Advice on Toilet Training

J.,

Put him in underwear and have him clean out his own underpants after he poops. He will not like this, then give him the option of going in the toilet. Worked like a charm for my son. Didn't take long either!

V.

J., We've been there. Our first born son was 2 1/2 when he was potty trained. Our younger son informed us that he was going to wait until he was 4 before he would be "fully" potty trained. He had some kind of fear with it all and just could not have a bowel movement on the toilet. We tried everything, then just decided to wait it out. He knew he turned 4 in April and then on April 1st he was potty trained. Maybe you can try to find out if he is afraid of something and what it is or find out if he has a time frame in mind. Not sure if that will help. Hang in there. This won't last forever.

J., I feel with you. We just went through the whole deal with our now 3 1/2 year old daughter. But we've been working on it since May of last year.

It seems that there is really nothing you can do. If they don't want to, they don't want to. One advise I received was, to let it go for a while. I suggest you just skip it and put him back in pull-ups or diapers. Don't even mention it anymore. But please note that we had tried that, too, and although it made our lives a bit less stressful including the childs, it didn't make her decide on her own to just do it now.

We are on our at least 5th "new attempt" and so far she is doing better than she has in previous ones. Please note that we didn't "force" the potty on her, but she always has expressed the interest and willingness to do it, but in the end just wouldn't do it.
Right now we are also trying a little different reinforcement method. She received a brand new Princess bike after she made her first bowel movement in the potty. She can only have it/ride it if she stays clean. It goes away if she pees or soils her pants until she goes to the bathroom again. (If she pees in her pants she has to pee in the potty, if she poops her pants it stays away until she poops in the potty again). This finally seems to work, too, because before she just wasn't attached to anything enough to care about it. This is a little controversial as it seems to punish the child for accidents, but it was one of the only things we haven't tried yet.

My first advise to you is, though, to put him back in diapers/pull-ups and give it a break. You can just tell him that Mommy can't keep cleaning all those nice underpants he has and that you (not he) needs the break.

Hang in there. It will happen one day (or so I've been told)

I know I'm late here, but this is an "I've been there." My oldest son didn't poop in the potty until just past his 4th birthday. We actually sought professional help and they told us to back off--that the more we pushed the more he would resist. He wore underwear, asked for a diaper when it was time to poop and then went back to his underwear. That is how we were advised to handle it by behavorial professionals. My husband worked with him and positively encouraged him until he did it on his own. Good luck.

Just went through this with my son. Going potty was fairly easy but going poop on the potty took a while. After a number of accidents and a few thrown away pairs of undies that I wasn't about to try to clean, I told him that if he felt that he had to poop to let me know and we'd put a pull-up on him. Then he could go and I'd change him right away. I figured at least he was learning when he had to go, and it was way less of a mess than going in underwear. No more accidents and it only took once or twice of him asking me for a pull-up that he was going on the potty. I’ve also heard from someone that she told her child that she had to go in the bathroom to poop, even if it was in the pull-up, because that’s where everyone poops. That gets them used to where they need to be. I hope that helps.

Ditto what Vicki said. If you keep cleaning up his poop and not making him take responsibility for it, what is his motivation for using the toilet? Mom does all the work, he has no motivation to do it himself.

If he gets off the toilet and hides to poop, he KNOWS what he is doing. When he does this, make HIM take his poop underwear off and dump the poop in the toilet. Make HIM rinse the poop underwear out, and make HIM step into the shower to clean himself off, and then make HIM get new clean clothes to put on. A few times of this and he'll realize its quicker and easier to just use the toilet..instead of taking all the time to clean up.

If you make him do the work, he'll get it. Don't back down, he's way too old to be pooping in his pants, and you need to stop doing the work or he'll never take responsibility for it.

It's no accident that he poops in his diaper J.. Some kids are afraid to poop out of their diapers for a long time. I have known two kids who wore underpants but would request a diaper just so they could poop! Focusing on it so heavily may cause more problems for your son. It's time to take a step back and let him take the lead on the poop thing... you can help though:

Offer to have him diaper-free until he needs to poop, where he can have permission to ask for a diaper. Then, ask that he squat while pooping so that there is less of a mess to clean up. Teach him to wipe himself at this age, and to dump his own poop in the toilet, wash his hands, etc.

Ask him if he wants to flush it down or if someone else should do it. If he is unwilling to flush his poop (or put it in the toilet), this is where the problem lies. Some children think that their poop (which is a part of them) is dying when it gets flushed down the toilet. They are afraid of the poop's sadness and fears at being drown and flushed (I am SO serious here). If this is the case, you can undo this problem by agreeing not to flush his poop while he is around.

If he doesn't have trouble with the flushing, then your problem is about his emotional attachment to diapering. In this case you will have to trust and believe that it will end soon enough by:

1. Making sure he doesn't wear a diaper all day.
2. Making sure he has to ask for a diaper to poop in.

Both of these things will become more and more obvious to his family and friends as he does them - which he will notice and which will help him to see himself in the eyes of others. He'll start to want to use the facilities once he can distance himself from his feelings and see himself from the outside.

The good news is that when he wants to be in a play group or pre-school program, this won't be an option so he will have to use the facilities.

I explained to my son that poopy was trash that our body doesn't need anymore. We put the trash in the toilet and the toilet takes it to the place that we send trash. We wave and say goodbye to the poopy. It has worked well for me. He also started wanting to have "privacy" when he is having a bowel movement. So we let him have as much time as he needs on the potty-sometimes we let him go in with a book. The key is that they need a little bit of build up time to get the movement to the point of actually being able to get the pooey out. Sometimes I still catch my son doing this about 30 min before he can actually go. Does he have a regular poop time? My son goes either around 10ish or 5ish. so watching for it helps me to remind him that it's time to go get on the potty to get rid of the trash.

I had another friend tell her son that the poopy needs to go to a party and we need to send it down the toilet, so that it won't be late to his party. Her kids were so excited to send off their pooey!

I hope that this helps in someway. Good luck!

I was told at that age there is a "fear" of pooing in the potty- not sure the reason- but that's what my pediatrician told me. At this point I would say, just give him time and it will happen.
Trust me- my son is 7 1/2 and we still have night accidents at least once a week. And have been told this is normal- I figure if they make pull up for up to 125 lbs- I must not be the only one experiencing this "phenomena" ..

We have soooo been there. Recently. There is a funny movie on You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVoLz88hiU&feature=re...

Japanese cartoon of tiger family and potty training. My son watched it. It was great.

The only thing that finally worked for us was a poop chart and letting him run around in his "birthday suit". He was wat too comfortable pooping in his pants.

Also, once I knew that he knew what he should be doing. I would rinse him off in the shower if he pooped in his pants. He hated that.

Good luck!!!! I hate potty training!

My now 4 year old was the same way for months. He'd tell me he had to poop and he would grab a pull-up out of the package and put it on, poop in it, and then take it off and toss it in the trash. While there was no mess to speak of, he told me he was scared of the potty - that he was afraid he'd fall in...so I sat with him and held his hands and from that point on he was fine - but like I say, he was already 4. I also had a video about going to the potty - once he saw that there were babies on the video (with big diapers on) that were trying to use the potty, I think it was apparent to him he was "above all that" and was older and should be using the potty. The video REALLY worked as far as him peeing in the potty.

Hope that helps. Sometimes the phases they go through seem like they're 6 months long but once they're over and they've accomplished their milestone, it usually turns out it was just a few weeks or months and not that long in the bigger sense...