My 3-year-old daughter has only mastered half of the potty training regimen. For some reason, she refuses to poop on the potty while peeing is no issue whatsoever. I’m sure she’s not the first child, even at her age, to take this stance … but my wife and I are really stumped about where to go from here.
There have been some disruptions in my daughter’s routine since her second birthday. We moved across state lines shortly after she turned two, and then moved again into a house 14 months later. In between those moves, for about a month, our apartment was filled to the brim with family members displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Add to all that the birth of her little brother this past September. In short, a lot of things have been getting in the way of a perfect potty-training routine.
My mom has an interesting idea based on the experience of one of my late-training nephews: she feels like my daughter may soon start feeling “peer pressure” from her fellow pre-schoolers to poop on the potty all her own, and that it will be an abrupt, sudden transition. Does this make sense?
For those who may wonder, my daughter wears Pull-Ups-type training pants. Some have told us that just making her wear regular panties will hasten the completion of her potty training, as she’ll have a few uncomfortable accidents to serve as motivation for pooping on the potty. Does this ring true to anyone else?
Does she ever pee in the pullups? If so, do you think it’s because she can’t wait until she gets to the toilet, or because she just doesn’t want to be bothered heading to the toilet? If she doesn’t pee in the pullups, or she does but it’s a “can’t be bothered” thing, then I’d definitely suggest transitioning her to regular underpants during the daytime at least. Moon Unit wore pullups at night, at least on occasion, until she was 6 or 7 (usually if we were out of town and I didn’t want the concern over wetting someone else’s bed). She would often get up in the morning, after staying dry all night, and go ahead and pee in the pullup because she could :smack: If we made her change out pf the pullups right upon arising, she used the toilet with no problems.
She did transition to daytime underwear when she was about 3.5. At that point, for quite a few months, she would wait to poop until we’d gotten her into pullups for the night. 10 minutes after we put her to bed, she’d call down and say she had pooped :rolleyes:. Then she got into the habit of heading to her room during the day, and changing into pullups herself, so she could poop in them. We started watching for this, and telling her she should go sit on the potty. It was as if it had never occurred to her that when she felt the urge, she could go poop in the toilet!
Anyway - enough anecdotes: my advice is to consider switching her to big-girl pants, but let her take the initiative to either go to the toilet or put on pullups herself when it’s time to poop. Maybe start watching for “that face” or “that time of day” and helping her do the toilet/pullup thing if appropriate.
Both my girls did this; it’s quite common. She’ll get there in time. My advice would be, first, to relax and not worry too much about it. Talk up the virtues of pooping in the potty–being a big girl, not having to be cleaned up all the time, and so on. A bribe is often very effective, but you have to find the right one. My older daughter responded to 2 M&Ms as a reward for each poop, the younger one liked to get to watch Daddy play Lego Star Wars on the computer.
Let it go. I always say kids have control over exactly two things in life: what goes in and when it comes out. This is not a power struggle you will win. Ever. I’ve heard the ER stories about fecal impaction, and you do not want to go there.
As long as preschool is fine with it, let it go entirely. No pleading, no nagging, no sighs of irritation when you have to change her. Don’t praise her inordinately when she uses the potty, stop it with the rewards (I’ve babysat way too many kids who trained their parents to give them M&M’s, rather than the other way 'round!). Don’t let it be a big deal. “Oh, you used the potty. That’s nice. It’s nice not to have to use those cold wipes, isn’t it?” is about the limit of my enthusiasm.
Although I admit I started putting the wipes in the fridge. Cold wipes for diaper changes are a huge incentive to start using the potty!
My son trained a little bit later than his peers, but only by a month or so, and there have been no power or digestive issues since. My daughter’s starting to tug at her diapers, but I’m actually telling her no, she can’t use the potty until she’s ready to use it all the time (during the day - nighttime dryness is a whole 'nother issue). I don’t want it to become a game, or a way to get my attention. It’s a useful device, not a bonding experience.
She pees in the Pull-Ups infrequently. She’s been consistent with peeing on the potty in pre-school. At home, it’s been a long while since I’ve changed a merely wet Pull-Up (excepting the occasional morning, when she’s wet the Pull-Up overnight). However, every evening after I get home from work, like clockwork, she poops in her Pull-Up.
This is fairly normal. Arguing, brow-beating, and bribery has never worked for my sister, who has four children who all went through this. My suggestions from when I was caring for my two-year-old niece would be:
[ul]
[li]Provide a stool so that her feet aren’t dangling when she’s on the potty. This makes a more natural position, closer to squatting. Then, if she’s on the pot while going #1 and has to go #2 it’ll be more difficult for her to retain the bowel movement.[/li][li]Make sure her diet has plenty of fiber in it. Bulkier, softer stools will make it a lot more comfortable to go on the toilet.[/li][li]Watch her for signs that she has to go. You’re her parent so will know best what she’s likely to do at this point. Since it sounds like she’s worked out a routine, maybe you can find some way to transition that routine into spending some time on the toilet instead of going in the Pull-Up?[/li][li]Don’t make a big deal about it. Be pleasant, positive, and very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, so it doesn’t turn into a drama or struggle in her mind.[/li][/ul]
My niece had a real problem with this, and her eldest brother had spent some time in the hospital because of impacted bowels, so it was a concern for a couple of reasons. With my niece what I ended up doing was taking note of how she’d act when she was going to go (squatting down in a corner somewhere, getting real quiet), and that would be the time when we’d go sit in the bathroom with her feet up and I’d tell her a story. Changing her diet helped quite a bit, too. Luckily, she adores fruit.
Above all, don’t stress it. You won’t be packing Pull-Ups for her when she goes off to college!
