Potty Training...Poop

I JUST read about this in Parenting magazine, and one mom says that her husband finally offered to give their potty-trainer a crisp new dollar bill if he went poop in the potty. And just like that, he did! Though I don't know what may or may not work, try thinking outside the box for things and rewards that you haven't yet tried. Good Luck!

I'm in the exact same boat with my daughter (3 years 3 months). I spoke with my pediatrician about it and she said there's nothing to do but wait. She's convince no kid enters school pooping in a diaper...I'm still waiting to see if my girl proves her wrong.

Here are a couple of my thoughts that you may have already tried or heard, but one worked for us and I've heard the other helps as well. For starters, I'd pick-up some kids books regarding potty training. The best one that was recommended to us is called "Everybody Poops." It talks about how living creatures poop in different ways. Seeing as you mentioned your son is fearful of going in the toilet, I think this book may help take away some of that fear of it and make it a more fun type of concept for him. My son loved that book and wanted to read it all the time. Even after he was potty trained he'd still want to read it occasionally.

Also, I've heard people had great success using potty training dolls. They have both boy and girl versions and you can have him help go through the steps to potty train the doll and then he'd likely start wanting to try it himself. I've not tried this one as we didn't need to, but I've heard some great success stories.

Hang in there and be patient. You'll get through it! You may even want to call your pediatrician and ask if they can provide some insights!

Hi L., My first advice to you, is to get rid of the diapers/pullups, if you put him in underwear during the day,and a diaper/pullup night it just confusses them, and also the trip to te toy store is after a sucessful week, not before, becasue what are you rewarding,hey I poop on myself and get a toy. He he was younger i would say maybe wait it out out some, but he's already 3. You need to be firm with him and you need to let him know that pooping anf peeing on your self is not accepteble, and you need to discipline him,
and you need to monitor his poop activity so you can put him on the potty, and he needs to go before he is allowed to get up. This may sound harsh, but throught experience in training my own kids, and the many, many kids in my daycare, it is more about the parents than the kids. I hand 2 boys and one girl, they were all pottytrained before the age of 2 and using the regular toilet by age 2, never had a problem with them pooping in the toilet, my daycare care kids must be in the process of being trained or I don't take them unless they are under 2, but if they are 2 and older they need to be potty trained, or at least in the process, and they all have done fine with me, and I have done this for 11 years. J.

Hi -
I feel like I just read my own story!! We had the same issue with my first daughter, except she would ask for a diaper, poop and tell me she was done. I'd take it off and throw the poop in the toilet and be done. This went on for 6 months with no end in sight until she started preschool. I explained the situation to the director adn the teacher and said that I would be there to take care of anything if she asked for a diaper. Thank God they were agreeable! The first day went with out a hitch but the second day dhe asked for a diaper and they offered her one while calling me to come take care of the clean up. By the time I got there, she had changed her mind realizing that this wasn't the way this was done. I offered to take her home so so could go, but she loved being with the kids so much that she stayed. Later that day she started to poop in the toilet and has never had another problem. YAY!
You have hope for your second son to be easier. My second child, also a girl, potty trained herself at 2. She just wanted to be like her sister and that was that! No training, no accidents, no wet bed, just simple!!
Good luck and patience to you!

i've found that it's the least stress to wait it out. for both you and your son. i think it's important to always be encouraging, never sound like your scolding him, and make it a teaching experience for you and a learning experience for him.

did he ever get that toy he picked out? if so, how come since it sounds like he didn't accomplish his task. my turned 3y/o last april took the longest to potty train. simply because her desire to control the situation.

she even got to the point where she would just sit in her pee or poop. that left her with a bad yeast infection. i finally said enough is enough. we happened to be on vacation. i didn't have my anti-yeast cream with me. i told her that she needed to wear panties so that her owies would get better--to keep the moisture away. it worked, and she got the prize we had discussed months before.

