Potty Trained Toddler Pooping in Underwear

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Kudos to Dawn for addressing the no fruits and veggies and that it could be a sensory issue, I hadn't thought of that but it's true.

Reward charts generally lose their effectiveness within a couple of weeks, it may have worked for his twin but it isn't working for him, like you said, he doesn't care. You need to work on finding HIS power reward, something that will motivate HIM to go to the toilet and poop without being led there.

Also, something I came across recently is that for an incentive to be powerful the parent has to retain ownership of it, allow the child to use it 30-60 minutes after a successful poop in the toilet ON HIS OWN, meaning, you don't tell him to go, he goes there and does the job all on his own. He earns the privilege of using the reward, not another possession, and therefore still has an incentive to use the toilet for pooping which he doesn't once he owns the new reward. (It was suggested he gets to actually own it after 6 months of successfully using the potty to poop.) I know you may have a problem with his twin not getting a reward, but if your son who gets the reward is agreeable they can play with it or use it together so he's not missing out. (We have twins in our family so I know how it goes.)

And, you need to make the pooping in the toilet his thing, he needs to OWN it. No more you running him to the bathroom, sitting him on the potty, reminding him he needs to go to the potty, his brother having to tell you he's pooping in his pants, nothing, he needs to do it on his own start to finish. Remember, you want HIM to be trained, not yourself.

Take away the underwear, tell him he's not ready for them. It's back to diapers or pull-ups, tell him underwear is for when he no longer poops in his pants, because it really is. After a good week to 10 days of consistently using the toilet for poops, then he gets them back. And gets them taken away if he poops in them again.

Make sure he puts the poop in his diaper/pull-up into the toilet every single time he does it in his pants and flushes it away, you want to always reinforce that "poop goes in the toilet." Have him clean himself off in the tub when he goes on himself with soap and water. Have him put any messy clothing in the dirty laundry, washing them out in the sink first. It's not being mean, it's teaching him responsibility for his actions. He knows to run and hide to poop, so he knows using the toilet is an option, he chooses not to.

Find that power reward, ask your son what would help him to remember to go on his own to use the toilet to poop, buy it and have it ready for when he successfully goes on his own, having to wait to go get it makes it lose it's effectiveness, and remember, YOU own it. {{HUGS}}

Our 7 yr. old was on Miralax for a while and had little control of her bowels. It works at the oddest times. It's like taking a laxative and expecting a 4 year old to be able to hold it when it suddenly works. We found that a simple stool softener worked much better since it only made the stool easier to come out and didn't add a lot of fluid like a laxative can.

Since he has to use Miralax to help them keep him working I would suggest you talk to the pediatrician to see if there is a way you can cut it back a little bit or if they can suggest some other supplement that will work as good as the med.

I know I had a man I took care of for a while that had severe issues with constipation and he was not allowed to eat foods high in fiber, no banana's was the biggest one, he loved them and would run in the kitchen and smash one or two in his mouth at the same time, he had severe MR though.

I agree with Dawn. I have a sensory problem with food consistency and although I like the tastes of many foods, I cannot stand to have them in my mouth or swallow them.

As for the poop -my oldest went through a long and frustrating phase at age four of pooping his pants. It's fairly common and often boys completely trainmuch later than girls. Going to full time pre k and now kindergarten seems to have done the trick (and just getting older).

Hmm. For one, I would not take his stars away. He earned them. Let his 'good jobs' stay on the chart so he can see that he is a good boy who does know how to poop in the potty and HAS been successfull.

My son is 3.5 and sticker charts didn't work for him at all. His cousin gave him her old hand-me-down Leap Pad and he is allowed to use it only when he's on the potty trying to poop. I put him on the leap pad, tell him he needs to try to poop, and I walk away. When I come back in he's playing his game and there's poop in the potty. (My son also would run to his room to poop in his diaper or underwear. That's how I knew he would be able to put it in the potty b/c he obviously has a 'turn on, turn off' on his pooper.) Since he would always go to his room, I figured he'd best poop if I left him be on his own. And it worked. The Leap Pad stays in the bathroom so he never gets bored with it. He's not allowed to use it anywhere else except when he's sitting on the potty. I amgetting him to earn more games for his leappad and the toys he wants. At first, 5 poops in the potty in a row (none in diapers, underwear, etc) and we went to the store and bought his toy he wanted. Now he has to do 10 in a row to get another toy. After that I am confident he's poop trained and I'll have him have another goal. So I had ten poops gets a $10 or $20 toy. He gets a sweet treat after each poop (a skittle, a starburst, I recently bought him Smarties as they don't stick to his teeth) plus the sticker to remind me and him which poop-in-a-row he's on. So perhaps get him a treat for each time he poops in the potty - a sticker for a boy doesn't seem very motivating (You said he doesn't even care about them). Maybe a quarter in a jar or a Chuck E Cheese coin in a jar if you are not into sweets.

We got a seat like this for our son. Allows me to leave him be while he poops and I don't have to hold him up from falling in. http://www.bemisseats.com/nextstep/ There are other brands online too at amazon. We like this seat as oppposed to other toddler attachments b/c it really doesn't get in our way. It's a normal looking toilet for the most part.

Added: I agree with some of what Gramma wrote. I think having him help clean up his own mess is a good idea. I did that with my 3.5 yr old. I am not sure I would put my son back in diapers though. I dunno. I'd ask the pediatrician about that one. To me, that'd be taking a step back and telling him he's a 'baby' and that it's okay to poop in the diapers. If he's pee trained, I don't think diapers or pull-ups is a good idea.

Rewards work best when kept positive, not punitive. If he earns a star, let him keep it. Otherwise he may never get the satisfaction of the reward, and he'll lose all motivation and give up. Sounds like he already has. That's a common mistake in using a reward system.

If you're going to keep using rewards, start over and start small. A small prize for one or two successes at first. After a few rounds of success, you can try increasing the number of successful events to 4 or 5. He doesn't think in terms of tens yet – that's an adult number choice but probably won't be meaningful to him. He need achievable goals or he won't play the game.

After he begins performing better, you can raise the goal to 10 successes (but please don't punish for failures – he already has enough negative feelings about pooping). You might also want to make the prize a bit more special to keep his interest up.

When the pottying becomes second nature to him, just give intermittent rewards alternating with verbal appreciation of his successes. He'll gradually forget about the rewards if he's happy with his own progress, and knows you appreciate his growing independence and maturity.