You would think I would finally be finished reporting on the bathroom habits of my toddler… but sometimes it just seems like we are still not quite there.

Let me just start by saying that Bridget had been accident free for over a month… until recently. We were pretty excited for her, and even stopped bringing spare underwear everywhere we went. We considered ending the potty PEZ chart, but I still had two more PEZ dispensers in the cupboard, so we thought we’d finish them out.

But then… the past week or so Bridget has had a really hard time finding her way to the toilet in time for #2. The first time it was diarrhea, and I thought that maybe she was just feeling a little sick. But then she did it again the next day… and the day after that… and the day after that… and… It was getting to be pretty ridiculous, and I was getting pretty sick of cleaning out her underwear. The worst part is that she would hide it from me. The first night it happened I didn’t know until I started to get her ready for bed. She wouldn’t let me take her pants off. She wanted to do it, and she purposely walked across the room and kept her butt away from me. I turned her around to find a disgusting display of wet-caked on CRAP! I wanted to vomit. And I was so mad that she didn’t tell me. We had a long talk while I was cleaning her up. I put her in a pull-up that night.

In the days that followed, each time she pooped her pants, I told her that I was going to have to put a sad face on her chart. It didn’t take long before she was having an accident and then quickly commenting, “Its okay mom, you can put a sad face on my chart.” It became very obvious that the PEZ chart didn’t hold the same motivation for her that it once did. And oh, was it frustrating.

So we decided that it was time to take down the potty chart. We waited until she had an accident-free day, then gave her both of the remaining PEZ dispensers. When told her that we would give her the PEZ dispensers, but if she had any more accidents that we would take away ALL of them. She seemed to get it, but was more excited that she was getting two new ones. Since that time, we’ve had to take them all away twice. Both times she complained, and begged for them back… but she still didn’t seem terribly emotionally affected by it. What is a parent to do??

The first time we took them away, we sat down and had another talk. I explained to her that if taking away her PEZ dispensers wasn’t enough to get her to stop having accidents then I would have to take away her friends. She looked confused, until I explained to her that if she didn’t stop having accidents that we would have to stop letting her friends come over… and that her friends don’t like to play with a girl that poops her pants. “Oh,” she said, “that would be sad. I just want my friends to come over.” That was on Monday. Tuesday she had an accident while a friend was over, and we kindly asked that friend to go home (as well as taking away the PEZ dispensers again). She was a bit sad, and promised she would try harder. So far, so good… hopefully it works.

Do your kids have these extended moments of regression in their potty habits? She was doing so well… how do you handle it?