My Son Uses the Potty as an Excuse to Get Out of Bed

I know what you are going through! Except mine has been potty trained for over 2 years now. He is 5 years old and almost every night when his dad is at work (rarely when he is home for the night) he "Really has to go potty really bad!". And if I tell him no and go back to bed b/c he JUST went not even 20 min. ago, he freaks out and says he is going to pee his pants! (Note: He has never, not once wet the bed)
If you get some advice that works, let me know please! I know he is playing me, but it is hard to not let a child go to the bathroom!

my son does it too. I put him on the toilet and let him do his thing. If he actually poops, there is lots of praise and 'wow, check out that poo' kind of talk. If no poop, we go back to his room and put him down. I will only allow 2 poopless trips to the bathroom. I do not put pull ups on him 'just in case'. I use cloth trainers, (he just thinks they are padded underwear), so that he doesn't think it's okay to go in his pants at night. Also, We have a rule that we can only whisper since it is after bedtime. That way he is always reminded of what we are supposed to be doing after we're done in the bathroom. We've been doing this for about 2 weeks and the unnecessary bathroom trips have stopped.

We used a prize bucket for my daughter. Eventually, she figured out if she just sat on the toilet she got a prize. After a couple days of that, I changed our policy. New rule: You get a prize as soon as you go on the potty. It worked fine.

My son did the same thing. I have heard of putting a potty chair in their room, that sounded like a great idea to me! But we actually let him get up to go once and then took a chance that he was just stalling the rest of the times. We called his bluff and luckily we were right! LOL He learned that we weren't buying the stall tactic and quit asking. I wish I had thought of the potty chair in the room before that, seems like that would eliminate the 'what if he really needs to go' that you feel, and let him know that you're not falling for the delaying of bedtime!

~L.

J.,
If he's getting the commendations he should for doing a pee in the potty, keep it up and explain that soon he'll be doing poopies in there too, just like ALL the big boys!!!! Get him excited about it.
But make sure you also explain that big boys don't get out of bed when they need to rest. If they have to poop, then they can get up and poop, but ONLY so.

Hi J.,
My son did the same thing. I put his little potty in his room in case he really needed to go but he didn't. It did stop him from getting up. Not that he's older and completly potty trained (has been for 2 years) he gets one chance to get up and go potty and then he has to stay in bed. Good luck.
Chris

You don't say how old your son is, but this sounds perfectly normal Since you are a face-painter, you should have no trouble keeping your sense of humor with this! Ha Ha! He wants to feel in control, and he will outgrow this stage. Hang in there!

J.,

Our son is six and has tried this numerous times in the past. We have a standing rule that he is only allowed to get out of bed two times. (Unless it is a real emergency) He can either go potty, get a drink, or ask a very quick question. After his second time he gets a swat and is sent back to bed.

He knows the rules and accepts the consequences when he breaks the rules.

You might want to think about putting your son into a pull up diaper for bedtime. Then if he has an accident it is contained. This way you can set your own rules and have a back-up for potential accidents.

We also put our son's potty in his room when he was training. It was there during nap- and bed-time. We stopped this when he got the great idea to pee into it while standing up. Needless to say his pee was everywhere except in the potty! =)

Because it is light out longer during the summer our six-year-old stays up longer. We allow him a bit of latitude and let him read in bed. He has a flash-light and a bookshelf full of books to keep him busy. This keeps him occupied in a quiet activity until his body and mind are ready to go to sleep. We started this when he was 4 years old.

His bedtime routine begins at 7pm, in bed by 7:30. Lights out by 8:30 and he is usually asleep by 9pm. I hope these suggestions help.

Good luck!