Losing My Mind! - Orlando,FL

Hi J.,

I have a same problem with my son right now. On Sunday, he just took his underwear off and went on the floor. He has used the potty to poop but he won't tell us he has to go and will go on the floor and his underwear. I am at my wits end too. I do hope that you get some advise that I can use too. So don't worry you are not alone and are not doing anything wrong with the toilet training process.

All the best
S.

i agree with kimberly h. children will not starve. when they get hungry enough...they will eat. i know it sounds really cruel but they actually won't fight too long. the problem here is that he sees that you will cave. it's a control issue. he's in control... not you. tell him in a firm voice that he is a big boy and you expect him to behave that way. tell him that he knows what he's doing wrong and explain to him what he needs to change and how to do it. with my daughter, we put big girl panties on her and when she still refused to go #2 we made her get to the sink and rinse them out herself. just make sure to use soap to wash his hands afterwards really good. and don't let him see you go behind and finish cleaning them out. don't make it seem like you're mad but just say, "i didn't make this mess, you did. so you can clean it up." good luck

First of all I am really sorry you have to go through this.

The poopy thing sounds like a power struggle if you ask me. He knows he needs to go, he knows where to go, but has decided that he wants to go in his diapers and is rebelling from your instruction. I would run by the library and pick up a few books on toddler rebellion (I like Dr. Dobson's approaches in most cases, but you are a different person than me and your child is different than my child so you might want to pick up multiple books by different Christian authors).

The chocolate milk thing is just plain unhealthy (though I let my daughter do the same thing with white milk so... yea). I would stop buying chocolate milk and only buy white for a while (who knows, maybe he wants the chocolate because it is sweeter than normal food). I would also start offering him water first then milk. 3 year olds should only get 16 to 24 oz. of milk a day. What I had to do is hide the gallon of milk in the back of the fridge and pour out 24 oz of milk into a water bottle (2 water bottles really because I only had 12 oz bottles, but who cares). I then gave he as much milk as she wanted until we "ran out" of the two water bottles. I let her inspect the fridge to "make sure" that we where out (the milk was hidden in a paper bag in the crisper and had carrots on top of it). Since we were out she knew that no amount of whining was going to get her what she wanted and she started eat real food again. In fact on the third day she started asking for water instead of milk and we only had to do this for about 5 days.

I hope that helps.

And of course I would pray. God Bless.

Edit: I found this on 3 year olds eating recommendations http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/agesstages/a/three_years.htm

J.
I had the same problem... If you are with him all day and know when he is running to hide take him into the potty. Also you go in front of him and make a game out of it! Get him a little potty from the store put it on the floor in front of you. Run in there together when he had to poop you sit on yours (even if you are not having to go) and let him sit on his! Count together 1, 2, 3, push, and pretend to push with him. When done pretnd to wipe your butt and then wipe his. Then train him as you would a dog, give him a treat or go to the store and buy him that toy that he had been wanting!

Also forget the pull up jump straight to underware. Yeah pull ups are good when you don't have the time to stop like in the car! you know but for the most part a pull up is still a diaper to them. They don't care if they go in a diaper or in a pull up! ha ha ha. It is crazy the way they think!

S. George
Longwood, FL

I wouldn't be too quick to assume that he is just trying to be in control or rebelling, like many have said. That may be the case, but the fact that he is hiding and crying when he poops sounds more like an emotional issue. He may be embarrassed as you said, it may just hurt too much. I would still try putting him in underwear at home, and limit the chocolate to 1 small cup a day. I think asking him to eat a few bites and then allowing a sip or two after he eats some solids may help him eat food without as much fighting. But you may want to take his fear of pooping seriously, and talk to a dr about it. Also try to talk with him about it. Ask questions, try to get more information about why it bothers him so much. If you can find that out you may be better able to deal with his fears, or accommodate him in some other way while still getting him to gradually use the potty more. I just think that if it were a simple matter of power struggle or rebellion then he wouldn't be trying so hard to hide it, and cry about it. If his poop is runny all the time from drinking so much chocolate it is going to hurt, and the more it happens the more it will burn and hurt his little but. I think if you find a way to relieve the pain while getting more solids in him until his poop is more solid(not too solid)that may help a lot. And dealing with his fears, which may be very ligitamate fears, could help a lot also.

