Daycare Potty Training Issue - WWYD?

virginiagirl11 · October 2013

DS1 (2.5 yrs.) has been semi potty-trained for a week. We build potty breaks into our days, he pees in the potty, his underwear stays dry, and he wears diapers at naptime and bedtime. He's not very good yet at alerting people when he needs to pee but he's working on it.

His room at DC has 16 2-3 year-old kids w/ 3 teachers and he's on the younger side. It's a busy room and there's always a lot going on, although there are always kids PTing so they have a system.

Last week, we were told by Teacher 3 that DS was doing really well in the mornings and early afternoons, but would forget to alert them that he had to go in the PMs. He'd run up to them to go, but it would be too late and he'd pee right there. She didn't seem overly concerned. We were told that after three accidents, he would have to wear a diaper for the rest of the day.

Today, around 10:30am, I got a call from Teacher 2 that DS had had too many accidents already and would have to wear a diaper or pull-ups going forward. Not just today but every day going forward until he could prove that he could stay dry and alert them when he had to go. She gave me the impression that that was their policy and that it was a health code issue.

Later, when DH went to pick DS up from DC, he asked about their policy to make sure we had it straight. Only Teacher 3 was there (end of day, most kids gone). She said that, while the child has to wear a diaper for the rest of the day, the policy does not require diapers every day after that. It is entirely up to the family to decide what to do. She said that Teacher 1, the head teacher in the room, had decided today to require it of DS and asked Teacher 2 to back her up. It was unsanitary (but not a health code violation) and an inconvenience because they have to stop what everyone is doing and clean DS up. Teacher 3 said that it seems like DS just gets too excited when he's playing with the other kids to think about using the potty, even when they ask him.

I understand that it's gross and a PITA to clean up after a child who has only been PTing a week. I would probably be frustrated, too. However, doesn't DS risk regression if I have to send him to DC every day in pull-ups/diapers for 8 hours/day? He is so excited to be wearing underwear and it makes him feel like a big boy. I'm sad to think that we can't let him wear them during the week anymore for the foreseeable future.

On a side note, DH and I have noticed independently that Teacher 1 has favorite kids/families and we are not one of them. She's sweet and bubbly to them (and used to be to us when we were new), but now barely gives me the time of day unless she has a specific reason to speak to me. I wasn't too concerned about it, except I can't help but think that if this were happening to one of her preferred kids, she would have more tolerance and be slower to stick the kid in diapers all day.

WDYT - is there a regression risk or should I just keep my mouth shut and send DS in diapers and hope we can get him up to speed quickly?

RachieTK · October 2013

I would not go back to diapers. DS had a hard time for the first 3 weeks at daycare when we PTd. Our provider did say that pull ups are in the regs for kids who aren't fully trained, but she'd give him some time, and he just got used to having to stop playing to go. We used Hannah Anderson training pants to start and still use then for parties, etc when we know he won't want to stop and go (we trained 2 months ago). I've even put him in 3 pairs on top of each other for a bouncy house party one week into pt so maybe try those? Don't go back to diapers!

avh0630 · October 2013

I also wouldn't go back to diapers. When my son was potty training, school told us to send three to four pairs of underwear and if he ran out, he would go in a pull up or diaper, which was fine with me (and which happened many times). If you simply go back to diapers, he will regress because he will have no reason to tell them when he has to go and more importantly, they will have no reason to ask him if he needs to go.

LoCarb · October 2013

I think you will risk regression. Send him in big boy underwear and talk to the teachers to set up a plan. Only if he has multiple accidents every day going forward and lacks interest in PT'ng then I would put him back in diapers.

emberlee3 · October 2013

I agree with PPs. My son's school told us that they follow the parents' lead on PTing. They just asked us to send tons of extra clothes, including shoes. We never had accidents at school, though. DS actually did better at school than at home.

financialdiva · October 2013

Yes, you do run the risk of regression. I would approach it as your would like to give DS the rest of the week in underwear and if he continues to have accidents, we will go back to pull ups. If he is ready, he needs time. If he's not ready, it's not the end of the world.

financialdiva · October 2013

And I agree with PP, just send in a ton of clothes and extra shoes. They should be following your lead.

litzo27 · October 2013

My daycare will follow the parents' lead. If we ask them to take DS to the potty every hour or 1.5 hours then they will do so. A LOT of kids at that age are great at going to the potty when reminded but not able yet to alert the staff in time. So I would try to have a conversation with them and ask if building in potty breaks is an option.

