I know I have asked this before but it seems that nothing is working. The normal time that he goes poop are between 2-4pm and at night. Which 2-4 is usually nap time. During the day he is in underwear 100%. He knows when he needs to go pee and he goes all by himself. Occasionally, he will go poop on the potty but usually he will wait till bed time at night. He still wears a diaper/ pull-up for bed. He pees a lot and since he is a heavy sleeper it generally doesn't wake him up. So I don't find out about it till in the morning when it is EVERYWHERE>
I don't know what to do. On the occasional few times that he did poop on the potty we gave him so much praise. He got ice cream and stickers, and got to call nana and papa and tell them. I really don't know what to do.
When I ask him to try to go poop on the potty he begins to cry and says he doesn't want to. Even when he goes by himself he cries when he poops on the potty. I don't know what to do.. PLEASE HELP!
So now he poops on the potty. One day he just decided he wanted to and hasnt looked back. Now my only problem is getting him to get out of bed when he needs to go. Thank you for your help.
My son was like this too. We eventually solved it by bucking up and not putting him in a pull up at night and putting a potty in his room. We had three nasty accidents but then he started using he toilet.
I would second the idea of letting him go in a diaper but stipulating he needs to be in the bathroom...then sitting on the potty with the diaper on...then you cut a hole in the diaper so the poop goes in the potty but he is still wearing the diaper...then it's off with the diaper!
Others may not agree with this, but my best friend has 4 year old twin sons - one of them was very stubborn about pooping in the potty. He was fine with going pee, just not poop. He always needed to go poop sometime during the morning, and he loves playing their Wii, so she finally just started telling him that he could not play on the Wii until he had pooped on the potty. It took him a while, but after 2 days he finally caved. When he finally had to go and decided to go on the potty, then he was allowed to play with the Wii. Maybe it's just a matter of figuring out what is your son's "currency".
Try the book "it hurts when I poop". Even thought it may not hurt him when he poops, the book explains why pooping is important and what happens to the poop after it goes into the potty. It worked well for my daughter.
This is funny, my son is the opposite. He stays dry at night but doesn't always scramble out of bed in time to pee, so he's in a pull up. He is dry 90% of the time. He refused to wear underwear, except at preschool and will tell me when he needs to go poop and does it on the potty.
I understand that some kids have trouble with pooping on the potty because the fear that part of them is going to be flushed, or something like that. They may not be able to verbalize this fear, yet, they may not quite understand it themselves.
Just be patient, as I am with the peeing side of things and it will happen before he is in kindergarten.
Kids learn that they have control in two areas, eating and pottying. They will exercise that control if they can.
Keep at it, it will come! Our son is 3 1/2 also, still in pullups @ night, but can mostly do underwear during the day. It really was just a "switch" that came on for him one day (after months it seems of trying to get him to tell us). He eventually would tell us right AFTER but not even then sometimes. He'd always go hide! But one day he got it and started telling us and running to the bathroom, and we've only had one tiny accident since then! He is really proud of himself for being a "big boy". He also really wanted to be on a soccer team, so we've been telling him he had to be able to use the potty on his own. He is signed up for spring tot soccer and is so excited! So keep at it, hopefully that "switch" will come on soon (it's been maybe a month or two for us now, not real long). Good luck!
Okay, i went through this with my daughter. She was 2 1/2. She was peeing on the potty with no accidents for 3 months and everytime that she had to poop, she would refuse to go in the potty. So i would put a diaper on her and she would tell me when she was done. So after realizing that i wasnt getting anywhere with her, I put panties on her and told her that her diapers were all gone. OH, she had a fit. I even left her in panties at night so that she couldnt poop in a diaper. After 3 days of her begging for a diaper, she said "Mommy, i have to go POOP!" and she realized that it was the potty or nothing, so i took her to the potty, read her a book and she pooped and loved it. After she realized that it wasnt scarey, she loved it. You just gotta put your foot down...
Have you tried the ladder to the adult toilet. We had one. Spring is coming. It's easier for a boy to train up in the warm months. Once we had an incident coming home from Bend with not chance for a toilet I drove off into the woods he pooped and I buried it. He then fell asleep for the rest of the ride home. He was a few months past three and very particular about where he might use a toilet. At least we had taken him camping so he wasn't shocked when I drove down a side road into the woods.
As soon as it got cold he acclimated himself to the toilet and told me to get ride of the steps to the seat as he could climb up on his own.
The best thing is to let him do the leading. He'll be trained up in a few months and you will wonder what turned the key for him.
I have the same issue with my 3 year old. He wears underware all day and at naptime, I still diaper him at night because he hasn't woke up dry yet. He intentionally waits until he has a diaper on to poop. HE HATES pooping in the toilet. He says things like, "it's hard" and " I can't do it". I just took him out of diapers at nap time a few days ago. Until then he would poop just before or after going to sleep when he had a diaper on.
What I wanted to say is that, if you have to put a diaper on him to get him to poop then do IT!! I have a friend who's little boy is permanently damaged from witholding his poop over the same issues. She was trying to potty train him and he refused to poop which lead to constipation and eventually colon issues. He will never be able to control his functions to poop properly.
It's a fine line to get them to poop without causing trauma over the situation and making them with hold so while some are suggesting that you just MAKE him without other options, I offer a word of caution. I think the other approaches that are more gentle are better. I know I am going to try one approach that someone suggested about the diapers where they tell him that he can have a diaper to poop but he has to be in the bathroom, then tell him he has to sit on the potty in his diaper and then eventually transition to taking it off.
PS -- I haven't met anyone who has a kindergartner who still won't poop in the potty. Be patient. :o)
My daughter was the same way, would not go on the potty. She FINALLY started to just after she turned 4. She would only go in a diaper, would ask for a diaper when she needed to go, then promptly went, and we changed it...so, we started by letting her have the diaper, but she had to be in the bathroom. Next we said she had to be sitting on the potty. She willingly did this, and a short time after she started doing that, SHE asked to try without the diaper. Viola, she was going on the potty! Maybe that system may work with your son? My DD was also 100% potty trained in all other aspects...Good luck!
Actually, I know this sounds weird to most people, but giving all that praise can be a bad thing. It can give a kid the message that they're not pooping on the potty because that's just the thing to do when you get bigger, but they're pooping on the potty to get praise and rewards. And sometimes they could take or leave those rewards and so they don't bother to poop on the potty. What works much, much better is to just be like, "Cool. You pooped on the potty, I guess you're growing up." Like you shrug, like you've expected that all along and it was going to happen whenever he was ready for it to. Then you leave it to him to be really intrinsically proud of his accomplishment(s). I speak from experience here. I have 2 kids. First was a girl, who potty trained early and easily at 2 1/4 years. The second was a boy, who was not interested in the potty AT ALL until he was almost 3. But I didn't push, I just kept telling him that he'd do it when he was ready. Which he did. And when he decided to potty train, it was FAST. Like totally done within 2 weeks. He did have some nervousness about pooping on the potty. He had to go and he wanted me to put a diaper on him so that he could poop. I knew that was a slippery slope, so in a very loving way I told him that he *could* put a diaper on if he needed it, but that would mean that he's just not really ready for underwear and we would have to go back to wearing diapers for a while until he was ready to pee and poop on the potty. I also let him know that I understood that it could be scary and that I could hold him (hug him kinda) while he was sitting on the potty if that would help. He opted to poop on the potty with my arms around him... And that's how we got over that hump.
It's hard, but potty-training requires a lot of compassion and patience and space for them to figure it out on their own and feel proud on their own without all of the external praise and reinforcements.
For both of my kiddos the only "reward" they ever got was the joy of wearing underwear!
