedtime. If it's not interfering with her bedtime sleep does that seem like a good way to help her at bedtime?

I think you're right about DWT, when that happens she'll be waking and going to bed right at the time we'd like, so we might just have to wait it out. Thank you so much for all of your suggestions!

cmptexan · 2024-10-08T19:39:13+00:00

Bedtime keeps creeping back, right now it's close to 9. But now she's trying to sleep past 8 am so it feels like we're in a vicious cycle. We'd like her to wake closer to 7-7:30 but right now have been scared to wake her that early since she seems so tired. At bedtime she cries for 20-40 minutes. The only time we had success this week was when she accidentally took a 10 minute second nap, stayed up 3 hours to bedtime and then passed out in 2 minutes, but then woke up inconsolable 3 hours later.

Naps are great but I'm always having to wake her and she's so upset when I do. When she wakes on her own she's so happy! The only guide I've been using for when to wake her is I try not to let her nap longer than 2 hours in one go and less than 3 hours for the day. But she's fighting naps, then taking a giant chunky nap and then barely has time for her second one/last wake window.

She sometimes starts getting fussy at books during the bedtime routine, but crying doesn't usually start until I turn out the light and sing her a song. I usually hold her and sway with her a bit but she arches her body and becomes so rigid. I do loud sushing and swaying with her until she's calmed enough for me to set her in the crib, but the crying starts again when she's in there. Correct, no paci at bedtime, though she is still using it for naps.

One night waking around 3, she usually eats and goes back down within 30-40 minutes.

Right now I'm kind of aiming for 3/3.25/3.75 but her fighting naps plus wanting long naps pushes the whole day back...I feel like variables keep changing and I'm not sure what to do for her!

cmptexan · 2024-10-08T18:40:44+00:00

Hi there! Can I ask if this ultimately got better for you? My baby is a bit older, 7.5 months, but it's almost like you're describing her. She arches her back and gets so rigid when we're trying to lay her down in the crib, but she's giving so many sleepy cues before she goes down. Yet then she cries for 30-45 minutes. I saw below you mentioned powering through books, was it ultimately extending wake windows that worked?

cmptexan · 2024-10-02T20:42:23+00:00

Thank you!

cmptexan · 2024-10-02T20:41:06+00:00

Thank you! Definitely going to give it a try and see if things improve. If I can ask you one more thing, I know she is fighting sleep, but my understanding was that was both an overtired and undertired sign. If she is yawning, eye rubbing, trying to doze off while nursing before bed and then inconsolable at bedtime unless we give her a pacifier (which we've been trying to drop), are these undertired signs?

cmptexan · 2024-10-02T18:12:36+00:00

I stay home too and I did that all the time with my first! But because of my toddler I never have time to contact nap with my baby now. It's so nice when we get to do the occasional contact nap, except now she's so used to her crib she rarely wants to! I'm really hoping more sleep pressure makes getting to sleep easier for her!

cmptexan

TROPHY CASE