My son (3) has been potty training for the last 2 weeks. He's got peeing down. Pooping is another story. We put him to bed at night in a diaper (after he's used the potty once sometimes even twice) and without fail 30 mins later he emerges telling us that he's pooped. It doesn't matter what I tempt him with, he has not yet had a single successful poop on the potty. Any ideas? TIA.
Have you tried putting him to bed in real, big boy underwear that he has picked out? Sometimes kids soil their diaper because they know they can but won't mess up their special underwear. I know it will be harder to clean up if he does have an accident, but it would be worth a try.
My DD was almost 4 before completely potty trained. She missed nursery school on count of it.
The worse thing in the world are those d*mn trainer pants. They work too well. Lol..
I hit up all the mom 2 mom and garage sales for underwear. I'm talking paper grocery bag size amounts. I also bought lots of pants and shorts. Just items worth 25 cents or less per piece.
No more trainers. No more begging. I made a sticker chart and after so many times dry, she received a prize. I just put underwear her and left it up to fate.
DD really hated being wet, and was mortified when she found out that big girl pants weren't the same. When she soiled the underpants, I threw them out. If the outside pants got it too, those hit the trash. I refuse to let tons of laundry drain my patience.
We used a step stool and a seat thing for the toilet. I didn't have her flush until she was really comfortable using the toilet. Some kids flip out from sound of the toilet flushing.
It took about a month for her to consistently use the toilet. She did have some night time accidents, but I don't remember that happening too often.
My problem was the trainers kept her too dry. DD knew she could pull them up and down, but why bother? Potty breaks cut into play time, and the trainers kept her comfortable.
My DD took a long time to potty train for poo. She was approaching 4 by the time that happened. She'd tell me she needed to poo and we'd put on a diaper, she'd poo, and then we went back to underwear. She never had accidents and always held it til we were home. But when I'd try to just force the issue, she'd hold it for days and get constipated.
Part of it was that she preferred to poo standing up. Hard to do on the potty. We finally made a rule that she could poo in a diaper, but had to be in the bathroom. Standing up or whatever, but in the bathroom. Then She had to sit on the potty but with the diaper on. That only took 2 days and then I convinced her that sitting on the potty with a diaper on was the same as without one. The big hump had been to get her to sit down to poo.
I had decided not to force the issue until she approached 4 as she wasn't making messes and it really was not affecting my life to put her in a diaper as she always waited til she was home. Not a single prize in the world worked for her.
The pooping part always seems to take longer. Potty training is a very individual thing. One of my children was fully trained when she was 2, and another not until 3 and a half. I do agree with other posters that it's probably best not to force the issue. Just keep reminding him that the potty is there. Maybe dump the diaper contents into the potty to show him that's where it goes, or like a previous poster said, have him go into the bathroom to do it in his diaper. He'll get there as soon as he's ready.
My son would wait for the bedtime diaper as well. I talked with our doctor about it and he said "This is an easy one. Stop giving him a diaper. As long as he knows he's getting it, he'll wait for it." That night he slept in underwear, and almost immediately learned that pooping in the toilet was a better idea.
One of my kids had the same issue. He would wait until the bedtime diaper. One night he fell asleep and we didn't know he had pood. He got a terrible rash. I started offering a mini chocolate bar as a reward for pooing on the potty. The problem was solved immediately.
I guess I was very lucky with potty training my kids. I have 3 boys and all 3 were trained before they turned 3. I don't remember it being a huge undertaking and we didn't have nighttime potty issues either. Like I said we were very lucky.
The only thing that I can think of that might have contributed to this is where I changed diapers. I changed the babies in the bathroom starting the day I brought them home from the hospital until they were trained. They always had the association that bathroom means potty and that may have made it easier.
Last edited by all41; 08-13-2017 at 08:56 AM..
Reason: Typing on a cell phone
I agree that Pull Ups and disposable diapers have made training much more difficult. They are not uncomfortable enough and of course, disposable diaper companies don't really want your kids trained!
My daughter allowed her son to sit on the toilet for poo with the iPad. But, he only got it for maybe 5 minutes and isn't a child to have access to it through out the day. He would start watching a video of Rescuebots and relax and go. After he was good at it, he lost the iPad. He was "holding" it before she came up with this idea and she didn't want that. He was "afraid" to let it go. He was completely trained for pee and would ask for a diaper when he had to poo & then would go off by himself to complete the job. His fear was the issue.
My DS was trained on #1 about 6 months before he got #2 down. All the bribing in the world did nothing!
He would put on a pull up by himself, go poop in a corner, then ask to be cleaned up. I tried denying the pull up several times only for him to hold it for a few days. His ped said to back off ad he probably wasn't ready. Apparently pooping is more difficult, emotionally, for many kids. I backed off, then we ran out of pull ups. I didn't buy more so DS held it for 6 days! That night, he woke up needing to go (I had been lacing his juice with MiraLax) and he used the potty and all was well.
So my advice:
- give it time and try not to pressure him
- use diet and MiraLax to make sure he doesn't get constipated
My advice is to encourage now and then, and leave it up to him! Believe me, there will come a time, and it will probably be sooner rather than later, when he will not want poop in his diaper. I would not put him to bed without a diaper yet unless you want to lauder soaked bedding everyday. No diaper at night usually doesn't happen till between 4-5 years of age.
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08-12-2017, 05:39 PM
