Why on earth does he poop in his diaper at naptime?

My DS has been potty trained since Feb. during the day and has done great. He continues to wear a diaper at naptime and bedtime but the past few months he consistently will poop in his diaper before going to sleep. I have tried everything from being nice to timeout to treats, you name it to get him to come out of his room and go the the bathroom. He goes poop during the day just fine in the potty. He is in a big boy bed so there is no issue of him not being able to get out of bed. WHAT IS THE DEAL. He will usually get on the floor and play with his toys (at naptime), which I do not appreciate but he is in his room. I will go in several times and put him back in bed and that is when I will discover he has pooped while playing. I have explained that all he has to do is open his door and go to the bathroom and he just won't. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

No great ideas here, but FWIW, my DDs (who are almost 4!) both still poop in their pull-ups nearly every night after we put them to bed. They are totally day trained and have no trouble pooping in the potty, but once that pull-up is on, they will NOT leave the room to go poop. To some degree I think old habits just die hard. They don't mind the feeling of poop in their diapers (though I can't imagine why not), and they don't want to stop what they're doing to go poop. Also, it means they get to see us one more time when we come to change them.

We've decided just not to worry about it until they're ready to wear underpants at night (which seems not to be happening anytime soon). Letting them leave the room to go potty opens up a whole new can of worms anyway!

Amy (in particular) also went through phases of pooping at naptime (before she stopped napping completely). There were months when it was a regular occurrence -- put her down for nap, wait 20 minutes, change poopy diaper, put her down again, and then she'd fall asleep. Maddening, but at least she slept eventually.

 

Natalie does the same thing. It's baffling to me, I can't imagine why you wouldn't rather poop on the potty than in a diaper and be changed. She is also completly day trained. She usually poops in her diaper after being put down for nap - and being asked if she needs to get on the potty. She is in a crib (getting big girl beds for their birthday) she calls for me to come change her - she knows she can call me to get her out to get on the potty - she just doesn't.

 

Could it be anything to do with position? We aren't PTing yet, but both my kids poop face down on the floor with their butts sticking up in the air. Even when they learn to do it sitting on the potty, I can easily imagine them reverting to that position when they get a chance.

 

Why? because he can. Because he probably knows it bugs you. Because it is one of the only things they can control. Because they often think it is fun to torture us this way. Because they are toddlers and do weird things. Because potty training is THE BIGGEST NIGHTMARE I HAVE EVER BEEN THROUGH............... and I secretly think my kids know it. So they do things like this too (and worse) to make me insane.

:headbang:

 

YES!!!

We went through this with Aaron. I just put him to nap and bed about half an hour earlier so that he had time to poop, I could change him and he'd still be asleep at a decent time. We just had to wait it out.

 

We had this issue as well with DS. I asked the Ped about it and she attributed it to being relaxed even if not asleep. One thing I tried with varying success was to feed a bit earlier, let them play, and hopefully poop before nap. I would send both to "sit" before naptime. DD really needed books to relax enough to poop so I would read them each a couple of stories while they sat on the potty.

Best of luck! It will get better.