Potty Training - Dousman, WI

I'm right there with ya. My thought is that one day, one random day, he will just decide he's ready. I've heard this from many parents, and believing it has helped me to not stress out about the whole thing. My 3 3/4 yr old boy wears underwear all day and night, but requests a pull-up when he knows he has to poop. Oh well. Sigh. It could be worse...

I also recommend getting rid of the pull-up. I started potty trainging my daughter at 2 and she knew and told me that her pull-up was like a diaper and she would ask for it when she had to go number 2. I then took them all away and had to hide them from her. (Day-care was probably upset with me for sending her there with just panties but now 2 months later she is the only one in her class that is fully potty trained, even at night.) She hated the feeling of going in her undies and having to clean it up.

When she goes poppy, I do have to sit with her on the chair for awile. She tells me she feels sick and that is when I know she has to go. We sit on the chair, paint toe nails read books, etc. for atleast 15 mins. I tell her to push and show her how and when she is done she says her tummy feels better. I think younger kids just don't understand what the feeling of having to go is.

Good Luck!

J.~

The only advice I can think of is take him out of the pull-ups. Let him have his accident in his pants. Maybe even make him help clean up. Hopefully he'll get sick of making a mess and go in the toilet. My oldest didn't fully train until I took away the pull-ups. I think, they think it's just like a diaper and it's OK to go. It might be messy, but the end result is worth it. Good Luck!!!

J.

Boys definitly take a little longer and do not respond to pressure. I know this sounds gross but it worked for me. My oldest was doing fine with peeing but would not poop until "it came out on its own". This made it difficult not to have accidents. Finally I got sick of cleaning his underware so I made him help me. I have to tell you that when he touched that poop and understood what it took to clean up after his accidents he stopped having them. It was hard core but I was glad I did it. I have also heard if you do not want to go that route that by thorwing away the underware they poop in can upset them because they love there character underware. If you can afford that it might work. I tried it once and did not was to spend the money.

Good Luck
L.

I'm in the same boat and need advice too.

A.

Hi J., I will say the same thing as Cindy...to get rid of the pull ups. They are the worst things ever created. I had same situation with my daughter. She will go # 1 in toilet but not # 2.That she would prefer like your son to do in pull ups. One day i stopped using pull ups and put regular undies and after one yucky accident she herself realized its not worth doing poop in pants anymore. I never had problems after that. Hope you will find solution soon. Good Luck.

J., we have a very head strong and intelligent 4 year old. We finally called it enough around 3 for him. We had him throw his diapers away, which he did willingly!!!, in the outside garbage can. He then told grandma and pa that he threw them away, and enjoyed that as well. The next step was to actually have him poop on the toilet. Oh, boy, did he not want to. I kept telling him that -yes it was a very different feeling going sitting down compared to standing up and that I understood that it was 'weird'.
He ended up holding his poops, because he didnt want to poop in the toilet, for a few days. Then I fed him his favorite fruit - peaches from a can. Boy did he have to go. I sat him on the toilet and he yelled at me, screamed at me. My husband took the younger one out on a walk because he couldnt handle it. But he went. Took about a half hour. He looked at me like... 'that was it?' And has been going ever since. We are still wiping his butt because he thinks the poop thing is gross - and boy am I wanting that to end :) .

Good Luck. let us know how it all comes out :)

Take your child in to a doctor just to be sure- I took my daughter in and it turned out she was so constipated! After getting her on a laxative for a week she was fine! Never had another accident.

Just to be sure ask for xrays of his intestines for constipation if not constipated then try other suggestions.

But your story is EXACTLY like what I went through with my daughter!

i had the same problem with my boys. it was very fusterating! with our newest baby i told my hubby that the only part of starting over with the family is im dreading potty training.. that was while i was still pregnant! what worked for each one of my boys.. this is going to sound mean! but it worked when the stickers and everything else i tried didn't!

my grandma had my oldest for a day and he pooped in his pants and my grandma took a clean pair of underware and put warm water in them and put it over his head and let the water drip and hit him and told him it was his poopy pants and that if he went in them again she would have him wear his pants on his head for a while. that was the last time he went in his pants. i couldn't bring myself to do that to them but she only did it one time to each boy and i would ask them during the day if they had to go and just say don't have an accident cause grandma will have you wear it. not in a mean tone or anything. but they didn't have problems going in their potties after that. it got to be a game with them cause after they went they got to call grandma and tell her she couldn't make them wear the icky panties that day. after a week or so of no accidents my grandma would send them a new package of "big boy" underpants all wrapped up for them.

