How Do I Get Her to Stop??

I don't know how to stop her from doing that but you may be able to prevent her from getting her PJ's off by cutting the feet off and putting them on her backwards.

I have heard of this problem from others. One of my friends said that they took jammies with feet and cut out the feet and put the jammies on backwards (with the zipper going up the back). Might be worth a try! Good luck!

It isn't gross to her. In fact, during my potty training reading this past weekend, I read that this is very normal. I'm wondering when it is happening, at night or after her nap? Usually at this age, or at least with my own two, they pretty much pooped around the same time each day - morning or eve. I've never left a poop in a diaper long enough for it to becoming something to play with. Also, if it is happening upon waking from nap or in the morning, do you have a way to monitor her so when she wakes you can get to her before she poops or at least before she gets in to her diaper? At this point I'd recommend trying to prevent it rather than punishing her for doing something that WE find disgusting. Also, when it does happen, it's best not to make a big deal about it. A simple, we don't play with poop while calmy cleaning her up. Not all the Ewww! Gross! OMG! OMG! OMG!!! (which is what most of us would want to do, including ME) LOL.. this only draws attention to it, good or bad it is attention and she'll keep on doing it to watch you react. In Dr. Sears book, The Discipline Book, it says to Discipline Bothersome Behaviors, *Track The Trigger: Get inside your childs mind and figure out why she is doing what she is doing, is there a pattern? Is she tired, bored, hungry, or overloaded? By finding out what's behind the behavior you'll be able to avoid it. *Reinforce the Positive: Young children don't know a behavior is "good" or "bad" until you tell them. When they get a positive response, they are motivated to continue the behavior. When they repeatedly get a negative response, they drop it (***Unless the negative response is seen by them as positive, that is, someone paid attention). This is why it is important to reinforce desirable behavior and correct indesirable behavior early.

Hi S.,
First of all, I am sorry that one of your responders was very condescending. I think the advice could have been given without that. Unfortunately, the scenario you described can be quite common with some children. I found a few sites that might offer you some advice. One of your responders mentioned that positive reinforcement and not giving the activity so much attention as advice which is very good. I would not recommend the negative reinforcement of a cold shower, which as you said yourself didn't seem to work.

Feces smearing or painting can be attention seeking or also a sensory issue of painting with the lovely *ugh* substance.

You do also mention that her personality is completely different than her siblings which in and of itself isn't standoutish...but next time you go to your pediatrician, you may want to mention this and some of her other behaviors in case it is a sensory issue...or a result of some other challenge.

http://www.parents.com/toddlers/development/potty-trainin...

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Parenting-Toddlers-Infants-206...

http://www.drspock.com/faq/0,1511,8333,00.html

My son did this too and up until he was a little past 2 years old. I put his PJ's on backwards and he figured that out and I duct taped his diaper and he still did it. The only thing that worked for me was moving him to a toddler bed and leaving his door open so he would come and wake me up at 6am instead of having the only option of finger painting until I woke up at 7am. I don't know your bedtime situation and you may already have a toddler bed and an open door but if not that's an option. Best wishes.

Hi S.,

Believe it or not, this is fairly common. It's disgusting for adults but creative for kids. Don't punish her but use positive reinforcement such as giving her something she likes when she doesn't do it. You want to be sure to not make it a power struggle because you'll lose. Maybe give her a lot of art things that are messy in a controlled environment, such as sidewalk chalk and finger paints.

V.

My daughter would love to get "nakey" during nap time, take off all her clothes and her diaper (then you know what kind of trouble they can get into). I found turning the zipper footed pjs inside out and zipping them up seems to work like a charm. My daughter still hasn't figured this one out! To this day, at nap time I still change her into the zippered inside out pjs. It's funny, because I don't have to do this at bed time! If your daughter is even more of a Houdini than mine, you could even add a small safety pin on the inside of the pjs through the zipper hole attaching it to the pj. I would love to know if this works for you- I really hope it does! Good luck!