Well, we offered the reward of a overnight visit to Grandma’s house once she was potty trained defined as a week with no accidents. The idea was attractive to her and she worked to meet it. We did get her started by offering chocolates (Lindor truffles and kinder eggs for the most part) as a reward for a successful use of the potty and not letting her have any other sweets unless she earned them. As soon as she was using the potty most of the time, we loosened the death grip on sweets and disconnected them as a promised reward. This entire process took about a month. She was three and a half when it started.
BTW we used chocolates because our dentist recommended them as the candy least bothersome to teeth. Our daughter eats well, has a varied diet, including a lot of vegetables, and is not even a little over weight, so we don’t worry about her having a few sweets everyday.
We had false starts starting around age two with potty training, but never forced the issue hard because it just is not worth it for us. She would demonstrate she new how to use it, and then just not use it after that. As she developed better verbal skills we talked to her about it and for the longest time it seemed she just did not think her using the potty was right. As I told my husband, very few children go to college in diapers. Now there is very little fuss and she uses the potty unprompted most of the time. I chose not to get into a contest of wills and forbid my husband from doing so because she is as stubborn as I am. In the end, she just decided she wanted to be a big girl and so she had to use the potty. Since then we have given her more privileges, such as playing upstairs by herself and with each one, we let her know it is because she is a big girl and we expect she will act like one.
I see a lot of advice about not getting upset over any potty training issues … and I agree. That is good advice. The issue for us is mostly concern over how to get our daughter over the hump, not expression of acute frustration that she’s not there yet.
I like the “story time” idea … thanks for that. She’s got a toddler-sized potty just for her, so that issue seems to be covered. And yes, she likes fruit, too.
My son was the same way. Part of his problem was constipation. Observing his behavior showed me that #2 was just easier when standing up. So we pushed fluids so he wouldn’t be constipated and gave him oatmeal for breakfast. He used a toddler potty instead of an insert on the large stool. We also put his leap pad (an electronic book reader) on a stool next to him so he wouldn’t be so impatient while waiting for the event to happen.
After a few successes (followed by huge praise and everyone coming to see the outcome, including big sister!), we followed up by putting him in charge of cleaning up after any accidents. And I agree loose the pull-ups, especially during the day.
Well, with kid #1 already 5, the 2 y/o likes to copy his big brother so he’ll pee in the potty with no problem. Pooping is going to be a whole different ballgame, I can already tell. He’ll tell me when he is about to poop, just doesn’t want to go to the potty.
I really take the “whatever” approach. My mom always said that “You don’t see first graders in diapers or with pacifiers. Everything evens out eventually. Don’t sweat it.”
What flummoxes me is “how do they get there from here?” I look at my 3-year-old’s bathroom habits, and wonder just what will make her change into an independent “pottier” in the next year and a half or so. I don’t know … but as I mentioned above, my mom had advised us that it’s likely to be a sudden change.
Did/does she go somewhere private to poop in the diaper/Pull-Up? My first child was this way* and I had the same problem in potty training. She did eventually start using the potty for all functions, but it was only sometime later that it occurred to me that I might have had better success had I put her on the potty and left the room (and stayed close by, of course!).
Just a thought!
*She would crawl behind a chair or under a coffee table–just somewhere she felt that no one was watching her–she started doing it sometime after she turned a year old. Oddly enough, she never seemed to think I might like the same privacy! (Come to think of it, she’s nearly 12 now, and she STILL doesn’t! )
Well, I have to admit the pacifier was an ordeal. When my first son was 3 we had a ceremony at the garbage can.
Potty training, much like sleeping through the night, just kind of happened for us. One day the 2 y.o walked up to the potty and climbed up on the stool and peed next to his brother.
I gave him a “good job” high five and we’ve been doing that ever since.
Pooping - I have (and this is going to sound gross, but it is a thread dedicated to poop) dumped the contents of the offending diaper into the toilet (not in a punishing or accusatory way, just a “this is where poop goes. watch it flush away”) and wiped and put on another pull up and treated it like an extra step to pooping. Eventually they cut out the middle man and go straight to the toilet. Doesn’t work for every kid. Kid #1 is HIGHLY analytical and wants to know WHY and HOW for everything and likes to come up with new ideas so he thought he was really making great strides in humanity by not pooping his pants.
Yes, I encourage it. Oh well.
I just have to share this story about my niece (which my sister would be appalled to know I’ve shared): Sis was trying to pottytrain 2 y.o. niece to poop in the potty by giving her a couple candies for successful performance. One day Sis was on the throne herself when the 2 y.o. wandered in (of course). Sis finishes up and gets up, goes to flush and the 2 y.o. is looking in the toilet inspecting the contents. “Mommy! So big! You are going to get a lot of candy!”
How did she get to walking? Or talking, or drinking from a cup? They just do. Some inner “switch” turns on and they do new things. It’s frickin’ miraculous, is what it is, whether you believe in a Creator or not.
But really, how did she do those things? Was she a cautious try-it-outer, who took a few steps and then went back to crawling for a week (or a month!) before she’d walk again? Did she fall down a lot and get right back up? Did she not take a step at all until she was so sure of herself that she was almost able to run? These are little patterns that kids repeat over and over again. It’s a large part of what we test for and call “personality”, and it’s present from birth. She’s likely to be the same way about making friends, participating in schoolwork, dating, finding a career and raising her own children.
Don’t all kids take much longer to train for poop than pee? My son used to like to wear his pull up downstairs when he got up in the morning and stand next to the radio in the kitchen alone to poop. We finally made a rule: “no pull ups allowed downstairs”. That’s what worked and it’s also how we discovered he was staying dry overnight and then doing a morning pee in the pull up. Anyway, it will happen for your daughter and suddenly, too.
)