Don't lose hope. When my kids were potty training, they would poop in corners, shoes, all sorts of mysterious hidden places. I think it's a bit of anxiety about the whole "potty" thing and then the pressure of us moms and our stress. Try your hardest to be patient and keep trying with consistency, reward him when he does it and don't let him see you "sweat" about it.Trust me, little ones are very manipulative and if they see you upset they will keep doing the exact behavior that upset you. Don't worry, before you know it you will be through this and he will be a potty pro! Good luck

Hi-
I am the Mamma of a nine month old baby girl, so potty training is a bit away. My brother and his wife just went through this with their 3 year old son ( they have a 2 year old girl, too!). What worked for them was to put on REAL big boy underwear. You have to have faith that it will work, or let him play outside just in-case of an accident. Their son can not tolerate dairy, and gets the runs when he eats any. Maybe your son wouldn't mind a switch to soy milk, just a suggestion.
Good Luck,
G.

I really think you need to take a trip to the pediatrician for solid advice. For the eating, a 100% fluid diet can not be good, even if it is milk. He is filling his belly with fluid and not feeling hunger. Is he thriving as far as growing at a steady pace and does he have the energy a boy his age should have, or is he sleepy and droopy? Do you give in and give him milk just because you don't want to hear him scream for it? Maybe that isn't the case, but if it is, that's not your job as a parent. Please consider doing something like offering some food and saying if he takes a few bites he can have a few sips of milk. Of course he will scream-- 4 months of getting his way and then suddenly making him comply will not be easy, but it is in his best interest in the long run/big picture. As for the potty training, I'm so sorry that I don't have the magic words of advice to make your problems go away, but I want to beg you to please get professional advise from a pediatrician before he ends up with more serious problems. My daughter is 8 and still has digestive/bm issues due to with-holding for sooooo many years and going through cycles where she didn't want to go because she thought it would hurt.

Hi my daughter had a similar problem she just didn't want to go on the toilet, so I made a chart with a picture of a prize at the end she got a sticker for each time she went (only had to get 5) the first couple of time she would go on the toilet then in her pants and when she went on the toilet we made a big deal about how proud we were. By the time she earned the 4th sticker she hasn't had any more accidents since. hope this helps once you get the problem of it hurting him solved. Good Luck

Hi,
I have a similar problem right now with my 2 1/2 year old son. He has been very constipated and it hurt to poop so he would go and hind and poop rather than poop in the potty. I talked to the pediatrician and he actually recommened that I stop potty training until he was pooping normal. I found out he cant have any dairy products so we stopped that and then he had a different problem it was always runny which means it also hurt. Then I had to cut out some of the juice so that he poop normal. The doctor said that I should wait till he had at least a month of normal poops before I tried to get him back on the potty. I hope that helps.

Hi,
My name is S....
My daughter has a similar problem, she just didn't like to go. She would hold it in for so long that it became very painful for her to go. The doctor first suggested putting her on the potty after meals even if she didn't have to go. Just so she would get used to it. We would read stories and sing song for about 5 minutes. This helped a bit.
If you can tell when he has to go, you can try brining him into the bathroom and taking off the pull up ( my daughter would not go on the floor ), this way he may voluntarily sit on the potty. The was one point where I was so frustrated the I held Kaia(my daughter) over the potty, and although she was very angry with me it got the poop out a little faster ( I think it was all of the flailing). After that she was great. She knew there was no problem with the potty and except for some moments when she doesn't want to be alone in the bathroom she goes just fine.
Don't be worried about putting him there and making him sit....he'll get over it. My daughter always laughs and says "that wasn't so bad" after and we go about the rest of our day.
I hope this helps a bit.
S.

Hi, I don't know how it is to raise boys as I only have girls but what I did for my girls was told them about the BiG Girl panties and how the big girls panties are to stay nice and clean. So I used those on them instead of Pull Ups because they didn't like the feel of whatever it was on their bottoms for too long, so it helped me in them wanting to go potty. It didn't work every time so I had to clean some panties every now and then and yes we were in the bathroom a lot as they were getting used to it but it was better than changing pampers or pull ups to me.

Now for your son, you said he will sit in it all day so I don't know if it would work for him, however, it will also feel nastier to him being in actual underwear and not in the soakable Pull-Ups. If you tell him about the BiG Boy underwear and let him see his father in them, he may feel like he can do it too! Reward him when he does go to the potty and he will want to keep getting rewards.

HTH,
V.

first of all take the chocolate milk away, thats why its so runny. and if he cries ...oh well! he'll live. and he'll eat when hes hungry. also, personally i hate pullups, take them off, let him poop in the heavy cloth underwear, and change him right away, if he screams- he screams, it will be over soon. dont let his behavior rule you. ignore it and he will see its no big deal and move past this stage. GL