My 3 year old did the same thing. It has been 2 months since she has played with her poop. This is what worked for us. Try putting pj’s on with the zipper in the back, I would try this with a set that is not your favorite because you need to cut off the feet. This is the hardest for me, limit your reaction! Just clean her and the room up show a sad expression on your face, don’t talk just clean up the mess and put her back in her room. I also have introduced other sensory stimulation items into our day, we play with shaving cream, pudding in a bag (use vanilla sometimes I will add food coloring to it, I would stay away from the chocolate we don’t want them playing with something that looks like what we don’t what them to play with.) I also have some cloth bags that I filled up with rice that you can freeze or microwave, I also used different pastas and beans.

Hi S.! I see you've already gotten the "put her pajamas on backwards". We did that. But what we also did was put our daughter's diaper on backwards. Worked like a charm! And after a few days with that...she quit taking or trying to take her diaper off. We didn't have the poop problem, just the taking off of the clothes and diapers!

Good luck!

I am so sorry you have to go through this. it is not pretty!
I have not personally gone through this but my best friend has. Her son would do the same thing. And even having a baby monitor in his room to catch him as soon as he woke up did not work. He was SOO quite that she didn't hear him till he was already "painting" his bed.
What she did to get him to stop was bribery. He was also the same age, maybe a month or two older. He LOVES veggie tales and she would not let him watch veggie tales (or even tv for that matter) until he kept his poo-poo in his pants. (then she used it to potty train him, which was shortly after that. this could be a sign that she is ready for potty training)
After a week of NO veggie tales he was not playing with his poop anymore. And when he would leave it in his pants he would get so excited to be able to watch veggie tales. Also when she potty trained him just a month after this he got excited.
Maybe you can use something she REALLY enjoys as a reward for her good behavior. But when she poops and plays in it she cannot be rewarded with it. IT may not be TV or a favorite show but maybe a toy? or something she like to do everyday, ie: coloring, barbies, babies etc...
Hope this helps. Good luck and maybe she is ready for the big potty. (my son was potty trained 1 month after his 2nd birthday, kids are ready alot younger than people think, we have just gotten lazy, in my opinion)
God Bless
A.

Hi S.,
I have a daughter the same age who's doing the EXACT same thing. It's just been in the last few days, because she used to poo mid-morning and I'd change her, but recently she's been going during nap- or bedtime. What makes matters worse is that we're trying to cut down on the 'bedtime game' of going to her every time she calls, so she's responded to that by getting more creative, I guess! Anyway, not sure if this'll work, but I'm going to start stirring some baby prunes into her morning oatmeal, and see if we can get her back to her old schedule, and hopefully it won't be an issue anymore.

I'm also finding, with this age in particular, that the less of a big deal we make out of her actions, the more likely she is to get bored and stop. I realize how hard that is when you're talking about poop-smeared walls (believe me!), but if you can keep from getting upset, then hopefully this phase'll pass all the sooner. Good luck.

My son did the same thing. It is a phase, and it will eventually stop. A few times I made my son help me clean it up. He got a few spankings, some yelling, a lot of stern talking to's, and a few cold baths from Mommy....no reaction. But he absolutely HATES it when Daddy is mad at him. So a few light spankings from Daddy combined with 3 or 4 cold showers from Daddy did the trick for us. Maybe if your hubby is the one to dish out the punishment for playing with poop that will do the trick.

Is there anything else that she either doesn't like (like Time Out or certain toys taken away from her)? Or maybe a couple of quick swats on the bottom?

Eventually this will pass (no pun intended).

Good Luck! Take some pictures so you can show them to her potential boyfriends later in life (yep, I took pics of the really "artistic" ones to blackmail my son with later :D). I figure in a few years my hubby and I can look back on those times and get a good laugh!

