HELP! Potty Problems.

Updated on April 11, 2007
A.O. asks from Philadelphia, PA
13 answers

My son is a little over two now. when he was 18 months old he got in this bad habit of taking off his diaper and pooping on his bedroom floor. i tried potty training him then with no success. when we moved, that behavior stopped. now, 4 months later, he has started again. I do not have any success potty training him. he will not tell me when he has to poop and even if I sit him on the potty throughout the day, he won't use it. I don't know what to do and I am at my wits end! the carpeting in his bedroom is ruined and smells terrible. I scold him every time and go through the whole process, you know, tell mommy, sit on potty, the works. I don't understand why he is doing this! and he always does it when I can't come interfere. Like today, I was giving my 7 month old a bath downstairs and he ran to his room, knowing I can't come away from the sink, and poops on his floor quick. Somebody please help me...how do I potty train a reluctant potty trainer and has anyone ever dealt with this before? I am totally disgusted by this behavior and totally confused too! We are putting a gate up so he can't get in his room without us but he normally masters things like that quickly (for instance, he can take off child resistant lids and removes all our spring loaded gates-we are getting an installed gate this time hoping for the best. oh, and he can climb like a monkey. I doubt we will have much success with the gate). Maybe I need to just lock his door during the day so he can't get in. I am just worried that he will do it somewhere else and I don't need more ruined carpeting to deal with. Anyway, what really needs to happen is that he needs to potty train. does anyone know how to get a stubborn kid like my son to do it and stop pooping on the floor? I tried putting his diapers on backward. that doesn't work. he is too smart and figures tricks like that out right away. he can also get out of overalls and anything else I try to put on him to stop this. One thing I had considered was enrolling him daycare for part of the day? maybe he will see the other kids going potty and learn that way? Do daycare kids learn to potty train at home or at daycare? I don't even know how that works. Any input is eagerly awaited. I just can't deal with this anymore!

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So What Happened?

Thank you everyone for your brilliant suggestions and help! Can you believe that the little bugger decided to potty train last week and has had very few accidents since? He even decided that he prefers the adult potty. He still doesn't tell me when he has to go, he just goes to the bathroom and does everything himself. I think the preliminaries were part control issue as many of you mentioned and another part a learning curve. I am so glad this problem resolved itself! Again, thank you for all the support.

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R.E.

answers from Philadelphia on

I would try putting the potty in his bedroom, especially if he goes in one particular spot. Maybe it's where he feels comfortable, and private to go to the bathroom. If he takes to it, then you can work on getting it back in the bathroom.

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J.P.

answers from Sharon on

My son was also a hard potty trainer. He is four now, ans was fully potty trained about 6+ months ago. Have you tried pull ups? i know that for the longest time he had problems trying to work those. Plus what i did is bought the sme underwear that daddy wore, this helped. because little boys tend to want to be like thier daddies. My son always hid when he had to poop, but nothing like yours. What helped me was to let him run aroud naked, but i don't think that would help you. we had both a potty chair and a potty ring. He is using the ring now. But i Put the potty chair in the living room. Can he climb over gates?? Maybe when you give the little one a bath try gating the stairs so he can't get to his room. walmart has high gates and a great potty ring with handles. Another thing is when you think that he may have to poop put him on the potty and take books with you and read to him while he is sitting on the pot. this too was a big help for us!!! Plus we had great support from grandparents, They helped us whenever they could and didn't do something different from us when we were going through this. The best thing is to have every one on the same page when it comes to training your child. another thing i have just thought of, could he just be doing this to get your attention from the little one? Maybe make some him and mommy days and leave the little one at home.

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R.D.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Hi,

So, I noted that this behavior started about when your 2nd child was born? and it happens when you are occupied with the baby? maybe this is your sons way of reacting. Maybe it's not a potty-trainig issue at all, but a sibling rivalry problem.

just a thought.

I should mention that my mom told me i stopped being potty-trained as soon as my brother was born and she "had a heck of a time". I can ask what she did, ifn you are interested.

good luck.

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J.B.

answers from State College on

My son will be 2 in April. He has started doing that same thing. When we put him in his room for nap he will take his diaper off and pee everywhere and poop on his floor. I have had him help me clean it up, taped his diaper on, he undoes onesies, and bib overalls didnt help. He peed in the potty once for his daddy. He will sit on it but only for a few seconds and not pee.

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Y.L.

answers from Philadelphia on

It seems like he is doing it for attention, power, and control. So the more you scold him, the worse he will get. Try sitting him on the potty on a time scheduled. Some kids do every two hours. My daughter actually goes pee about every hour. Sometimes that works. When he is on the potty, make it fun. Give him lots of attention, read books, play games. It's harder because you have another child and might not be able to spend that much time with him on the potty. Sometimes it does help when kids see other kids use the potty. It just depends on the child. Good luck. Hope it helps.

Y.

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C.K.

answers from Pittsburgh on

we went through almost the same thing as you. When I asked my ped about it she said to not worry about the potty right now but to reteach him that he has to go in his diaper. That it wasnt a potty issue it was a control issue. Which to me made sense. So the next time it happened my son had to help clean up the mess. Which he hated doing and he never did it again. A few months later he said he wanted to go on th epotty and that was that.

Now my other son who just turned 4 just in Jan became fully potty trained. He wwas terrified of a potty big or small. I have learned one thing from my 3 sons the more I push the issue the more they resist. SO you may want to work on the going on his floor and save the potty for later.

