Using the potty as an excuse...

My daughter will be 18 months old at the end of March. She started saying "Potty" to communicate that she was going maybe a month or two ago, so we've introduced the potty seat for her to sit on- mostly diaper on, but naked either before OR after baths. She LOVES sitting down on her little toilet 🚽 BUT now she will actually use it as an excuse when she doesn't want to go to bed... She will try everything to get out of her crib at bedtime and then eventually plead to go potty. When I take her out to let her go, she will try to amuse herself in the bathroom instead 😑 Now the rule is if she gets off the potty more than once or twice she's done and I walk her back to her crib. Anyone else have a LO that pulls this card on them?

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Oh boy ... Yup! My daughter uses it also for an excuse when it's nap time or bed time .. it sucks cause sometimes when she says it I don't believe her ... And I ignore her .. and sometimes when I do ignore her she poops her self .. I just wish she could tell me when she actually has to go potty...

I ignore her cause she always yell mama I have to go potty! She says it multiple times... I just got tired of her of putting her on the toilet every single time and she doesn't poop or pee most of the time. I'm learning she will pee and poop in the morning and night. I'm still having a hard time in the afternoon.... Having a toddler is really hard 😭

Totally normal! I put a small potty in the bedroom for that exact situation.

Yep, typical potty training behavior. Mine also tried to use it as an excuse to get me to stop driving if they were bored or wanted to go into the gas station to beg for snacks 🙄

"I gotta poop!" 😭 but then she's playing with tp, trying to climb off the toilet to get to the sink..

Suggestion: Before nap time, use the potty, and if LO then asks, you can say, but we've just sat on it. You shouldn't need to go again so quickly. Obviously, there will be times LO does as need to use again, but maybe if you stand strong, they may stop trying to use that card. Or bring into the bedroom with you at nap time, so yes, they are out of bed but not out of their room. X

I had to start a 2 minute timer rule because she started using the potty as a delay tactic because she didn't want to get dressed or didn't want to go to bed.

@Anna That’s a clever idea!

@Audrey 😂

Glad to hear this is normal behavior- it's just crazy 🤪 how quickly kids learn to work the system!

Thanks for the heads up @Heidi

That’s great is she in daycare she’s very advanced let her use it as much as she needs to big girl 👏🏾 😂 she’s getting out of sleeping at night lol

@Candace Marshall Thank you! Her Dad stays home with her and works on different things like getting going up/down the stairs- so she gets a LOT of individualized attention, which seems to be an overall positive 😊

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