Another alternative if they stick to their guns is to put diapers on top of his underwear. This way he is technically in underwear - i.e. he won't like being wet but it minimizes their clean-up. Again, this could mean regression - but at least that's less likely if you just fully revert to diapers.

jlaOK · October 2013

I agree with PP's about keeping him in underwear. Do they have any scheduled potty times during the day. Our daycare has potty breaks built into their schedule. My DS is also bad about alerting you when he has to potty, but if you tell him to go potty he will. This is how we do it most of the time.

cecilyandgautam · October 2013

I agree with the others, just wanted to add (1) If there are 3 teachers, why does it disrupt the whole class when DS has an accident? With 17 kids in the room, I assume there are at least two adults in that at any given time. Couldn't just one teacher take DS aside to clean him up? (2) Your DS might learn from his accidents even more quickly if he helps clean them up. We have small rags and when DD has an accident, I take the big one, she takes the small one, and side by side we wipe it up - usually she's responsible for drying her legs & feet. I think it helps her get that it was an "oops" and there's something she can do about it. (3) Could the teachers do more to prevent the accidents - when play time is starting, squat down to DS's level and say "Now remember, when you need to pee, come find me *before* you go. Don't pee in your pants, ok?" My DD responded really well to this and after two days of these gentle, preventative reminders, she stopped having playtime accidents.

preggersin2011 · October 2013

I would also talk to the director. If each teacher is telling a different story, then I would want clarification on it and make sure the director knows there are different 'rules' based upon who the teacher is. In LO's room they don't potty the kids at specific times, they have to tell the teacher they need to pee. LO goes fine at home with me, but at school she doesn't really care if she keeps dry or not. Don't go back to diapers!!

virginiagirl11 · October 2013

Thanks for all of your replies, ladies. You gave me the courage to go to DC this morning and attempt to keep him out of diapers. I was mostly unsuccessful.

I tried to talk to the teachers reasonably, but the second they heard that DS1 was not in pull-ups (DS2, 5 mos., was up and down all evening and DH was working so I wasn't able to get to the store even if I'd wanted to go...I sent DS1 in in double underwear with four extra changes of clothes, which we normally do), their faces fell and Teacher 1 immediately got defensive. Teacher 2 just walked away.

Teacher 1 was very calm and willing to speak to me, but she would not budge from her opinion that DS was not ready. She said they had 15 other kids and it was unsanitary for him to be peeing around the room (apparently he's had accidents in different spots around the room, which I did not know) and maybe he's doing great at home where there are fewer distractions, but he's not ready to be in underwear yet because he's not listening to his body. It sounds like they offer pee breaks every hour. We have him go at home every 30-45 min. and have been extremely successful with that, but she said they couldn't do that.

I get her point and I get that it sucks to clean pee off the couch with 15 other kids running around, so I finally backed down and agreed to bring in pull-ups. She shut down every single other suggestion I offered, including PTing underwear, which she said leaks and was too expensive for something that wouldn't work. She said "we *hate* to put kids back in diapers, but he's just not ready." She was very sure that pull-ups/diapers was the only option.

I cried as I drove to work because I was so frustrated. It feels like he has no advocate in that room and like she pays very little attention to him. Teacher 3 is the closest we've got to having someone watching his back. She's great, but she's the youngest and newest in the room, so I don't think she has much sway and I don't know where she stands on this.

Teacher 1 is the same person who, about 6 weeks ago, implied that she didn't understand DS when he spoke and was surprised to hear that he was able to tell us where he'd found some mildly toxic berries on the playground that he'd been eating and from which he'd gotten a rash. She made a comment sort of like, "Wow, he really told you that? Isn't that a little too complex of a concept for him at this point?" He had been capable of communicating that type of thing since well before he entered this room back in June. When she said this, she had been caring for him for two solid months, 8 hours/day, and he was one of 5 or 6 kids specifically assigned to her (each teacher has about five "charges" in the room).Yet she didn't have a clue.

I'm having an incredibly hard time accepting her assessment of this. It's only been a week since he started and he just seems so ready and so successful at home. Is it really reasonable to only give a child one week to prove himself in a very busy environment before demanding that he go back into diapers?

Anyway, I bought pull-ups tonight and we're sending them with him tomorrow. I told DH, if it becomes clear to us this weekend that DS is regressing, I am going to talk to the director on Monday.

If anyone else has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

emberlee3 · October 2013

I do think talking to the director is a good idea. I also think it's up to you if you want to try cloth trainers or something besides pull-ups. They are expensive up-front, but they're reusable! And you can even save them to use for DS2.