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A.P.

answers from Johnstown on

I had the same issues with my son, now hes going on the potty most of the time... but still has accidents! I used the sitcker, if you pee in the potty a toy if you poo! I know your prob. thinking its way to expensive! but really its not! Go to the dollar store... but the little car/truck that are like three for a dollar, and the have sticker sets also! tell him if he poos in the potty you have a gift for him! wrap up the toys in tissue paper to give him more of a spurise than just handing him one... and after a while, if you kids are like mine... dig to the bottem of the toy box and get out some of the smaller unplayed with toys and wrap them lol they will never know!! but use NEW toys the first few times so he get into it!! Hope this helps!!

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T.Z.

answers from Pittsburgh on

I had this problem with my son. But atleast your lucky he does it where you can see it. Mine use to hid behide things and get dress when he was done. And i had to smell fo it. I know it is something that i couldn't deal with. My son is in daycare and it help alot. Him seeing other kids doing it. I would try putting him in daycare and see if that helps. But i can say my son was daycare potty trained before he was home potty trained. What i mean by that he used the potty at daycare months before he would use the one at home. If you think about enrolling him in daycare you might wanna tell them what he does. Before they call you and tell you he did it there. Just far warn him that he does it at home but only in his room and maybe he wont do it there. I know there are things my son does at home that he wont do at daycare. He evens tells me "mommy i don't do that at daycare cause its bad" but he still does it at home. And it drives me nuts.
I hope you get through this.
-brittany-

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G.

answers from Philadelphia on

My daughter just turned two and we are just starting the potty training experience. I can tell you that she is in daycare three days a week and they do teach them. She is starting to sit on the potty at school because she sees the other kids doing it and it starting to tell me when she goes in her diaper. You may want to try to put him in even if it is only for one or two days a week. It might help. Have you spoken to his doctor regarding this?

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E.V.

answers from Philadelphia on

You say that when you catch him pooping in his room that you direct him to the potty, but I'm not sure if that means the adult toilet, or a smal child's potty. Some children are scared to go poop on the big potty (for some reason pooping seems to be scarier that peeing for alot of children in my experience).....sometimes its the anticipated noise of the flush, or some articles talk about pooping feeling like "losing a part of themselves". Maybe being in his room makes him feel more comfortable doing this function that might seem scary to him. Do you have a small child' potty? If so you may try putting it in his room and encouraging him to poop there...try to catch him in the act and redirect him (physically put him on the potty if this is not too traumatic for him). If he poops in the potty give LOTS of praise, hugs, kisses, etc. Then, if he will begin to poop in the potty in his room, begin to move it little by little out of his room and towards the bathroom (maybe 3-4 feet each day). Hopefully you can eventually get him using his small seat in the bathroom. Then later you can switch him to the big potty (closer to 3 probably).

E.

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H.

answers from Pittsburgh on

I agree with the idea of putting the potty seat in his favorite spot to go. Make it convenient and safe for him.

You also mentioned plans for simply keeping the diaper on him - the trickiest way to keep kids in their clothes and out of their diaper that I've heard is getting the footed zip up pj's and cutting off the feet. Then put them on the child backwards fully zipped and buttoned at the top. They really have to be good to get out of them and can't really get to the diaper without getting the pj's off first. Just another thought if the potty seat in his room doesn't get you anywhere.

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S.L.

answers from Philadelphia on

I can relate to that when my son was first potty trained he was taught on a portable potty he started in the liveing room which yea it sounds weired to teach your kid to go potty in the liveing room but it was the spot he spent most of his time and felt comfortable in once he got used to doing his business in the potty we gradually moved the potty towards the bathroom thank god we live in a one story place perhaps you can get portable potty and put it in his room and see if he will use it there and slowley move it into the bathroom my son was afraid of the big potty for a long time he esecially hated the auto flush ones the trick there is to cover the sensor thats on the wall since kids are short the sensor tends not to recognize there still on the toilt and will tend to flush before there done and of coarse scare the poor kid that there going to get flushed down try getting them to belive they wont is impossible I wish I knew that trick before my son was potty trained until your son starts pooping in the potty invest in a carpet shampooer my cousins son has autism and for some reason he poops on the carpet and plays in it cause he likes the texture he smears it everywhere but she has a shampooer and you dont smell anything bad and the carpets look fine

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C.M.

answers from York on

Well I to had a child alot like yours that knew how to get into everything there were no childproof anything that he couldn't get into he even knew how to get childsafe pill bottles open before he turned two he was a big struggle and now at 5 years old he still excatly the same unfortunatly. Well my son decided that he wanted to stop going pee on the potty and start peeing in his closet and our trash can and anywere else he felt like going. Even after he was completly potty trained he I still cought him going in the closet quite a few times and just recently I found out that he had peed on the floor by my bed and had gone in the bathroom trashcan. I gave him time outs talked and talked to him and even gave himm a spanking when nothing else seemed to work. The spanking did seem to scare him out of it for a while because he knew he was really in trouble now, but the problem these kinds of kids is that they seem to have no fear of anything even getting in trouble and they are so impulsive they have a very hard time even thinking about a consequence before they do anything and once they are done being punished they completly forget about it. I feel for you because I know what it's like to have a child like that unfortunatly there are somethings that just don't seem to have any solutions except waiting them out. I did have one idea I don't know though he may be able to find a way out of this one to but here it goes. What if you put a onesie on him and maybe even use a cloth diaper pin to keep it closed because I'm sure he could just pull it open at the bottom maybe this will keep his diaper on.
Hope this helps in some way.
tina

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