pooping is still a little bit of an issue. we would put a diaper on at night "just in case" she caught on and would ask for a diaper "just in case" and prefer not to tell anyone she needed to pee or poop. i took the diaper away at night. at first she would fall asleep with panties and then my husband or i would put a diaper on her. sometimes she would feel it in the morning and would pee in it in the morning. i decided to get a cloth diaper for her. since it was cloth we told her it was a panty. she still doesn't know that it'll hold like a diaper. :)

we tried very hard not to make her feel bad for any accidents because we wanted her to continue to tell us of them. we really feel that positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment for unwanted behavior. But she's 3. She's still trying to figure out what her body is doing and how to control it.

hope this helps and good luck.

have you tried pooping in front of him? i know ..sounds gross..but you could poop in front of him and then have him flush for you and say.."bye bye poo poo" that's what i've been doing w/ my 27 month old son..when we're out in public too i pee in front him and say "this is how you go to the bathroom when you're a big person/kid" and then he flushes. i'm a single mom so i don't have a husband that can do this for us.

He'll get there.Be patient.

Hi
If he is saying he is too scared. I would try to find out what he is worried about. Is it the flushing noise? Wait until he is out of the room, then flush. Is it the poop leaving? (some freudian thing about a piece of them leaving). I told my son the poop was going on an adventure, so we always waved goodbye to it, before we flushed. Sounds dumb, but it worked
Good luck

He will do it on his own when he is ready...my daughter did the same thing for a SOLID YEAR. She really struggled with it, because she would ask me to do things like "cut a hole in the diaper where the poop comes out and I will sit on the potty" (which was not successful - but was a very creative try!) then one day she just decided to do it and it was a week or two before we lost the diaper routine for poop. He is so young, just let him work through his issues and one day he may become tired of the diaper or decide that it is OK to poop in the potty. Good luck.

My younger son did the exact same thing! In fact, he would wear big-boy underwear all day and use the toilet to pee perfectly. When he had to poop, though, he'd start yelling "diaper! diaper! diaper!" I'd rush to get his undies off, and the diaper on, and he'd poop his little heart out.

The whole thing was so traumatic for him that we decided to back off. We figured he'd catch on by watching his big brother poop in the toilet and that would be much easier on all of us. Sure enough, it just took a couple of weeks or so of taking baby brother into the bathroom with big brother to solve the problem. When big brother would poop, we'd all clap and dance around then have a treat of some sort, a cupcake, or piece of candy! This "poop party" totally convinced my younger son that pooping in the toilet was the coolest!

My kids are now 20 and 21 and still pooping in the toilet just fine! By the way, they are best friends - it's great to have them so close in age!

Hi L.!
I just answered this same question so I thought I'd copy and paste it again for you! I hope it helps! :) ~R.

