Um, if it is “fear of falling in,” get one of those miniaturized toilet seats that are designed for kids to be able to sit in easily. They have a sort of pail beneath that you then empty into the big toilet.
With my daughter I used a combination of a dose of mag citrate and just insisting she stay on the potty until she pooped, which turned out to be about 15 minutes. She had been reliably bladder trained for several weeks but asked for a diaper for BMs. I just couldn’t deal with that anymore. There were tears from both of us, but the bridge was crossed. It was the potty from then on.
Have you asked him why he doesn’t want to? Can he tell you?
My daughter hates the way her feet dangle on the toilet. She’ll put up with it for a moment for urine, but not for the time it takes to poop. A stool (footstool!) can solve that.
Maybe he doesn’t like to take the time? For some people, pooping is a 5-10 minute activity - do you *know *how many lego castles you can build and knock over in 10 minutes? 
Having a book or lap table or tv tray and some toys in the bathroom while he’s moving his bowels might help keep him from feeling like he’s missing out on stuff.
Is he having a power struggle with his dad? If so, some patience and some one on one play time with Dad might strengthen their relationship and make it not such a big deal to be “right” about this. (On both sides, actually.)
Are his stools hard and painful? For some reason, kids with ouchy poops prefer diapers to the toilet. I don’t know why, it’s been too long since I wore diapers, but apparently it doesn’t hurt as much. If this is the problem, changing his diet to include more fiber and more water might help. Pears are great for this - canned or fresh.
Alternately, are his stools loose and watery? Some kids hate the “splashback” that a forceful loose stool can produce. Again, more fiber and water, but also less fat in the diet can help firm up stools. A scraped apple - cut the apple in half and scrape at it with a spoon and have him eat the mush (sorry, applesauce won’t work, it has to be fresh and uncooked) - can help firm up loose stools.
Good luck, dear. We’re having issues with our 3 year old (girl) at the moment. Mostly issues of the “sometimes she feels like it and sometimes she doesn’t” variety. I haven’t gotten hard core on her yet.
OH! One other idea - I noticed today that she stayed dry all day…and she’s been wearing her favorite Princess dress today. Does he have a favorite pair of pants that he won’t want to get soiled? Might be worth it to let him wear them for a week straight until he gets past this obstacle, whatever it is.
No one way will work for all kids. And for some kids, no way works but time.
As a developmental pediatrician friend of mine told me: Unless they have significant physical disabilities, they will by out of diapers in time for their wedding.
And in an irony of ironies, good friends of mine, a psychiatrist (with a subspecialty in child psychiatry) and a pediatrician, had their eldest refuse to stool in the toilet until he was 6. The rest of their kids were a breeze, but this one was oppositional about this issue, and nothing worked. And yes, they tried just about everything suggested above, with at least 6 other approaches.
This was going to be exactly my suggestion. I have to admit that I can’t identify with this can’t-poo-in-toilet problem too much. My kids had no problems with pooping in their kiddie potty from early on. We just plopped them there in the morning and out it came like clockwork every day. OTOH toilet training the peeing was a different story. But that just took some patience.
The book was really clear about this not being a punishment. Just a little education in How The World Works. Mom is not going to follow you around for the rest of your life cleaning up your bottom for you. Starting now.
Ahhhh! Potty training…brings back fond memories. Just a moment to reassure you…all three of mine were horrors, but now they’re teens and they all use the potty! My youngest, a boy, wouldn’t poop in the pot, but would go in a “potty chair”, the small little chair with the bucketish thing underneath. As others have said, part of it is the fear of falling in, or being flushed away, and part of it is that it is really hard to push for a bowel movement if your feet aren’t on the ground. Once my boy got used to going in the potty chair, it was much easier to move him to the toilet after a while. And we bought the Underoos (sp?) and let him run around in nothing but Batman underwear that summer. And, just like housebreaking a puppy, take him to the bathroom after meals. 
This is pretty much what happened with my son (who became a TEENAGER yesterday - AAAAAAGH! – but I digress). He was 4, still pooping in pull-ups, and I had to find day care for him. I found only one that would take a 4-y-o that was not fully toilet-trained. But they took him, and after the first day, with his teachers telling him he didn’t need pull-ups, he switched to undies, just like that.
I assume you’ve tried simple bribery?
Other than that, no ideas. Just wanted to send you a little sympathy!
That sounds like my general advice to potty training.
- The last thing you try will work
- Barring significant disabilities, they all potty train before college.
- Three months after diapers have left the house (at least for daytime), you will wonder why you were ever stressed about it
We had this with the younger girl. She had constipation problems from withholding (because she was afraid it would hurt) for about a year, and then one time she fell in the toilet, and the poor kid was practically jinxed. I don’t remember now what worked exactly–I was mainly worried about getting her to poop at all–but M&Ms came into it somewhere (potty treats!) and a lot of talk about being a big girl. I probably let her go in the little portable training potty for a long time–it didn’t have the scary water or the falling danger.
