Concerned...3 Year Old Still Poops at Night?

Wetting at night would be normal at this age..but I agree with you that the pooping is odd.

If he is eating a large amount of food right before he goes to sleep I guess that might explain it. Is there anyway you can try adjusting he dinner time so he is awake long enough to poop before bed.?

Updated

Wetting at night would be normal at this age..but I agree with you that the pooping is odd.

If he is eating a large amount of food right before he goes to sleep I guess that might explain it. Is there anyway you can try adjusting he dinner time so he is awake long enough to poop before bed.?

Updated

Wetting at night would be normal at this age..but I agree with you that the pooping is odd.

If he is eating a large amount of food right before he goes to sleep I guess that might explain it. Is there anyway you can try adjusting he dinner time so he is awake long enough to poop before bed.?

Why is he in a diaper at night? He probably holds in his poop because hes comfortable using a diaper. If hes been potty trained during the day for a year, he shouldn't be in a diaper at night. Put on underwear at night - you may have a few accidents but he needs to be able to get up in the middle of the night to the bathroom. I never used diapers or pull ups on my son once he started to use the toilet. I think it slows the process and holds them back.

I can only say that this might be the norm now that families use disposable diapers.

When my son was young he decided on his own to not go poop in his diaper at about eight months old. He didn't like the feel of the poop in the diaper (cloth). It took us to he was about three and a half to not have wetting accidents at night. The last one he had was when I was in hospital (gave birth to sister) that he stopped wetting. By that time he felt very bad that he had wet the bed. There was no pressure on him about not wetting or wetting but the cloth diaper might have been the reason he wanted to stop because of the feeling of being wet.

Please work with your son. Do not make it feel that he is the bad person for wetting or pooping in his pants. Be kind and gentle about it. This too shall pass when he is ready.

Sending you more patience to cope with your son as he grows and becomes a person potty trained.

the other S.

Mine didn't poop at night at that age, so I don't know if that's considered normal and ok or not.

Were you clear with your ped that you are concerned specifically about the pooping at night? When you talked to your ped, if you also mentioned that your son is peeing at night, it's possible the ped didn't focus on the poop. Some doctors aren't as good at listening than others. I would call the office to talk to the nurse. Be very specific. Is it ok that he still POOPS at night? If so, at what point would you need to explore the possibility that there could be something to be concerned about.

What my son's ped told me when I was potty training my 3 year old son was that at his age, I could not expect for him to be physically able to have dry nights until he was at least 4.

Now, my son didn't poop at night. He just peed, but not every night. The doctor told me that if he peed in the middle of the night, to put diapers back on him and tell him kindly that I know he wants to have a dry night, but we will need to wait to put his big boy pants on. He had me wait 4 nights of having dry nights IN A ROW before putting on underwear. And if he peed his underwear again, back in diapers til he had 4 dry nights in a row. I put a star on a chart for every night he had a dry night.

I didn't put pressure on him. I was loving, but matter-of-fact. With your son and pooping, I think that you will have to wait several more months to try underwear.

One thing that I would like to ask if you have talked to the ped about it? You might look at what you are feeding him for dinner. It could be that you need to change his diet so that he wouldn't need to poop at night.

Don't be hard on him. It won't help. He cannot help this. AND, he might be such a sound sleeper that he just doesn't wake up.

Your doc is right. If their bodies aren't stopping that at night then there isn't much you can do. When they are ready to do that it will happen.

My grandson is 10, he ruined a mattress last weekend with a poop accident in his sleep. I'm not worried at all. He's that one kiddo that still has pee accidents at night sometimes. His psychiatrist, for his ADHD meds, is aware of the need for pull ups and is not concerned at all. It's a physical issue and not a mental one. It's not a choice. His body isn't ready yet.

Of course it's normal. He's only 3. Many kids aren't developmentally advanced enough at 3 or 4 or even 5 to be dry all night. It's frustrating, I know, but there's nothing at all abnormal about it. This has nothing to do with going before bed, and it has nothing to do with whether the child can be reliably using the toilet during the day. Absolutely nothing. This is not a trainable skill - it's developmental. So, like walking and talking and giving up naps and developing gross motor skills and a million other milestones, kids do things in their own way. You can't predict it or control it.

So, you keep him in a diaper and you let him know it's perfectly normal. You get the nighttime diapers and add the extra liners/pads as necessary.

My child wasn't dry at night for a hell of a lot longer than this. He wasn't daytime trained until past the age of 4, and he was wet at night until 12. By 7, we used a medication so he could have a life and get some sleep, but if he went off it, he reverted to "nocturnal enuresis" (nighttime peeing) until 12. It happens. But you're not there yet. Your child is normal so please help him understand that.

If there's any pattern to his pooping (like maybe he doesn't poop during the day but does only at night), you might think about dietary changes and moving certain foods to earlier in the day, but otherwise, I think it's just the way he is.

It's normal. As Diane said, it's a developmental thing that you can't change. I doubt he's even waking up during it.

Please don't make a huge deal of this with him. What happens sometimes with three year olds is that if they try to hold their poop in too long, it becomes hard and it's then really painful when they do. They then associate having a bowel movement with pain and they refuse to do it at all. And that's a really tough problem to overcome. Don't go down that road.

A lot of people have bowel movements at about the same time every day. Sometimes mid-morning, mid-afternoon, etc. If he's only pooping at night, you may be able to adjust his eating times temporarily to try to readjust the biological clock. But it's really not necessary.

L.,

This is normal. It can take a while for the body to adjust to night time training.

My pseudo son (I've known him since birth and take care of him when his mom is traveling for work) and he was 12 before his body stopped wetting the bed at night. His mom and I tried many different things - we finally decided NOT to stress over it - give him the Goodnights underwear and let his body work on its own without stress.

Don't get upset - I know it's hard - but just keep him the diaper or good-nights underwear.

Mine were potty trained just after their 3rd birthday - both day and night. Mine did it at same time. I didn't set out to do this - it just happened. I had been putting them in pull ups at night, but noticed they were dry each time, so eventually switched them to underpants.

Mine never really pooped at night past toddler stage and even that was quite rare. It was more an early morning poop.

So for me and my kids, that wouldn't be the norm. But each kid is different. If my child's paediatrician was ok with it, I wouldn't personally worry. Not a whole lot you can do about it any how when you think of it.

It can be pretty normal.
Day trained at 3 1/2 is normal but our son was 7 1/2 before he could make it through the night dry.
Many kids are 12 or 13 before they stay dry all night long.