Need Advice on How to Get My 2 Yr Old to Poop on the Potty

Hi V.,

I too have a 2 1/2 year old son. I also have an 18 year old daughter and another boy due Dec, 15. Anywsay, My son goes to school at Nova. He will go # 1 also on the potty , but not # 2. This is VERY normal. They say some boys do not until almost 4 years. that happened to a girlfriend. The problem is the more you push the worse it will be. I have been told they will eventually get it. All kids in kindergarten go to the potty!!! I am expecting my son to take a couple steps backwards when the baby comes. Just try not to make a big deal or make him feel bad about it. I take the poop in the pull ups or diaper and we flush it down the potty together. I am hopeing he will get it soon, but don't worry he will go # 2 at some point on the potty...

I don't have any great advice other than keep trying and being encouraging. My 2 year old won't go poop either, but he also always pees in the toilet. My previous 2 children were 3 by the time they were completely potty trained, they just took that long. My oldest son was 2 1/2. But with him, I discovered he was actually terrified of pooping on the toilet, but he also had no problem peeing. I did my best with him to reassure him. One day I caught him having to go, put him on it, with him crying hysterically the whole time. I actually hugged him while he was on the potty, not exactly the funnest position to be in, but he was comforted by it. After he went, I hugged him more and told him how great it was. He was potty trained completely after that day.

My daughter was the same way. You can't force it on them, he will do it on his own. I just kept reminding her that big girls don't go potty in their pants, only babies do and one day (after she had just turned 3) she told me "i'm not going to poop in my panties anymore". And that was it, her decision, and she was all trained :) Good luck!

V.,

I don't have any advice but I do offer consolation. I had four daughters and am now raising 3 of my 11 Grans. When my daughter #3 was small and 'potty training' she would have NO problem with going in the toilet, however, if I were not there with her the entire time she would wrap her poop up in her panties and hide it!! We would have to search by following the smell, we would find the mess in toyboxes, drawers, under beds, under the couch, etc..

The good news is that by the time she started school she had simply 'outgrown' the problem. I don't think it was a mental problem per se, but do believe that it was something troubling to HER for some reason.

I can only say try to be with the child whenever possible while having a BM and explain in his language why this isn't good. He will realize in his own time & way that this isn't a good thing and change.

Hang in there!

A.

Hi, V.. Well, it sounds like you really do know your son very well in terms of your instincts that something is bothering him about pooping in the potty, and that may be what's holding him back from pooping there.

The fact that he hides, I think, is a really good clue. Maybe he's ashamed of his poop. Maybe because it smells bad, and he knows it's dirty, he doesn't want to do it there. He wants to do it in secret. I know that makes no logical sense because then he comes to you for changing, but 3-year-old logic is very, very different from adult logic.

Maybe if he sat alone on the potty and you were just in the next room where you can hear him if he needs your help, maybe that would give him a sense of privacy and such. Maybe for him it feels more dignified to do the pooping process in private, and then get your help with the aftermath. Try giving him a compromise that will give him a little more dignity than having Mom watch him. He doesn't have the words to tell you this, but his actions are his language. He doesn't want to go in front of you.

Also, even though you are being every bit as patient and nice as humanly possible, you do have negative feelings about this whole snag in the pooping process, and I'm sure he's picking up on it. Maybe if he didn't have to feel your anxiety about the fact that he hasn't mastered potty pooping yet, he might do it all by himself.

Also, I think that maybe he might be hangingin onto this last little bit of babyhood by having you clean up his poop. He wants to be a big, big boy, but he still needs a little reassurance that he's not going to lose that attention and protection.

#1 - make him help you clean up his poop from the diaper or his pants. Do it together as a team. I'm sure he won't like that, and he won't be very good at it, but get him to wipe his bottom, scrape out his underwear or something, gently make him participate in the process of cleaning himself up, and then gently let him know that if he poops in the potty, he won't have to do this cleaning up of his pants anymore. The potty takes it all away, just like his pee, and no one has to deal with it. That's a good, gentle deterrent, a reason to do things differently in order to avoid something unpleasant. It's just an idea. See if it helps.

#2 - Make sure you give him plenty of attention in other ways. Make sure he knows that you will always love him and that will never change. Even though he goes off and does things on his own, seek him out sometimes and let him know you'd like his company, that you'd like to play with him, and he won't need to get your attention when his independence wears out and he needs some little guy reassurance. This can help bridge him into letting go of this baby behavior of needing to be changed like a small infant. Also, see if you can show him a baby in a poopy diaper being changed; let him see that that's something just for babies, and he's a lot bigger now. Let him see the comparison between himself and the tiny baby.

