Hi Moms,
My little guy is 2 1/2. He is potty trained. He did it mostly on his own. However, the poop issue is not the same. He tells us if he needs to poop, goes to the restroom but won't do it. He used to do it in his undies, but now he doesn't want to do that. He doesn't like getting his pants messy. So now he knows he has to go, but won't. The few times that he has pooped on the potty he acts like it scares him. I'm afraid he's getting constipated. We've even done an enema. He even held that in for as long as possible. I think it was due to fear. After more than 5 minutes, he finally went. Things we have tried: he gets 2 skittle for pee, 5 for poop, when he does poop he can call anyone he'd like to tell them what he did, i let him pick out a toy to motivate him to poop in potty, lots of fruit/fruit juices...etc. Nothing seems to be working.
If anyone has advice on how to get a boy to successfully start pooping on the potty, please let me know.
Personally, I would put him in a pull up and let him go in that. He wiil make himself sick, if he doesn't want to poop that badly. I don't think it is worth it.
I have also heard people that let their kids squat on the toilet (as in put their feet on the seat) and poop that way.
I have 3 little ones myself, twins who just turned 4 and another little boy who is 2 1/2. With my youngest, when I know he has to go to the potty, I make him sit on the potty and I don't let him get up until he goes. Different kids have different personalities but this seems to work best for us!
This is embarrassing, but my own mother told me that my doctor advised her to sit me on the potty with a book, and let me stay there and read until I did my business. Supposedly this took my mind off of "having" to poop, and my body would take care of it on its own while my mind stayed occupied. She claims that I was just too busy playing and didn't want to take the time to sit down, but I did like to look at books. LOL!
Hi J.,
My grandson was the same way He is 3 and it was driving his mom and dad to death because he wouldn't go poop in the potty She got in a new potty and let him pick it out all the works!Still no luck I even suggested to leave him in his dirty pants.So Dad did for about 45 mins and Dallas( my grandson) kept coming asking him to clean him up but Daddy stood his ground and made him wear it for awhile(which was hard on everyone) He promised his daddy if he cleaned him up he wouldn't poop in his pants again.It worked until I went to visit and I had to clean him up and I told him that only babies pooped thier pants that Big Boys didn't They said he never messed his pants again So if your Mom or Mother-in-law close by maybe they can help by talking to him about it He will not want to dissapoint Grandmother. Hope it works for you as it did her.
V. Hampton
Arbonne International
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www.valeriehampton.com
My daughter had the same problem at the same age. With advice from a friend I just told her that if she had to poop I would give her a diaper and she could poop and then I would just put her panties back on. I stopped focusing on it so much and really made it out to be no big deal. After a month or so she just started going on the potty.
Good luck.
Put him back in a diaper.....he's obviously not truly ready yet.....maybe being back in a diaper will make him want to put his big boy pants back on. Tell him he can't have his underwear back until he poops on the potty. He just doesn't seem ready yet.....my son likes to poop on the potty when my husband is home and on weekends, but tends not to for me during the week....we do not push him to go, he still wears diapers. We put him in underwear a lot, but he will poop in them occasionally. We are taking it as it comes, it will happen eventually....as will your son go as well. I think by making it such an issue, your son is probl. scared of the whole process, especially after an enema! That would freak out any little child! Don't do that again....it's traumatizing and could damage your child's bodily readiness cue. Good luck and don't stress....
Hi, J.. My daughter was the same way... she was "pee-pee trained" but would refuse to go poop on the potty. I asked her pediatrician about it, and he said it was completely normal and not to worry. My daughter would never poop in her panties. She would simply ask us for a diaper because she had to go poop. We tried the motivation charts, the rewards with little gifts, etc., but nothing would motivate her to poop anywhere but in her diaper. We allowed her to poop in the diaper, so she wouldn't hold her poop and get "backed up". :) I will tell you that she was "pee-pee trained" about 6 months before she went poop on the potty, but once she did and got over whatever it was in her mind that was keeping her from doing it, she's been doing it ever since. She was so proud of herself. Allowing her to do it when she was ready and using the diapers until she was ready worked for us. Good luck!
uh...it is gonna sound gross. But I think it was castor oil. My sil had this problem. She just gave hers a dose of something simple like that and he had no choice--it just oozed out. LOL But a few doses of that and he learned it is better to sit on the little potty on the floor (kid pot) than to have that happen in your pants. ;-)
currently struggling with the same thing. one thing that has brought some improvement is explaining how his body works. we talk about the food going in, his tummy working on it, and it goes down, down, down and comes out his bottom. understanding it (to a degree) helped him to relax a little bit about it.
he likes to be alone, so my husband suggested putting his training potty in the corner (where he likes to go hide) or behind the door. that way, he can have the privacy and still poop in the potty. actually haven't tried that yet, but plan to.
good luck. i never had a college roommate who still wore diapers, so it will work out eventually!
same issue as you. My little boy would get super embarressed when he pooped in his pants and so he would just not want to go. Neither child ( little girl same age) wanted to poop in potty. All the sudden my son saw a 3 1/2 year old go potty and he was "cured"! It was amazing. He has seen me, his dad, his nana, and pappy go on the potty - but the little kid close to his age. That fixed it. Might work for you, might not...you just never know!