Dear S.,

This brings back memories! I was in high school and babysat a little girl every day after school until her mom got home from work. If she was still asleep when I got there (at the end of naptime), I had to check her frequently and get her up AS SOON AS she woke up. I nissed it one day, and there was poop EVERYwhere! OMGarsh! It was in her hair, on her arms and legs, clothes, bedding, crib rails and the walls - it took me FOREVER to clean - I had to wash her sheets, etc, give her a bath - AND go home to change my own clothes, because I got it on me when I leaned over the crib rail cleaning the rest of the mess! (Thank goodness none of my own children went through this stage!) I really have no help - except to say keep a close eye on her at naptime and get her up as soon as she wakes . . .

Good luck!
B.

My daughter had this same fasination with poop, she even tried eating it a few times, painted the walls at the elementary school. We just watched her really close and tried to monitor her poop scedule. So if she always did it after her nap that's when we paid the most attention to her, of course they always seem to have an occational poop time when your not watching but we tried to keep her in the same room as us. I use to slap her hands and tell her know playing with that it's eeky.

Just an idea, do you have a little potty? if so now is the time to get it out, my daughter (the same one who painted with poop)potty trained very easily at 2, though she would use the little potty at 18 months I never pushed it to be a full time thing till 2yrs old. This way when you change her diaper you tell her to go sit on the little potty and go pee-pee or pooh-pooh. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, it saved us in diapers and then you can teach her to get awarded for pooping in the potty. Like 5 m&m's or something. Good luck! J.

My twin girls went through a period of doing this - it was so frustrating and disgusting. Exactly as you describe, only when they were in their crib. I started putting them in their cribs only with long, footed jammies (even for naps), with a onesie underneath, and then if you use a safety pin across the top of the zipper on the jammies, they can't get the zipper down. I did this until they finally outrew this activity and moved on to other mischief ;)

Good luck!

sorry about that, this lap top has a mind of it's own, anyway get her potty trained. I'm from the old school, my youngest is 19, but i got to tell you, if one of my kids iver did something like that, i would have tanned the little behind, and i gaurenteenthat the first time that happened would have been the last time. All 3 of my kids were alredy potty trained when they reached 23 months. Mom for 24 years J.

My daughter did the same thing and I finally resorted to duct tape. I duct taped round the waist on the diaper so that the diaper tapes were covered. I went all the way around twice making sure not to get it on her skin or do it too tight. This worked because she had to really struggle to undo it and I would catch her before it was undone. Got to love duct tape!!!!
Good luck!
C. :-)

With the one-piece PJ's, you can put a safety pin through the zipper and pin to the fabric, then they can't get them off. We had to do this when my daughter kept undressing at bedtime. Good luck!

She is old enough now where she can help you clean up. When you are cleaning up, I would really discuss how dirty and unclean this is.

As far as wardrobe, consider some one piece PJ's that button up the back. She won't be able to take them off.

pull the crib away from the wall and maybe the "fun" of painting on the wall will stop.

Have you talked with her Pediatrician? I would put her diaper on backwards with a onsie over it and then put feety PJ's with no feet backwards!! If that does not work, it might be time to talk meet with her Pediatrician, I have heard of some medication they have makes the poop really yukky and it will hopefully stop her, I don't know the side effects and I don't even know if they have this med or not, I had heard it from a friend that has a son with Down Syndrome that had this same problem, only he was 7 years old!

Good luck and hang in there, it is all temporary!!

with my son i used soap in his mouth and made him clean it up with my help but i would tell him no put him in the bath and then we get the bucket and rag and he cleans and i help but its his mess to clean and inforce that its there mess and they have to clean it it took 3 day of that and he stopped and it has been 6 months since the last time

If I were you, I would just let her keep playing in it! What's the big deal? So you have to clean up a little poop! At least you don't have to clean up your husband's vomit while he helps you clean up the poop, cuz I'm sure your husband doesn't help with that chore! Just let it go! It's really not a big deal! Some mothers are sooo strict! Geesh! HA!!!!!