Question....PLEASE help!!!

I have b/g 19 month old twins, and a 3 year old boy. We have our 3 year old potty trained for going "pee", but we are having a DIFFICULT time getting him to go "poo poo" in the potty. He has gone probably 3 times in the potty at the beginning of the "Poo poo" venture, but now he refuses to go "poo poo" in the potty and requests to take a nap a "night night" undies (diaper) on him. He does not take a nap he goes in his room and goes "poo poo" in his diaper and then plays with his toys until the babies wake up from their nap. I have tried just not putting the "night night" undies on him, and he just holds his "poop" until his tummy hurts. Then he whines and whines that his tummy hurts until we give and put his night night undies on or he just poops in his regular underwear. I am somewhat at my wits end with this, and don't know how to get him fully potty trained. Can someone please help me with this or gives me some pointers.

Thanks,
Andrea

 

I have b/g 19 month old twins, and a 3 year old boy. We have our 3 year old potty trained for going "pee", but we are having a DIFFICULT time getting him to go "poo poo" in the potty. He has gone probably 3 times in the potty at the beginning of the "Poo poo" venture, but now he refuses to go "poo poo" in the potty and requests to take a nap a "night night" undies (diaper) on him. He does not take a nap he goes in his room and goes "poo poo" in his diaper and then plays with his toys until the babies wake up from their nap. I have tried just not putting the "night night" undies on him, and he just holds his "poop" until his tummy hurts. Then he whines and whines that his tummy hurts until we give and put his night night undies on or he just poops in his regular underwear. I am somewhat at my wits end with this, and don't know how to get him fully potty trained. Can someone please help me with this or gives me some pointers.

Thanks,
Andrea

 

I work with preschoolers with Autism and potty training is a big part of my job. I think you need to start with offering a ton of positive reinforcement for just sitting and "trying" to poop on the potty. Find something that he likes and only give it when he sits and tries. It can be food or a toy but it should only be made available for that time. When he's done, take the item away. At first, it may only be for a few seconds but you can just keep adding time. As you space out the time, you can eventually reinforce him for going. Right now you need to have the experience seem positive. Pair the reinforcement with tons of verbal praise ("What a big guy you are sitting on the potty", "great job trying to poop" etc). Did he learn to pee standing up? When we teach toilet training, we tell parents to only sit children because it can be hard to train them for BM's later. The other thing is the underwear issue. We tell parents NO diapers/pull-ups/padded underwear- the cold turkey approach, except for nighttime. It works best for kids who hate being wet/dirty. Obviously there are a lot of kids who don't mind (I strongly suspect that my DD will fall in this category). It will eventually happen and try to keep it as positive as possible. Oh one other thing is that to prepare, you can write down when he poops. If you see a pattern to when he's going, you can catch him before and get him into the bathroom. So, you could keep a log for the next few days and then start. Good luck!

 

My oldest DS was not pooping regularly on the potty until closer to 4. My youngest DS was going sooner, but he had someone to model. I really wouldn't push it. You can have all kinds of issues with pooping if you make this a big deal.

I can say that I found it easier to have them try after their nightly bath. I'd read them a book or two while they tried. I even pretended to have one of their favorite toys poop in the potty (silly...but hey, they believed it!).

 

No advice but I wanted to let you know I feel for you. My niece went through this with her youngest boy. It was a good 6mos after he was pee-trained before we would poop in the potty. I think it just finally clicked for him one day because she tried everything.

 

Kayla would always go during nap or immediately after getting tucked into bed (the two times a day she got a diaper). I would just continuously tell her that poop goes in the potty. One day she had to go real bad, we just happened to be in the peds office and there was a bathroom the next door from our room. She went in and went immediately. From that point on we had no more issues. The best thing for us was to just wait it out, she never went in her underwear so I knew she 'knew' the process it just took a little longer in coming than the pee training did. I think you will find this is a fairly common happening that time will take care of.

 

I had that problem with two of my sons. Jackson would only poop on the potty chair, not the big toilet, and if his potty chair wasn't with him, he would hold it as long as he could and then poop accidentally in his underwear. I remember one vacation when he was 3.5, he got such a stomach ache from holding it that we put a diaper on him just so he could poop. Hayden would purposefully hold it even while sitting on the potty, and the minute I put his underwear back on, he'd poop in the underwear on purpose.

It ended up Jackson was both afraid of the splash of the big toilet and of not having his feet on the ground. When we put a step stool under his feet and when he finally found out the poop didn't make that big of a splash, he was fine. I also remember new Bob the Builder underwear being a big incentive for him.

With Hayden, he spent a couple days with his grandma out of town and came back poop trained. She said she put him on the potty very frequently and spent lots of time reading to him and giving him a lot of attention while he sat. While I had been putting him on frequently at home and reading to him, too, I likely didn't spend the time she did (out of necessity).

Anyway, just be patient, as difficult as that is. The problem is not abnormal. Your child WILL get it one day, but I know it's extremely frustrating waiting for that day! Good luck!

 

I was in your same exact shoes last year at this time!

At about 3 1/2, my middle son was peeing on the potty, but refused to poop. He pooped about 3 or 4 times, but it was really a fluke. We tried sticker charts, rewards, etc etc but NOTHING seemed to work.

Then last summer, right before his 4th b-day he became fascinated with bubble gum (because of my older son)....and that was it, he wanted gum and I only had to tell him once that he could have gum if he pooped on the potty. It worked. I knew he was ready, he is just really hard-headed and I think it became a power struggle (especially with the twins adding chaos to the house). But, bubble gum was our ace in the hole.

Anyway, I know all kiddos are different, but your not alone in your struggle. Eventually, it will happen!

 

I used a POTTY REWARDS POSTER for Connor. Every time he used the potty, he got to put a sticker on the chart himself. We had tried candy and a few other things, but he really responded to the poster and stickers. He was not fully trained until about 3.5 yrs old. He is still trying to hold his poo once in a while, but no accidents for a few months, so YAY!
It WILL happen soon, just follow his cues. He may not be ready to go poo on the potty yet.
Good luck!