Two Steps Forward, One Poo Back

I first of all wanted to follow up from my post yesterday and thank you being your usual supportive, loving selves. I appreciate each of you so much.

Lest you think I am all about lollipops and sunshine here, let me remind you that I am also realistic. I know that every day of parenting brings its unique challenges.

I was oh-so-humbly reminded of this the past three days as Will has hit a big obstacle in potty training. . . the potty training regression.

I had heard rumors of this phenomenon, but was hoping we'd somehow dodge this bullet. After all, Will took to potty training like a duck to water. We encountered none of the other struggles that I'd heard about, so I was hoping that we'd just keep. . . progressing.

No such luck.

Since Saturday, he has had a lot of accidents - both poo and pee. This is a kid who I would have counted as 100% day trained as of last Friday.

But Saturday morning, he started telling me that his "penis stings." He has a small adhesion from his circumcision that he occasionally complains about. We have been treating it with a steroid cream and if it's still bothering him at age 3, we will see a urologist to have it corrected. But he only complains irregularly about it and it isn't infected or red, so we usually just apply the cream as needed and it isn't a huge issue.

So, when he complained Saturday morning, I applied the cream. We went to my SIL's wedding and were gone all day, where he didn't complain of any burning and used the potty normally.

But Saturday night, he had an accident at the dinner table. I thought perhaps it was because he was tired from a busy day and not paying attention.

Sunday, he had three more accidents, including a poo poo in his underwear not five minutes after I had him sit on the toilet. Today, he only had one accident, but again, it was less than ten minutes after sitting on the potty. Each time, I have not made a big deal about the incident, have simply reminded him that poo and pee pee go in the toilet, quickly cleaned up, and gone about our day.

He has not complained about his penis "stinging" since Saturday. His urine isn't cloudy or foul smelling and he doesn't complain about any other sort of pain or have a fever (possible indicators for a urinary tract infection). Part of me wonders if we should have him checked out, but most of me thinks it is just a good old fashioned potty training regression. I made an appointment with our pediatrician for next week (she is tough to get into), so that if we are still having any issues by then, we can go in and discuss it and rule out an underlying medical issue. If it's better, we'll just cancel the appointment and continue on.

I have been able to keep potty training (and the expected accidents that go with it) very positive, but I'll admit, this is throwing me a bit. We went back to basics today, and I realized that I had become a bit complacent, asking instead of telling him if it was time to sit on the potty, and relaxing about keeping track of when he had gone last. Like I said, potty training is just as much about training the parents as the kids. So, back to basics for me, too.

So, any other advice on potty training regressions would be helpful.