Just went through potty training with my 3 yr old son so this is FRESH on my mind. :) I have a 15 yr old son as well so it was literally like going through it fresh again as it was 12 yrs earlier that I had done this and couldn't remember what exactly I had done before.
So with my 3 yr old, he had been wearing BIG BOY pants (underwear) and having accidents every so often but NEVER had a BM on the toilet. We went to Lakeshore Learning and went to their charts section. I picked out one that had frogs and dragonflies and then went to the sticker section and found tiny frog stickers. At home I wrote "MATTHEW'S POTTY CHART!" on top and hung it at his level on a mirrored door in his bedroom and kept the stickers in a drawer. We had a talk and we looked at the chart on his wall. I let him know that EVERY time he goes potty in the toilet, he gets a STICKER! Make a BIG deal in this conversation. AND when he goes POO POO he gets 2 STICKERS!!! Wow! Isn't this GREAT? Let's go potty now! If he says no, just state that it's time to try. Never say Do you have to go potty?, Do you want to go potty?. State...It's TIME to go POTTY! It's not a question, it's a fact. Reward with a sticker each time he goes. Ask, Did you go Poo Poo? His answer will be no. Let him know that you have a FUN present for him that he will LOVE when he goes poo poo. Don't ever show him early but do remind him that you would LOVE to give him that present when he goes poo poo. I kept it hidden in my closet. Keep up the sticker rewards and soon enough he really will want to go poo poo to get that present. Let him hear you bragging and making a big deal to grandma, a friend etc. when it does happen and let him know how proud you are. He will be SO happy to be a BIG BOY like all the rest. If you don't already have a step stool for the bathroom, get one so that he can get on and off of the potty by himself and be independent. It's SO what they are wanting to be at this age. They really CAN get on and off even though it doesn't seem so. They figure their own system out VERY quickly. Have a routine...Potty time, Wash Hands, Underwear on (BIG BOY pants!), He gets to put the Sticker on Chart, etc.. When I started the Potty Chart I thought that it would be an incentive to my son. We would count each sticker and I would say hooray look at how many times you went potty in the toilet! You really are a BIG BOY now! Well, what I didn't realize would happen was that each time I counted with him how many times he had gone it hit me...WOW! Look at how many diapers we didn't use! I just saved a TON of money! Haaha! It really became an incentive to me as well and kept me trying harder. Let's face it, it's easier to change a diaper than to work on potty training and go through all of the steps of it BUT it really pays off in the end. Now that he is potty trained. He goes before we leave the house and we find a toilet if we are still out in an hour or two. You will know how long in between you own son will need but we go potty before he needs to ask to go usually and knock on wood, he hasn't had an accident in a month and a half.
GOOD LUCK to you BOTH!
~R.

When I knew my daughter was going to go # 2 I just grabbed her, took off her pull up and sat her down on the toilet. She was a little freaked and wanted to get off but make I told her in a calm voice that it's OK and kept her on the toilet. She couldn't hold it so the poo came out and fell in the toilet. When she was done we all congratulated her. I had her look at the poo in the toilet and let her know it was OK and what a good job she did. Since than she is now going # 2 in the toilet. Good luck.

for our little guy, we bought a whole bunch of matchbox cars... ususally $1 each if you shop for them. Everytime he peed or pooped in the potty, he got to pick one out of the bag. It didn't take too long and he was good to go! And had a whole bunch of new cars!

My son was the same way. His sister trained on one of those seats you set on the toilet and he said it was scary to. We bought one of the small training toilets and let him decorate it with stickers and that did it. He would go poop on the little toilet and pee in the big one. It's gross to clean out but eventually we got him onto the training seat and now he doesn't use either an just goes on the big toilet himself. Whichever method you have been using, try the alternative. (potty seat vs trainging toilet) good luck!

Hi. Please make sure he wont hold his poop. he can get constipated instead and it can be so painful.

My daughter was the same way - refused to poop in the potty. I bought some small toys, books, puzzles and stickers and put in a bag. Every time she went on the potty ( no pressure though) she would get a toy. She really wanted to see what was in the bag so in no time she was pooping in the potty.
It worked for us.

Good luck!
S.

Hi L.,

My daughter, who was turning 3 at the time, did the same thing. Actually she would hold it for so long she was making herself sick. Anyway, we went to the doctor and got a prescribtion for Miralax, which now you can get over the counter and Costco sells it. Basically you put it in their drinks (water or juice, not milk)and it adds water to their poop and makes it difficult to hold it for too long. And one day she just did it on her own. It was stressful, but as soon as she learned it did not hurt to go (that is why most will not in the potty) she will go all the time in the potty.

Good luck!

L. P.

Hi L. :)
Just for some peace of mind, I don't know any little one who hasn't been afraid of pooping while they're potty training. That is completely normal. Both of my kids went through it as well. My son would rather have gone in his underwear than the toilet at one point- this was just about 5 or 6 months ago~ he turned 3 today. So things will change. Just give him time and help him to have patience with himself. :) It's just part of developing into a different stage in life. Plus, they're so used to having everything so packed around them in the diapers, this probably feels like a loss of comfort to your son. I can understand how he feels scared. It's a taste of the unknown... something new; but now he can understand new in a different way because he's older. Really, it's no big deal... it's just yucky at times! :p :) Hang in there!

