Our wee one, who is now just a few weeks older than three is doing fine with wee wees in the potty/toilet (she uses both).
The problem is she’s withholding her poop and won’t do it in the potty. She’s still wearing a nappy to bed at night (but not for naps) and she doesn’t do her poop in the diaper. She also won’t do it on the potty, which leaves doing it in her panties, in her pants/skirt/dress/shorts, which is getting very messy.
Other than holding her down and tying her to the potty/toilet, any other suggestions about how to get her to do poo poo in the potty/toilet?
At present, she tells us she has to go and sits there for about 30 seconds. Then she continues playing and when it gets very bad, she starts jumping around and gets very agitated, but still won’t poop on the potty!
I’m not a parent, but the next best thing as my single mother has a three year old daughter and I might as well be a parent.
My best advice to you, aside from pull-ups, is to expend a few pairs of panties if she refuses to go anywhere except in them, but have her go in them while sitting on the potty. She may adapt to the idea that going in the potty is a good idea.
We had this same problem. I’m trying to think how we got through it–basically, we just went naked. And I would sit there on the edge of the tub and not let him get off the potty until he pooped, and then, of course, there was chocolate and lots of cheering.
Of course, this only works if you have long stretches of time at home–days where you don’t have to go much of anywhere so the kids can just be naked all the time. Somehow we just got through it–I began to be able to tell when he really, really was about to poop, there was a particular funny walk he’d do, and he’d usually spend the day before getting on and off the potty but not doing anything.
So, I guess this is my advice–figure out what the ultimate reward is–in Paidhi Boy’s case, it was chocolate kisses, in my daughter’s case it was Cadbury eggs (fortunately we got over it before my secret stash ran out until next Easter). Then get some really cool books, maybe of some characters your daughter loves, and make them potty-only books. Prepare to sit on the edge of the tub for a half hour reading and making sure she doesn’t squirm off. Give her the candy or whatever, and have the whole family in to cheer and tell her what a big girl she is when she’s successful.
It worked for us, eventually. Hang on, you’re getting there.
I agree with a lot here. Don’t have her wear a nappy/diaper. If she soils her pants, that’s what she does. (and have a wet bucket)
Set up a chart by the potty with a small reward for each time she goes. Set a long term reward for every 5 or ten times she goes.
Restate, “big girl pants” and “you don’t like to soil your pants, it’s icky”
smiley face stickers. Multi-colored ones. We called them ‘poop stickers’.
Boy, did that motivate. Every time she pooped in the potty she got on and could stick in anywhere in the bathroom she wanted…under the sink, on the wall, in the shower…wherever.
We went with chocolate. She got one M&M–only we called them potty treats, and they were the Valentine kind–for peeing, and two for pooping. (She didn’t get the pooping down until she’d been peeing for awhile.) Also, that Taro Gomi book, Everyone poops. She found it fascinating, and often reads it while on the potty.
Are you sure she’s not constipated? But then I have a new-found fascination with constipation due to P the Y’s recently discovered major big-ass bowel problems. But constipation can really put a crimp in their style if it hurts to poo.
Stickers, lollies and activities that only happen when they actually have their little botty on the potty are things we tried. Is she in childcare at all? A lot of kids get it when they see their peers using the potty.
We did EVERYTHING to get my daughter trained. She is nearing her fourth birthday (in September). Finally, the peditrician took her aside and had a talk with her. Babies poop in diapers. Big girls poop in the potty. If she puts her poop and pee in the potty she can wear underpants. Otherwise, she has to wear diapers.
After every accident we went to diapers. Two weeks later we put on underwear for the last time (during the day - I handle night training as a seperate issues and I’m done for now. I’ll worry about that in a few months).
My son was more similar to your daughter. Pretty good with pee in the potty. Tentative on the whole poop thing. He was into Brio trains. I bought three trains and hung them up in the bathroom. He got the first train the first time he pooped in the potty. He got the second train when he pooped two more times. He got the third train after pooping three more times. This pretty much proved to him that he could poop in the potty and the apprehension was over with.
It was ANOTHER three months before he decided he was ready to give up the pull ups, though.
Some times kids are afraid to poop on the toilet because it is a right scare abyss to teeter on with such a small bum. They might get sucked down in that swirly thing. I remember that fear.
Do you have one of those kiddie toilet seats that sit right across the reg. toilet seat? Those worked like a charm for my two kids, which now are used to play with outside in some kind of bizarre game where only they know the rules.
Stickers are a wonderful motivator.
Sometimes books on the can can be a great motivator, however, it can lead to a problem down the road of getting them to get out of the bathroom in a timely manner. Which is a problem with the Mr. and Me as we are both bathroom readers.
Thank you all for your input. Within one hour of posting this, the little minx did poo poo in the potty!
Yay! The first hurdle has been jumped, now we need to work on night time dry/cleanness!
And the ‘S’ word.
SHARING!! Gah, I can just picture her snatching her university diploma from the hands of the President of the university and screeching ‘MINE. MINE. MINE.’
We had the same problem with both of ours; the kids just seemed self-conscious about the whole thing (to the extent that they would actually ask for a nappy).
We succeeded by allowing them to be alone while doing the actual straining and grunting (they would shout when they were done), plus a system of small rewards.
WHen my oldest was 3 1/2 she finally pooped in the toilet. SHeseemed to think that she had to be standing to work the pooping muscles. I think her first toilet poop happened when she was taking a warm bath. She hadda go and was asking for a diaper when I sat her on the loo and it slipped right out of her and boy was she amazed. Now my youngest never had a problem. She practically trained herself and I never had a clue when she went poop. We would discover a load in the toilet with gobs of TP, of course then I would have to make sure right then and there she washed her hands.
Does any one know anything about never diapering a baby, just looking for those about to make pee or poop cues and holding the babe over the toilet or ditch to make wee?
Mine just decided 2 weeks ago to quit the diapers. I felt like the guy on the lowered cholesterol commercial…“My son went poop on the potty chair!” I wanted to yell it from the tallest buildings.