Honestly, the PT thing will work it itself out eventually and probably isn't worth stressing about too much. The bigger issue is the concern you have about his main teacher.

frschaffner · October 2013

I'm a little infuriated on your behalf. In a toddler room, it should be expected of the teachers to help the kids PT. My daycare follows the parents wishes, and will interject some additional wisdom if necessary.
When DD was PTing, she would of course of some accidents here and there at school. A lot of time kids get so caught up in what they're doing they forget about going until literally the moment before it comes out. Teacher 1 probably would not have handled my DD as graciously as her teacher did when DD peed on her lap. There's a reason my daycare teachers keep an extra set of clothes at school/in their cars. These things happen. One kid in DDs class even wore a special PT watch that the parents programmed to go off every 20-30 minutes (or something like that), so it was an audible alert to the child that it was time to try to go potty. And the teachers heard it too, so they knew.
I personally think pull-ups are a waste of money. Kids know they are diapers. We, like PPs, used cloth trainers, and had an incentive for DD...if she could stay dry for an entire week at daycare, then she could go pick out her own big girl underwear. She had been eyeing some for a while, and it didn't take long before she was able to get them.
Perhaps Teacher 1 need to switch age groups.
I would also inquire as to whether there were another room your DS could switch to. Bottom line, you know your DS, and if you think he's ready to PT, then you shouldn't let Teacher 1 prevent that from happening.

cecilyandgautam · October 2013

I'm hoping that your son has had an easier day today than yesterday. He had 3 accidents yesterday right? Well I think training at home and training at daycare are different, so yesterday may have been like day 1 of PTing all over again, which means day 2 only gets better. If he's down to one or two accidents today, I'd talk to the director and see if they can accommodate just a few more days of this "trial period" since he seems to have made so much progress from one day to the next - if he's only having one accident per day by the end of the week, I would think that's major progress and if the teachers can't appreciate it at that point,then I agree with the PP above, perhaps they don't have much experience with potty training and aren't willing to learn. At which point, I'm not sure what I'd do in your situation, but it sounds like you have other concerns about this teacher.

erbear · October 2013

could you do diapers with undies underneath? He would still get the sensation and learn, but they wouldn't have to clean it up.

I'm torn. I get that it's a pain in the ass for them to PT your kid, but at the same time, if he's there 8 hours a day, that's how it goes. My daycares were both great when my girls were PTing...very supportive.

AllieMag24 · October 2013

While I don't have any real suggestions, I just wanted to say that I would be very frustrated in your situation. It seems unacceptable to me that they're not even trying to work on a collaborative solution with you. I imagine it would be feel terrible to get the impression that your dc teachers treat other families/children better than yours and are inflexible. I understand that he might not be ready to be in underwear all the time at school but it's their job to work on this with you and to take him as often as he needs to go.

My DD recently transitioned to a preschool room at her dc center and has had a really hard time with accidents despite having been exclusively pt for several months (she's now 2 yr 10 mos). Our teachers were extremely accommodating - taking her to the bathroom as often as every 20/30 mins, making a "potty chart" for the bathroom, and the head teacher even went to the public library to borrow books about the bathroom so she can read them to DD when she's trying to go. While this is more than I expected them to do, it makes me think that your dc people could put a little more effort into it.

GL! Keep us posted.

ridesbuttons · October 2013

DS1 potty trained around the same time. I had him accident free at home for at least a month before I sent him to daycare in underwear. It didn't slow anything down for him. Semi potty trained for a week at home is a very different environment than being even semi potty trained at daycare with a 5 to 1 toddler to adult ratio. No need to force the issue with either the child or the daycare. I'd stay the course at home and back off at daycare until he is largely potty trained at home.

virginiagirl11 · October 2013

Thanks again for your replies, everyone.

So far things are going okay with DS wearing pull-ups at DC. We introduced them at home as his special potty-training pull-ups that are just like underwear in that you don't pee in them. From what I can tell, he's taken that in stride.

His first day in them, the pull-up was wet when DH picked him up from DC. That made me wonder if they weren't trying as hard to take him to the potty or if he wasn't bothering to let them know he had to go and just peed since it felt like a diaper. He did really well at home.

Today, they said he did great and stayed dry all day. DS did end up peeing on DH in the car (DS and his cousin, who also goes to that DC, play in the car together for a bit every day after DC)...apparently the pull-up doesn't hold much.

But otherwise he alerted us every time he had to go at home. In general, it still feels like we're on track. I'll see how things go this weekend. Hopefully DS will continue to be able to adjust.

Thanks also for your comments about Teacher 1. Yes, we're not pleased. We've known her casually since DS started at this center in June 2012. She was a teacher in another room and we held her in very high regard. She has a great reputation at the center and I knew some other parents who loved her. However, now that we know her a lot better, she seems to take things at face value and obviously hasn't tried to get to know DS at all. He's quiet and shy and sort of independent there and she prefers kids and parents who are very outgoing and social. She's set in her ways and I don't really like how she speaks to the kids when she's not in a bubbly, socializing mood (which is most times I see her). It's not horrible, but it's not very nice, either.

DS had a great relationship with his teacher from last year. She was very warm and sweet to him and understood him when he spoke and he absolutely loved her. Unfortunately, she moved away.

I would have loved for DS2 to have her when he starts there next year.

cecilyandgautam · October 2013

@Virginiagirl11, I sent you a PM about daycares in VA!

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