I had an awful time with my daughter. I wish I'd tried the trick of giving her a piece of chocolate everytime she pooped in the potty -- a friend did that and it worked for her. My child was more stubborn about it; it may not have worked but would have been worth a try! I pretended the poop was going to have a party down in the potty. I was really at a loss. But she did get over it after over a year of constipation, etc. Try everything sticking with one thing at a time and make sure you are not ambiguous about it. I really think they read us too. Why is poop so precious to a 3 year old? I wish you the very best.
G.

L., I wish you the best of luck with the potty training. I just recently pottytrained my 2 1/2 year old son. It was actually easier then my daughter. I just made sure that I had plenty of their favorite snacks on hand. My daughter loves ice cream. When I potty trained her, I would tell her that if she went poo in the potty, she could have some ice cream. It worked. With my son it was popcicles. (Fudge pops to be exact) I hope this helps, I know the relief I felt when I realized I would never have to change another diaper.

Sounds like a control issue. We run our kids lives and tell them how and when to do things. My daughter did this for a while and i finally put my foot down and told her this is how it is and if you do not listen to me then i will have to start taking away your things until you listen to me. Make sure he understands that you want him to listen and follow the rules, and that rule is that you go poop in the potty not in your pants.
We teach our kids from day one to go pee and poop in their diaper, when we potty train we have to re teach them to do this a whole new way.
Think of it as teaching him how to play a game the right way. there is a way to play and you have to follow the rules in order for it to go right.
Potty training is hard but as long as you keep your cool and don't show him your frustration and make him listen to you, it wont be long until he is completely potty trained.
If you are concerned that it might be a medical issue then take him to the doctor before you do anything else. You could also feed him foods that help him to poo more, have him drink a lot of water. My kids love eating a prune a day.
Take care and i hope this all works out for you soon.
B.

Good morning L.,
i have a 3 year old daughter and i had a similar problem when my daughter was potty trainging. she had a fine time going in the toilet if it was just #1 but when it came to #2 she would go in her lil spots. So what i did, i would see when she was going to her spot(s) to go and i would put her potty there. Whether it be in the closet or behind the door, I put it there and eventually she would go in it. Then lil by lil i would take it to the restroom and since she started getting comfy going in the potty she would go in the potty in the restroom. Plus, i gave her a lot of praise. We even had a lil dance we would do after every time she went in the toilet. now she is fully potty trained. so maybe this may give you an option. I'm sure he will eventually get over his fear. Good luck.

If you are using the regular toilet for him, you need to try a baby potty chair. It's so much less scarey for him. How would you feel if you were little and did not understand the toilet and was afraid you were going to fall in and get flushed? Like I said, use a baby seat.

Hi! I'm a mom of 2 boys (4yrs & 2yrs) and I had the same problem with my older son. We also went through a little regression around the same time period. I started with a reward system (for every poop in the potty I gave him a new hot wheels- cheap and I kept a stock pile) That worked at first, but then he regressed again so I decided to get a little tougher. No more rewards. I didn't punish him, but I told him stearnly, 'You are a big boy and you are big to poop in your pants; it is not acceptable. Next time you go in the potty.' I also had him dress himself after I cleaned him up. I refused to budge and and wouldn't put him in a Pull-up and eventually he really got tired of poop in his undies and putting on his clothes. I was also told that sometimes when kids are afraid to poop in the potty it's because they think they are flushing a part of themselves down the toilet. Explaining what poop is and how and why it comes out really helped my son, too. Hope this helps and that you find a solution! I'm sure it will pass-everyone eventually poops in the potty right?! It's just hard to wait it out sometimes...

Have you tried letting him pick out his own potty chair? I had success with my daughter in the same situation, she peed on the potty fine but pooping was a different matter. Someone suggested letting her get her own potty chair (she chose one that played music every time she went) and we saw more consistent potty use. (We also combined it with treats like a chocolate covered raisin or a small cookie from a 100 calorie pack). Good luck !!!