Hi there. We had also had a lot of trouble with #2 in our son. First of all, I know this is hard, but try to stay calm and not let your frustration show. Positive reinforcement only! If he poops in his pants you just clean it up, no scolding, but also no "comfort" talk. Just be very matter of fact. Second, get rid of the pull ups. You can use the flushable wipes to clean him up when needed. Maybe let him pick out underwear or buy his favorite cartoon character briefs. Put your son on a high-fiber diet. Pick a time of day to sit on the potty (for us it was before bedtime). Bring in a chair for yourself, read some books, get him to relax. We used to read 3 (small) books, then hold hands and he had to do 3 big pushes. Hold for a count of 10. Yes, much like labor! Have you talked to your doctor? You may want to also use Miralax. You want it to be easy for him to poop. Another thing we did was that I bought a toy that I knew my son wanted. I showed it to him, and then put it away. I made a chart on the computer, with a picture of the toy on it, and we did stickers for 30 days. Missing one day was OK, but if he missed two days we started a new chart. I honestly think it took us 6 months to fill up the chart, and he finally got his toy. And what a relief it was! I hate to tell you this, but at age 10 my son is still a "poop holder" I make sure he eats lots of fruits and veggies, and I still have the Miralax. It is available over the counter now, and it is safe for young children. Please feel free to e-mail me privately. This has been a big issue for us!

C.

Hi J.:

About two or three weeks ago, I wrote just about the same post you just did. Only mine was about my now 4 yr old daughter. I was desperate and tried something suggested by another poster, Chureen A. (Thanks Chureen!!!) It sounds SO silly, but I have to tell you, today I took DD for her second icecream cone reward for pooping in the potty six days in a row! We, like you, had tried EVERYTHING we could think of and this was the only thing that worked - not sure why, but it did. We told DD that when she makes poop in the potty, all the poop goes to a "poop party" and that Mommy and Daddy's poop is down there waiting for her poop so they can all have a party. She loved the idea and has only had maybe three accidents in the last couple of weeks. We have a sticker chart in the bathroom (which never worked for her as a reward system in the past) that we keep track of potty poops. After she fills in six squares she gets to go get an icecream (substitute your child's favorite treat here). Like I said, SO silly but it worked like magic for us.

Good luck! I feel your pain!

S.

the only thing i can suggest is we bought a bell. every time our son went in the potty he got to ring the bell that was sitting on top of the toilet, then he would get a sticker. i also have all boys and say boys are easier?! just my opinion though i have never had a girl. i wish you the best of luck in this rough time.

My daughter didn't poop in the potty until she was 5 and we did what our pediatrician suggested. She would ask for a diaper to poop in. We would insist that she be in the bathroom to poop even though she was doing it in a diaper then we moved her to sitting on the potty with the diaper on still but at least she was sitting on the potty. Next we started putting the diaper on the potty and sitting her on top of the diaper. Finally after weeks of this I moved the diaper to the front of the potty and she pooped in the potty without realizing it. We had a huge pooped in the party celebration (clapping, yelling, dancing, lots of praise). Finally one day I had her just hold the diaper in her lap and go and then that was then end of the diaper. it took us over a month for this process. it was slow going but she started Kindergarten totally potty trained. Just be patient and take it one step at a time.

Everybody had some good ideas, but I'd like to chime in with - "get rid of the pullups!" They are a crutch for them. Cool underwear is always a plus, but you do want to make it uncomfortable for them to go in their pants.

