Need Help with 3 Yr Old Who Won't Poo in Potty.

Here's what I would try. First, have her go into the bathroom to poo. Just in the bathroom, she can still use her diaper, but tell her that the bathroom is for pooing. Then when she's been doing that for a couple of days (and gotten her rewards from the sticker chart, or whatever) have her sit in the potty with her her diaper (or whatever she normally poos in) and poo on the potty (but still in her diaper.) THen, when she's got the hang of that, cut a hole in the diaper bottom and have her poo on the potty. Then, lose the diaper-- and she gets some kind of big prize!

All kids are different. Is she in undies or pull ups? If not already, it might be time to switch to all underwear--except for night. My son "clicked" with the poo/potty thing after reading Once Upon a Potty (they have boy and girl versions). He's a logical kind of kid so it helped him when I explained to him that poo is waste left over from the foods you eat after all the vitamins and nutrition is used by your body. It's good for your body to get rid of that waste to make room for more healthy food/vitamins. Also, this may be TMI, but he wanted to know where the poo was coming out of and what it was called, so letting him check himself out in the mirror and teaching him proper terminology helped too. Good luck!

Hi, H.:

As you know, your 3 year old is exploring her environment and learning self-control. Don't worry. Encourage her and let her learn at her own pace.
Good luck. D.

Your daughter sounds just like ours! LOL. She was dry through the night and peeing on the toilet at 18 months, very few accidents. But the idea of making a poop on the toilet frightened her, even at almost 3 1/2 years of age. One long-ago constipated attempt resulted in an association with, and fear of, pain. She is strong minded, and cannot be bribed. Even the temptation of something she wants very much would be shrugged off - we hope that means she'll have her own mind when she's a teen. But now, it makes it tricky for mom and dad to motivate her.
Ultimate success came in just 36 hours, unbelievable. First step: some days of sneaking Miralax into a drink once a day (2 tsp), per dr's orders. This softened her stool, and primed the pump, so to speak.
Her preschool teacher provided the magic key when she suggested creating a reward sticker chart. We shopped for an assortment of fancy stickers which she was allowed to choose, and decorated a chart with her own sparkly marker designs, wrote her name on top.
In order to remove the "poop only" association, our chart allowed her to place stickers for the following categories: I tried to go / No drips (in underpants) / I made a pee on the toilet / I made a poo on the toilet / Flushed toilet and washed hands.
We also wrote a list of rewards that she could achieve after a certain number of successful poops: for 5 poops, a small toy she had been wanting; same for 10; 15 a visit to the moon bounce; 20 going ice skating, etc. She chose the rewards herself, and thus had some control over the whole process.
36 hours in: her first poop. Not one subsequent poop ever went anywhere except the toilet again! We couldn't believe how easy it was, after many months of trying, frustration, poops in underwear, etc.
Once she had been successfully pooping on the toilet for some time, we shopped for pretty new underpants as a final reward. She's very proud of herself, and so are we.
Good luck!

My son was the same way. He also turned 3 in Jan. We had friends over one night and their little boy & mine are best buddies. Once he heard that his friend goes on the potty to poo, the VERY NEXT DAY he started going on the potty. Maybe if he has friends the same age that go, let him hear that they do.

With my older son I got him to poop in the potty (he was around 35months old) by letting him run around bottomless. He was really disturbed when he pooped on the floor and only did it twice. He's now 4.5 and once in a while regresses in that dept but bottomless isn't an option anymore (he just puts pants back on). What does work now is bribing. I put a toy on the fridge that he REALLY wants and tell him he'll get it for X number days of clean underwear. I talked to the doctor about it and he said to just continue with the rewards because high priority is to not have him getting constipated.

I went through this with my daughter last year when she was 3. All it took was one painful BM on the toilet to make her stay away from it. I didn't use pull-ups so she had many poo accidents in her underwear. If I would see that look on her face that it was about to come, I would rush her to the toilet - she would never go there by herself or tell me she had to go. Very few wet accidents - didn't have an issue with peeing. I started putting a teaspoon of Benefiber in every cup of milk and adding a probiotic powder to her yogurt or applesauce to help soften her poo so that it wouldn't hurt. After 4-5 days I noticed it was getting softer and easier for her to have a BM - so then I told her that when she had to go she had to do it in the bathroom - she didn't have to sit on the toilet but she had to be in the bathroom. (she had already had so many poo accidents by now it didn't really phase me anymore). After 2 days of that, then she had to sit on the toilet, she could keep her pants on. 2 days of that then the pants had to come down and she had to poo properly on the toilet. She responded really well to doing it in small steps like that and then she got a sticker chart and could add a sticker for every time she pooped in the toilet. It worked for us and she hasn't pooped in her pants since.

my dd was scared to, so I did it a couple of times in front of her, and now she has very little problem. she also gets a small treat, 1 mandm or 1 candy corn for pooping on the potty.

She also poops about the same time every day, so we started sitting her on the potty after dinner and she goes almost every night. It was a fight at first, but now it's great.

My son who is 2 1/2 has only gone poo a few times on the potty, but what worked for us was to give him a book to sit and read while he tried.