scared to death of the toilet

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Trying to get Olivia (almost 4) to go on the "big people potty" but she won't go near it. I sat her down on it (with a little butt adapter) but she started bawling and screaming and shaking.

Don't know what to do.

Well, my parents used a ceramic potty that resembled an antique chamberpot; it sat on the bathroom floor. I was afraid to sit on a regular toilet (with or without a butt adapter) until I was 5 or 6, because I was afraid of falling in. Plus, I found the more common plastic potties too light and unstable. Perhaps you can use something similar with your daughter.

i took this picture of my toilet today after i made it all shiny...



nothing to be afraid off...



(only a tiny sun ray hit directly from a window upstairs across the hall through the bathroom door into the bowl making it look like this!! amazing!)

Wow that is an interesting looking toilet!

When I was a little girl, I was afraid of the toilet.
I had been completely potty trained, and then a teenage cousin of mine took me to see a Movie called Ghoulies. Where slimy aliens jump up out of the toilets and.. well u know.
It set my toilet training back six months and cheesed my mom off proper.

Could your daughter have seen something on tv to scare her?
Have you talked to her about why she's afraid?
Why is there a light in your toilet? It seems to be glowing. That's kind of weird.
Lots of kids are scared of both toilets and the drains in bathtubs - they believe they can be sucked into it and gone forever. Could this be her fear?
Will she use a kiddie potty? A lot of kids find it more manageable. If so, let her use it!
Do you stay with her on the toilet? or leave her alone. Do you distract her? Read to her? Sing?
Are there rewards set up? Stickers, M&M's? Almost every parent I know uses rewards during potty training.

In the end, if after many attempts she still seem terrified (and not just defiant) I'd say just let her off the hook. Force won't work with toilet training. The child needs to be ready. Maybe she needs a few more months to forget her fears.

I was afraid of the toilet too because I was afraid of falling in and getting sucked down in the hole where the water goes when you flush it. But yet I refused to wear diapers. I only wanted to use the potty chair.

This may or may not help you! I had a little girl in foster care with me for a while who was petrified of the toilet because her father punished her by putting her head in the toilet and flushing it. She was older than your child, and was on medication because she had constant UTIs and constipation because of toilet refusal. There were also wet and pooey underpants she was too scared to tell us about. I was at my wit's end with how to help this child, so one day we came up with a really silly idea.. we were going to make our toilet friendly! We got out the art stuff, paperplates, felt tips and together we gave the toilet a very happy smiley face. We decorated the walls with her artwork and more happy smiley faces. We gave the toilet a name - "Peeta"(her choice!)

We made a treat chart, starting with just sitting on the toilet with a favourite picture book - no performance pressure. We offered little treats for successes, first for wee, then later for number 2s. Number 2s were harder to deal with. Don't get me wrong, this poor little girl needed her hand held for over a year every time she went to the toilet. She would talk her mantra, over and over "Nobody's going to hurt me, Anni, are they?" I just kept up the reassurance, over and over, never waivered, never lost patience. The day finally arrived, about 18 months down the road, where she casually said "I need to go to the toilet" and I said "ok" and waited for her to say "Will you come with me" as she always did. Silence, sound of footsteps and some moments later, the most lovely tinkly noise from the toilet I've ever heard in my whole life. Ok.. it was a long time before flushing happened, and longer still that she managed to go to the toilet at school, but we got around this with extra undies and clothes in her bag and sympathetic teachers.

The story ends well, by the way. About 8 years ago, she married a lovely man. I made her wedding dress and my husband gave her away. I was at the birth of her first child, and when it was nearly too much for her, she looked right at me and said "Oh Mum, it hurts so bad". That was the first time she ever called me Mum. Happy mother's day to all the other Mum's out there!

She went back and forth between our family and her Aunt and Uncle. The first time we had her, we had a family group home, which was a crisis house for children between birth and 17. We worked with the kids and their families with the goal of getting the kids back home within the 6 week period which our service was limited to. However, there were exceptions, and when kids were hard to place, they would stay longer. We had children there who were only there because their mother was in hospital and there was no family to look after them, pre-adoption babies - babies often stay in foster care for the 6-8 weeks their biological mothers can change their minds in, and children who's families were being investigated by the child protection unit. There were also children who's foster care placement had broken down, and they would stay with us until a new placement could be found. They don't do it like that anymore. Now the houses are staffed by carers working shifts. We were given a house to live in and a small honorarium and a board payment per child. It was a very stressful time in our lives, and my son, John, who is on the spectrum, was born while we were in the family group home. Sorry, this is a bit OT, but the fear of the toilet just bought back this memory.

By the way, I remember being terrified of being flushed down the toilet when I was little too. I got into trouble for not flushing, so I developed this flush and run technique - open the door, stand on my tiptoes and the furtherest away from the toilet bowl I could, then flush and run as fast as I could.

To MasterJedi - I agree with what Vivienne said and encourage you to give her a few months and then try again, if none of the other advice works for you. She won't be sitting on the potty when she's 21, I promise you!

she'll want to put her TP into the big people potty and watch it flush away. But for her to sit on it, she's terrified.

Our son was most afraid of the sound that the toilet made when flushing so I made a deal with him that he could leave the bathroom and I would flush. He will flush himself at home now but in public restrooms I still usually have to flush for him while he holds his hands over his ears.

Well, things could always be worse...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtPgEjETeVw[/youtube]

(No, I'm not trying to make fun of the issues your child has--just injecting a bit of humor. )

Do NOT show this clip to your kids--they might get ideas.

I would generally agree that it's a height issue that will fix itself slowly. Does she go to preschool? Do they have kid-size toilets (not potties, but a real, smaller-size toilet that flushes) that she will use there?

Perching is scary for a little kid, even if you have a seat cover. The fear may also be about being splashed, or the distance to the water when she goes.

I'll second the idea of a sturdy stepstool for her to brace her feet against, but it may just take a little time until she's a bit taller. 4 is not really that far off the mark for toilet-training, especially for a child who is already potty trained and out of diapers.