Hi J.,
My nephew was three and a half before he was finally completely trained.. He's now five and once he got it, he got it;-) He was stubborn to and would tell us that he was going and run and hide.. With the peeing we actually(well I) let him go outside at our house because we live way out in the country.. I figured that it was no big deal because, at least, he was going!! My sister didn't take to kindly to this because he would go outside in the neighborhood where they lived at times... Oopsy! Anyway, I think what finally triggered him to go both 1 and 2 on the toilet is that he couldn't go on field trips for pre-school until he was completely trained. It was weird... I was like one day he just decided it was time to do it and he did and their were not even any accidents and he even stayed dry at night.. So, when your son is ready he will do it... Just keep in mind that this is normal and lots of others have been through it or are going through it also;-)
We're working on our 2 1/2 yr. old daughter right now who had a severe regression after our son came, who is now three months.. She is actually sitting on her potty right now because I gave her some ice cream..... We've done the sticker charts too and just got new Princess underwear which she is very excited about, so we'll see how it goes.. Potty training is definetely one of the hardest jobs in parenting! Good luck!

Melissa

Oh! I just read the post about the parents poop waiting in the bottom of the potty for child's poop to have a party!! I love it and am going to try that one! Too funny;-)

I had the same problem with my 3 yr old. He just would not go #2 in the toilet. What workewd for him: We had already gotten him spider man big boy underwear that he picked out. One day I asked him you want pull ups or Spider man..he chose spiderman..I told him no going potty in spiderman where do you go potty? He said the toiet...he has had 1 accident and that was because he didn't run fast enough home and that was #1 not #2.

This idea didn't work as well for us as I would have liked for it to, but can you make it more work for him to go in his pants than for him to use the potty? We made sure we included him as much as possible in the cleanup, so that it was a pain for him as well as for us. He doesn't want to stop playing, doesn't want the interruption of using the toilet, but if cleaning his pants is MORE of an interruption, maybe that would help? Good luck.

This is an anxiety issue J., not a training issue. Your son is upset that his poop will be flushed down the toilet, and he may even be worried that he will fall into it and be flushed down himself. When he poops in his diaper, he feels safe.

Start by flushing the poop from his diaper when he is NOT AROUND, or when he may not be aware that it is happening. It is when parents are in a hurry to flush poop, and do it in front of kids, that kids with anxiety begin to resist potty training.

Gently find out where his "safe" place is to poop (where he disappears to) and put the potty chair there for him. It is probably a long way from the bathroom. Don't be attached to him using it at first, just put it there and wait for him to feel safe taking off his diaper himself.

I believe that little boys may be considered harder to train because they are more sensitive than girls, and most parents believe that they shouldn't be sensitive for some reason. In actuality, boys are not as analytical as girls and tend to think in black and white: "My poop is part of me, she has flushed it down the toilet, she has flushed ME down the toilet..."

Read him the books: Everybody Poops. Once Upon a Potty. Read, read, read to him children's stories about pooping and about ANXIETY (check out the Francis books). Then talk to him about what his fears are so that he knows that you care about his feelings.

Mirroring his feelings back to him will help: "Wow, it sounds like you are really worried about...."

Boys are amazingly sensitive and need more help sorting out their feelings. Doing this now will help him to become a sensitive man down the road. Neglecting it will ensure that he is just like the rest of them.

Are you having him go potty in the big person toilet? He may feel dwarfed by it. Potty issues can be hard, as my almost 4 year-old is reluctant to flush potties because she finds the sound overwhelming (especially in public restrooms--man, I don't like it either it's actually quite loud). I know it is a phase, and she's actually working through it just fine.

First, I suggest dropping the issue with him completely for about three days. Just let him do what he does whenever, however, and prepare yourself mentally so you don't freak out. Then, having gone to a junk or thrift or antique store to purchase one of those little porcelain-lined metal pots with a handle on the side, wrap it up like a present and leave it in the bathroom for him. Let him open it when he discovers it and tell him, "the potty fairy left it" or "that's your fancy big-boy potty and you get a prize (have prizes on hand for him to choose from and let him pick one)" or something like that that you know will excite him.

The thing is here, he might benefit from seeing the exact result of sitting down on a potty when he's got to go #2. Some kids really benefit from examining their poo. He's even old enough to dump it in the potty when he's done and rinse it out in the sink and dump the rinse water in the potty and give the pot a good spraying of vinegar water afterwards. Get him his own little spray bottle and fill it with water and vinegar, or water and rosewater. Perhaps the ritual would inspire him to go #2 properly. And then there is always the reward chart, which would make the process far more interesting. There you go that's what I think. Good luck. It is so nice not to be having to clean up poo where it doesn't belong. It will be over soon, so don't worry. I remember reflecting on potty training with my kids once we had it all figured out and things were fine...I recall telling my girlfriends that I'd rather have someone successfully potty-trained than go on a cruise. It is so liberating for everyone. Don't forget to reward yourself once he's got his ducks in a row bathroom-wise.

