Advice for Potty Training - Winter Springs,FL

Hi M.!
we are going through the same with our 3 1/2 yr old son as well. It's been struggle too. He does really good at preschool, but when it comes to potty at home he screams too.
Just recently he has been doing better. He does really good when Daddy is there. I got a potty chair and put it in the family room. I know that sounds weird, but it works for #1.
We call it the "potty house".And I tell him he's got to get the Apple Juice potty out. it's been working for us. I hope this helps! We just got Batman glow in the dark underpants, which he thinks is really cool too.

If you give him a pull up to poop in, what is his incentive to EVER stop using them? OK, the saying goes that no one graduates high school and is still in diapers, but they do have kids who have poop accidents in kindergarten and boy do they get teased. He is old enough to understand a reward system, so your tough job is figuring out something that is important enough to him for it to be an incentive. A friend of mine used a chart- they put a sticker on every day and when there were 5 stickers in a row she took him to a store where he could buy ANYTHING he wanted (she went to the dollar store!!) In the meantime, you need to keep his stools soft. If he holds it in for 3 days, when he eventually goes it will hurt so it will start a horrible cycle of holding it even longer because he thinks it will hurt... Talk to your pediatrician about using Merilax-- it disolves completely in any liquid and is flavorless even in water. It will keep his poop soft but you have to use the right amount or it will make it too runny

Hi M., I just had to respond to this. My son is will be 5 in October and did not start pooping on the potty until 1 month before he turned 4. He sounds just like your son. He would want a pull-up, and if all the pull-ups were "gone" he would hold it for days. My pediatrician said to just give him a pull up and be thankful he at least asked for one of those because lots of kids just poop in their undies at that age. I also had so many parents tell me that he will do it when he is ready. I was sure my son would be 12 years old and still asking for a pull-up for poops, but that was not the case. We had just moved here to Florida and, for the first time, had a pool in our backyard. My son asked if we could swim and I said, that we could swim later after I unpacked some stuff, or "if you poop in that potty, I'll take you swimming anytime you want this week". I was very casual about it because I was sure it wouldn't work. And do you know what, that boy went and pooped in the potty. He had done it before with us forcing him, etc., but this was the first time he just walked in and did it. And, somehow he got it from that point on. It had also been about 3 weeks of us not applying any pressure or hiding the pull-ups, so it didn't seem like such a big deal. I wish I had just relaxed a lot more about all of that. I do believe that these kids will not respond well to pressure in this area. So, my advice to you is to just keep giving him the pull-ups. Let him know that you'd like for him to poop on the potty when HE is ready and just take a step back from it all. Look at the brightside...at least he goes in a pull-up and not in his underwear! Hang in there!

I would definitely stop giving him pullups--take them away completely--and only use them at night and nap if necessary. Make sure his diet consists of enough fiber so he can't constipate himself and then just go with it. Don't force him to sit on the potty and give positive reinforcement when he does or tries.
Also back up a little--since he is scared to use the potty to poop on, you need to reward him for every step he does carry out...undressing, sitting, etc. not just for using it.
Add small incentives (large ones can be too much pressure) like a sticker chart or M&M for any step he accomplishes.
Relax too, he won't go to Kindergarten unpotty-trained. He just needs to get over his fears.
We moved our son to underwear when he was 3 and he only got pull-ups for overnight--which he seemed to wait until morning to go poop in those for the first couple of months--now he is telling us when he needs to poop and has still had a few accidients, but definitely wants to poop on the potty--so he's just about there. But we've just been patient and when he did poop in his pullups or underpants, we would go to the toilet, put the poop from the pull-ups/underpants in the toilet and flush it down (telling him that poop goes in the potty and not in our pants)-he soon was repeating this "no poop in pants--poop in the potty" when he was getting dressed or had an accident, so I knew his was "getting it" Try to stay upbeat and paitent and it will happen!
Here's a great book that I used that gives awesome tips an solutions on potty training issues....
http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Idiots-Training-Problems-Gui...
It offers quite a few solutions for different problems that come up (including yours) and it also explains why kids have these problems and what is going through their heads--I think you will find it well worth reading.
Good luck!~