#3 - You can try a little amateur art therapy with him. Sit down and draw pictures with him for a while, and then maybe the two of you can each draw the potties you use. See if you can get him to draw what he likes about the potty, and then have him draw what he doesn't like about the potty. He may surprise you with his artistic answer. He may give you a clue about what's bothering him, and you might be able to clear up some little fear he has, or take away some discomfort he might have.

See if Dad can help with the process, too. Maybe Dad can talk to him, without any pressure, about what it feels like to be a big boy and poop in the potty. I don't know how open your family is, but maybe if Dad can let the little one see him do it once (I know that sounds disgusting, but it sounds like you're desperate to have this resolved). Maybe your older son, if he agrees to help, can talk to the little one about it, too, how nice it is to go in the potty, so the little one can be a really big boy, too. It's just a suggestion. Don't do anything your family isn't comfortable with.

Anyway, I hope my suggestions are helpful, and I hope that your family gets through this without any further snags in the process.

Peace,
Syl

Many of the things we used on my now 2 and 4 year old sons were part of our success. The "Everyone Poops" book, absolutely no diapers/pull-ups, no more laying down to clean up potty messes (no more changing tables or beds), and we used a sticker chart and later LOLLIPOPS for poops, "magic beans" for pees (M&M's).

But above all, I modeled the behavior I expected. My description may be TMI for some (here is your warning). I would ANNOUNCE that I feel a poopie is about to come out and asked my son's what I should do. "Do I poopie in my pants?" and I would start to squat down and grimace my face. They would quickly correct me and say "run fast to the potty, Mommy!" So I would run to the bathroom and squat again "right here?" and grimace again. "NO, in the potty Mommy, hurry take your pants off". "Oh, in the potty?" And I would model my grimace on the potty and say "Yeah, I did it!". Then I would make a huge deal that I did it the right way. "Yeah, Mommy when poo-poo in the potty. Mommy is a good girl, she gets a lollipop cause she kept her underwear clean and dry." Then I would ask them what else I needed to do and urge them to wave good bye to my poopie and clap for my success. Then I would model washing my hands and getting my treat. They would always ask me for a lollipop too and I would tell them that they have to make the poop go in the potty to get a lollipop.

If I caught them in mid-squat/grimace in a corner, I would lift them up and tell them "hurry, hurry, you go poo-poo in the potty to get a lollipop". If we were too late, I would roll the poop out of their underwear into the potty and then clap and say bye-bye poop-poo and let the child do the flushing. If they started to poop in their underwear BUT FINISHED up in the potty - then praise like a RAVING LUNATIC!!!! Rewards and treats as if there was no accident in the underwear at all.

People in general learn the best when they are the "teachers". So let them teach YOU.

First, let me say that I think most all of us have been exactly where you are... what in the world is so scary about pooping on the potty???

Ok, this is what worked for me. I took away the changing table & put all diapers/ wipes & such in the bathroom. I then insisted that even if he didn't want to poop on the potty, he HAD to poop in the bathroom- I would literally pick him up from his hiding spot (that's what he did) & put him in the bathroom and made him stand there while he did it. The first few times he complained, then he finally relented. This lasted about 2 weeks.

While we were in the stage of pooping in the bathroom (but not quite on the potty), I took him to the store and let him pick out a few packs of fun underpants. We also got him a "big boy bike" (about $30 bucks). I reminded him every day that he couldn't wear his big boy pants or ride his big boy bike until he was a big boy (and of course that meant using the potty). This took a couple of weeks and it worked.

I think the biggest step was forcing him to be in the bathroom and not letting him continue to run around & play (or hide as the case may be). I also made a big deal about him messing up his pants- that I would throw them away... he had a pair of motorcycle underpants that he pooped in at the beginning and I tossed them... those were his favorites... I think he started to connect that dots a little better. By the way, he was about 2 years and 8 months when we started this process

Have patience. A friend of mine once said that they don't go off to college in diapers, so you know at some point this will happen.

Good luck!

--P.

I have no advice for you. However, I feel for you. My little guy will be 4 in Jan. and is doing the same exact thing. He has been otherwise pee pee trained for almost 6 months and even wakes up at night to go. I hope it works out soon all around.

Who knows why they do this (fear? stubbornness?) but they do. My theory is they just need to get used to going poop in the potty, and once the get used to it becomes habit and they don't even think about it anymore. But, they need enough motivation to get past that fear and make it a habit.