My oldest daughter refused to go number 2 on the potty, so what we did was go to Wal-mart and buy lots of cheap toys and put them in a gift bag on the back of the toliet. We told her that if she goes poop on the potty, she gets to pick something from the gift bag. She knew what was in the bag and we would talk about what she was going to pick next. It took about a week before she went, but she finally did. We had to use this technique for about a month and a half and then she stopped asking or looking for a reward.
Her personality is still like this today. If there is something in it for her, she will gladly do it. We still use charts and stickers for rewards in order to get her to do things. If you think about it, most adults work that way.
Best of luck.
Ditto a bunch of the others. My oldest daughter pooped in a pull-up for a long time before she was ready to go on the big potty. We tried all sorts of incentives, but until she was ready nothing worked. She did have a bunch of fears - the 1st time she did actually go she said "it didn't splash me, it wasn't loud", etc. I guess there is a lot of fear involved. Now, we are going through the exact same thing with our younger daughter! We offer the potty and try to get her on it, but this morning she told me "no thanks, I want a diaper!" She, like her sister, has been 'pee' trained for months - even overnight... I guess it just takes a little more time.
Good luck!
Is he using the regular potty? Some ideas: try a potty seat so he isn't so small and in "danger" of falling in; turn him around on the seat so he can hold onto the tank of the toilet; try using a training potty instead of the regular potty - he may not like the splash that sometimes happens. If you think it might be painful, try giving him Karo syrup or prunes to regulate him a little bit. All in all, try asking him what's going on.
Well, I feel your pain and frustration. I wrote in with a similar problem here many months ago. I went through many of the same things with my now 4 1/2 year old. I am also a former elem. school teacher and now a SAHM. Please take my advice- he will do it when he is ready and no matter what you do he will NOT do it until he is ready. You will only make yourself crazy. When I found out that many kids are not poop potty trained until they are much older I felt so much better. Mine was potty trained at 3 for about 3 months. He had a painful poop and would not poop in the potty again for almost a full year. It was just after his fourth birthday that he was fully trained. I don't tell you that to depress you, I promise. What finally worked is that I was given a prescription for liquid fiber by our pediatrician and gave it to him in his juice each morning to make him go and keep him from getting constipated. He would ask me for a pull up when he needed to poop. I told him to let me know when he thought he was old enough (big boy) to poop in the potty. Then No ONE talked about it anymore!!!!!!!!!!!! He got no more attention regarding it at all. You know neg. attention is better than none. There was no more payoff-even though i don't know if he realized that. At one point we had taken a favorite toy that had been recently bought for him. I told him that I felt like that was a big boys toy and that he could have it again when he was ready. About 1 week later he came to me asking for the toy. I told him that I thought he would be old enough for that toy once he thought that HE had gotten old enough to use the potty. That was the first time that I had mentioned the potty in about 1 month. (THAT was hard to do by the way) LOL Literally about 1 hour later he came to me and asked for a pull up because he had to poop. So I told him that I thought he was just about old enough to make a big boy decision. He thought he was. (of couse) I told him that he could decide to poop in the potty and he would then be old enough to get the toy- or Mommy would give him a pull up , but the toy would have to wait until later until was old enough for it. He walked out of the room- I though to get a pull up. But the next thing you know he was yelling for me to come into the bathroom. He had gone poop. It was great we celebrated he got the big boy toy and all has been well since them. With my stuborn son it HAD to be his idea. Anyway, I hope my story will help you in some way. I KNOW how frustrated you are. He will when he is ready!! TAke care. Let us know what happenes.
My son was the same way. He had been using the big potty to pee, and liked to do it himself. He seemed to get really shy when I would have to go and help him sit on the big potty to poop. What I finally did was "reintroduce" the little potty. I told him that this was his pooping potty. He could then go in there whenever he felt the urge and go, and just call me when he was finished. That seemed to really help with the embarrassment factor. Also, another tactic that worked pretty well was stories. Each night before bed I would start a really good made up story (he really liked ones about superheroes). Just when we got to the good part, I would end it abruptly. When he asked what happened next, I would tell him I would finish the story when he pooped. It was a great motivator. When he got the urge to go, rather than holding it, he would run to the bathroom just so I would finish the story. Hope this helps.