Sorry I’m not more helpful, but it does eventually pass (hah!). Don’t make too huge a deal of it though–I’ve known kids who turned it into a power thing and refused for a looooong time.
My little boy was about three years old and fully potty trained for peeing, but not pooping. My wife was at her wit’s end. He absolutely refused to poop in the toilet.
Finally, in frustration, I just asked him, “Why won’t you go in the toilet?!”
He replied, “I don’t like the sound of the splash.” 
Unlike my wife, I actually listened to what he said. I told him, “I can help that. I’ve got some magic earmuffs that will keep you from hearing anything on the toilet.”
I then gave him a set of noise-reduction earmuffs (used for shooting). He put them on, and promptly went poop on the toilet. 
We kept the earmuffs in the bathroom for a few weeks until we found that he no longer needed them.
I can tell you one thing, if you’re lazy about it and don’t want to deal with it they’ll be like my half brothers’ kids and still in Pull Ups at 6. I once was at the mall with my sister in law and her youngest, who was 6 at the time (although he did have some developmental delays - the others didn’t, however) and he said he had to go to the potty and did the potty dance, you know, and she said “Oh, just go in your Pull Ups.” That’s the kind of parents they are.
Every time there’s a thread like this it makes me kind of sad - I go poopy in the potty every damned time and nobody throws a party for me, gives me M&Ms, or waves the poopy goodbye. It’s really kind of unfair.
:eek:
Reading this really makes me want to make a living sacrifice to the nonexistent gods.
My cousin’s daughter was fully potty trained at 2. My daughter on the other hand sternly refused to get anywhere near the super-duper fancy potty we bought for her. No way. No. NO!
At about 2.5 she just decided to do as all the other kids (a little older than hers) in her class and go. But only in daycare, never at home. :smack:
Her birthday was quickly approaching and she had to be potty-trained before she starts the new school in August. Then my friend, and fellow Doper **Martha Medea ** gave her this book… Not only did she love the book, I did too! She memorized the book from start to finish, and that did the trick. “The potty is the place!” she would scream at random - and sometimes embarrassing - times.
A couple of weeks later and she wouldn’t pee in “the little potty” but in “mommy’s potty”, although she still needs hers for pooping. She also “reads” while seating, otherwise she’d get bored in no time. A week shy of her birthday we declared “Mission Accomplished”.
And thus the poopy battle was won.
No particular advice here, but, as the mum of a late potty trainer (3 years 10 months - it’s burned into my brain!), plenty of sympathy.
This Too Shall Pass! This Too Shall Pass!
We tried a number of things ourselves… bribes (led to lots of tantrums when we stood our ground and said only if you actually go… not sit for two seconds), big boy underwear, stickers… it didn’t help that the dayhome I have him in refused to help. Basically she would put him there when the other kids went, or if he asked, but otherwise not at all and he had to be in pull ups until he was completely trained.
Last Christmas (his fourth birthday) he was still in pullups but that was mainly an excitement thing. He had to be reminded lots to go to the bathroom (forgetting in the excitement), and as we were staying with relatives it was generally easier (for me I’ll admit, though I did remind him lots and kept working at it in the bustle of the holidays) but by Easter that was it. He was in underwear all day, though I kept him in pullups at night for a bit, and now he’s currently sleeping in his underwear (when he refused to wear pullups anymore I said okay, made sure there were rubber sheets on the bed and he hardly has accidents at night anymore).
In the end part of it was wanting to impress Grandpa (he idolizes my Dad), having a slightly older friend in underwear, being told he can’t go to kindergarten if he is in diapers, and I did make him change himself. I’d help wipe if need be, but that was it.
Does he go on a… uh… what do you call them, the bowls? Can’t look up a translation as I can’t even think of the name in Spanish :smack:
The Nephew (2.5yo and already trying to claim 3) likes the toilet better for number one because if he’s sitting there he doesn’t have as many aiming problems than in the smaller thing; for number two, he prefers the bowl.
What does your son give as his reason?
My son told me he was afraid of the potty - I was pressuring him on the issue, I’d made it clear it was a big deal that he should do this (various forms of bribery having failed).
Once he told me he was afraid, I took him by the hand and sat in the bathroom with him and kept him company. It really only took a week or two for him to start doing it on his own.
That reminds me of our first real road trip with the kids right after they were both truly potty-trained. It was Mother’s Day weekend, so they were 3 years and 3 months old. We were going to see my MIL.
We stopped at Every.Single.Exit between Indianapolis and Bloomington.
My husband about had a cow - if we’d had any kind of diaper with us, he’d’ve advocated using it. It took us an extra hour and a half to get there. My husband was convinced that every trip would be that way from now on.
Children are not the only ones who depend on diapers, that is for sure.
Oh man…how did the child handle it in school and other public places? Did he clean up his own mess? Jeeeezzz…what a drag!!!