Here's how it went for me: My son was completely trained on pee-pee by 2 1/2, but our final hurdle to eliminating diapers was getting him to go poop in the potty. He just wouldn't do it, no matter how much I pleaded with him. He would hold it as long as he could, and then he would ask me to put a diaper on. Then one day, I finally refused and told him he HAD to go in the potty no matter what. Instead, he figured out how to get one of his little brother's diapers out of the drawer and diapered himself!

Candies and stickers and such did not work for us either. He needed more motivation...we had to bring in the big guns and make a big deal out of it. So, we bought him a special toy (nothing outrageous, but big enough that it is something he would normally only get for Christmas or birthday otherwise, so he knew this was a special occasion - we bought a toy train that cost about $25). We showed it to him in the evening (around the time he would normally ask for a diaper). He got very excited, and then I explained that we would only open the toy if he went poop in the potty. He decided he would try, but he didn't go, so no toy. We put it away in the closet unopened and told him that we could try again tomorrow. He was determined though, and tried again, and sat on that potty until he went. We sang the potty song (something I just made up), did the potty dance, gave him the toy and made a really big deal out of it.

At bed time, we put the toy away, and told him that it was special and he could only play with it after going poop in the potty. So, the next night he was excited to go poop in the potty and get to play with his toy again. He liked the idea that it was special that way. Also, I made sure that his little brother was not allowed to play with it, so that made it even more special to him. He went on for about a week and eventually stopped asking for the toy after every poop, but continued to be fully 100% potty trained since then and has not once asked for a diaper. He can play with the toy all the time now, and is proud of himself. He even told me that he was potty trained and refused diapers altogether, even at night (which actually was not even a problem for him).

As a side note...At that age I believe the reward has to be immediate and tangible in order for it to work (i.e. NOT the promise to pick out a toy on your next trip to Walmart, or a future trip to Disney).

I now have a 21 month old, and I have employed a different strategy this time around. I have been putting him on the potty to poop since he was 15 months. When I see that "poopy face" or when he suddenly gets real quiet, I rush him to the potty to do his business (he goes pee-pee too while he's there). He does great...waves bye-bye to his poopy and gets really excited when he sees it in the potty. I hardly expect him to be potty trained anytime soon, but at least this way he will be completely used to pooping on the potty when he is ready. I am hoping this reverse strategy (training on poop first) works better and we can avoid the struggle.

My daughter went through the same thing just before she turned three. I was pulling my hair out until someone suggested buying the book "Everybody Poops" Yes, it is a disgusting book but a little funny as well. She adjusted quickly (About 2 weeks) after we started reading her the book and never looked back.

I have 2 boys ages 7 and 3. They were both so easy to train to go #1 in the potty but I experienced the same problems as you with #2. This seems to be a normal stage, growing pains if you will. Encourage him that he is big boy and that daddy is a big boy that doesnt poop his pants, daddy poops in the potty. reiterate this info regarding all the non babies. If you catch him being sneaking about poo time, quickly rush him to the potty and give him the words to use "mommy (teacher, daddy, etc) help me go potty". have a step stool ready and easy to pull down pull ups or underwear. If he already soiled himself show him that it belongs in the potty by shaking it into the toilet and perhaps explain to him that the waste from his food comes out of him and has to go down the potty. Let him flush the toilet and make sure all "accidents" are changed in the bathroom. No more diaper table or bed or floor. Bathroom only. Have conversations about this when he doesnt need to use the potty. Make him feel comfortable and be strict about using the potty. If you notice he usually poos during a certain time of the day, try sticking him on the pot to try pushing there. Celebrate when he is successful. Ever see look whos talking? I sang the poopie in the potty song and my sons enjoy that.
Hope this helps =)

If he's still not trained up the reward. All my son had to hear was "anywhere" you want to go, Disney or Sea World. I put a poster and stickers to show him how many times he had to go to meet the goal. Worked like a charm. Along with that I acted like his diaper changes and accidents were no big deal, very hard but affective. I know this is late. Hopefully he's past all of this :)

Hi V.:

I had the same exact problem with my now 4 yr old daughter. The thing that seemed to finally work for us was simple bribery.

We started rewarding her with a jelly bean or two each time she went poop in the potty. This later turned into lolly pops, and finally we just stopped giving her treats and told her she was big now, and thats the way she had to go potty.

This worked for us......took a little time, but it worked.

Good Luck!

S.

My son was scared. I think it was just because it was something new and he didn't understand. We just kept trying. We used bribary - gummy worms worked for us.

Hi. I had the same problem with my son. The only thing that worked for was tattoos. From the age of 2-3 I had to give him a fake tattoo if pooped on the potty. He is now almost 4 and doesnt have a problem anymore. The dollar store sells all the cool tattoos like sponge bob, cars and dora. Try that.