I bought my son one of the potties that sings when he pees. That became the excitement. I sat on the toilet too at first then he realized. Yes I heard boys take longer. But it depends on the child themselves also. My son is pretty much potty trained. He wakes up at night on his own and he started at 15 months. We are easing to the underwear phase.

I know a few people that have tried this kind of potty with good results. It was a recommendation from a coworker. And I've reccommended it. They have to be comfortable with the potty. It's a little more expensive but worth it. If you have one of the one's with the cup that's attatched meaning it can't be removed, that hurts them. My son wouldn't use that one at daycare. He would use the toddler toilet.

I hope this helps somewhat.
J.

Figure out his poop time. Usually kids have a poop schedule just start figuring it out. Does he poop everyday, every other day, in the morning, in the afternoon? Does he always poop a hour or two after dinner just pay attention to his habits.

My daughter had a habit of pooping everday between 3-4pm don't ask me why.

So I started putting her on the potty with a book or something fun to do and told her she needed to sit and go poop. Sometimes I'd sit on the side of the tub and talk with her whatever. It wasn't a punishment but a positive time it taught her to relax and concentrate and do her thing. Sometimes she'd sit in their and it'd take her 20min. to produce or sometimes she wouldn't but she atleast tried. After a few days of this she began to recongnize when she had to go and to act upon it. It maybe took her a week to have her poop trained LOL....

I also use to babysit a little girl and when she would poop she was alot like your son. She would disapear quick and hide and I would chase her down and pick her up and literally run her to the toliet and she'd sometimes get half in the diaper and half in the toliet or most of it in the toliet but this taught and helped her realize that poop goes in the toliet and that hiding won't work. She got very excited and this worked really good too.

My Grandma got custody of my brother when he was 4. He was not potty trained. My grandma would sit with him in the bathroom and sing songs or read him books and encourage him to do his thing and he got a quarter everytime he went. He loved the one on one attention, positive reinforcement and the reward. He was trained in no time.

OK I read through alot of these responses and I do agree on the NO pullups. If you are worried about stained underwear then they do have black boys underpants. My son wore those until he was fully trained although he only had #1 accidents. My son actually trained himself after working with him for a year. He was 2 when I started and was finally trained a month before he turned 3. He is still not NIGHT trained but we are working on that. It runs in the family. One suggestion that was made to me to tell him to help him poop in the potty was that the poop LIKES to go swimming and we need to let it go in the potty to swim. It doesn't like to be scrunched in the diaper and needs to be free. I am not sure if this actually helped him or not as he just up and decided one day while my brother was visiting from Florida to start using the pottty. He just got up and went and Hollared from the bathroom that he had gone potty! We made a HUGE deal of it and my brother gave him a new package of underwear. I also tried for awhile to allow him to run through the house naked and he would not miss the potty then. He just would not poop. But then he finally did. OH another thing we did also was we bought a HUGE lot of old matchbox and toy cars off Ebay and used those as prizes for potty. He got one for pee and 2 for poop. We had over 100 cars for $18. I admit that I also went to his toybox and dug down deep and pulled out the little toys that sink to the bottom and put those in the prize box. He never knew the difference. I also admit that when the prize box got low I pulled cars back out of the toy box and recycled them as prizes. he never knew. LOL. Your son is also older and mostlikly wiser so you may need to be sneakier than I was. LOL. OK hope this helps. laterz

Hi J.,

My son, who is now 8 had the SAME issues with potty training. We tried everything. He would hide to go #2 and when we tried to work with him, i.e. sitting him on the potty when we caught him trying to go...etc.,that just made him constipated. So finally, we just stopped pressuring him and we just changed him if he went #2 and never really said anything about it and then wa-law, he trained himself very soon after that. I think its the pressure and timing, they just train themselves when THEY are ready. He has never had an "accident" and we never had any repercussions. What helped me personally, I just stopped worrying about it and I didn't compare his abilities to other children and I felt a lot better :) No two kids are the same-that's for sure!

I wonder if I might ask how you react when you find him is such a state? My parents always let our natural consequences stand, and that helped me with my son when he was little too. He was just stubborn about going to the potty. I would always try to act disappointed instead of angry or upset. Then I would take a deep breath and say, Okay... let's go clean you up. Then we would go to the shower(not a bath) and clean him up. The way to make that not fun for him was to use cold water. It didn't hurt him, he was clean and then I would dress him again and let him go. I think he lasted about a week and a half.

I have 4 children ages 12, 10, 5, & 13 months and I can say that for whatever reason, potty training is very hard for me as a parent. I hate it!!! But, we've survived it through 3 children. Your son is trained, he's just refusing to do it in the toilet. I really don't know what advice to give you as my two oldest boys did the same thing and it drove me crazy. I think the only thing I can say is that you need to just relax, even though it is driving you nuts! Also, HE WILL GET IT SOON! Just keep doing what you're doing. I assume he's wearing underwear. I personally think pull-ups are just fancy diapers and the toddlers know it. Does your son have any friends that are trained that might influence him? I find peer influences are powerfull when it comes to this stuff.

Good luck!

Hi, J.! You sound just like me! Our 3 3/4 yr old JUST started going poop on the potty the first week in April. He did the exact same thing, hiding and pooping in his pull-up. And he would be kicking and screaming if we tried to suggest he go on the potty.

Here's what we did: we kept talking about going to Toys R Us or Target and picking out ANY toy he wanted; he would get to play the Wii; and we would throw him a party. He still wasn't interested, and then one day, I decided to take him kicking and screaming to sit on the potty when I knew he had to go. I held him down to sit and spoke reassuringly to him and made him laugh and told him we would just try and then brought in 2 books to read to him while he tried. He sat there for 15 minutes, trying and pushing, no success. Then I rewarded him for trying. A few days later when he needed to go, we took him kicking and screaming again, brought in a book to read again, and he tried and he did it! We congratulated him and DH immediately took him to Target to pick out his favorite toy. He got to play the Wii right after his nap that day--we still need to have a party for him. :)

After that first day, he pooped on the potty several times a day, because he would get a reward immediately AND he was SOOOO proud of himself. We did a specific reward for a couple of weeks (plastic Easter Eggs filled with coins and little tiny cars--his favorite things--which he picked out of a bag every time he went). And now he even goes on his own, with help for clean-up afterward. And we still reward him with playing on the Wii.

But it's just like everybody says--all of a sudden they start doing it in their own time. And it just clicks. I thought for sure our son would be 5 before he'd poop on the potty (he'd always tell me he'd do it when he was 11!). He was actually potty trained overnight before anything else, and was wearing training underwear to bed for a couple weeks before he started pooping on the potty. I think it also helped us for him to wear his big boy underwear, and we'd tell him it's not fun to poop in your big boy underwear, because poopies go in the potty. And he really wanted to wear his new underwear more and more. So I guess he finally felt like he had enough incentive to start. :)

Biggest advice--don't worry about it. Really. Just keep gently trying and suggesting. He'll do it!

I had six boys and all of them were close to three when they were finally trained. I figured something out with the last two, though. They were 13 months apart and the next boy up was just 20 month older. I was busy! I had three in diapers for a while. Anyway, I was really too busy to worry about it so I just introduced the concept to them and helped them figure out what to do and then I let them do it in their own time. I didn't get upset over accidents and I didn't hover over them, asking if they had to go. It just became part of the routine, but without the battle. Those two were trained almost by themselves (with a little peer pressure from the older four) and they were much younger when it was accomplished. I figured out that the older ones could have been trained a lot earlier if I had left it up to them. Since it was such a battle with Mom, they felt that they had to win. Take the battle out of it, maybe he will figure it out, too.

Also, go ahead and start to train your daughter. No self-respecting, older brother is going to let his baby sister pass him up.

I'm not sure if I'm reading your post correctly, but is he wearing pull-ups during the day? If so, it should help immensely just by putting him in regular underwear. Use the pullups only at night. Neither of my boys could get the pooping part down either. We put them in underwear and all it took was a couple times of pooping in their pants and they discovered they didn't like that feeling at all!