Not pooing in the potty-driving me bonkers.

[teacher54321]

Started potty training Ds in April, he's now 3.3. Wees have been fine since day 1. Poos however are another story... We had some success early on, but then some serious withholding requiring daily movicol and now he has accidents almost daily. He hasn't done a poo in the potty for weeks. I am at my wits end. We have tried bribery and poo goes to Pooland and we never shout and are patient etc. if you ask him where he should poo, he tells you! I have no idea where this issue has come from, but he also gets massively traumatised in public toilets as he's so frightened of the hand dryers and point blank refuses to use them. We have had some small successes, he will go for a wee at other people's houses, and will use his potette whilst out and about, and has just this week agreed to use a loo seat some of the time. But he is so stubborn. And starts full time pre school in September and I really want him to be at least slightly reliable by then. He does tend to save his accidents for home, luckily, but am getting really sick of this.

[KatyN]

Does he wear pants when he poos or wait for a nighttime nappy? You could try taking his pants off and seeing if this stops him pooing in them??
My son only really poos in the potty when he's sat watching telly (is it grim we have our potty in the lounge?). It can take 20 minutes of concentration!

[Skylerwh1te]

Another one whose toddler likes to sit for ages and watch something, we put his potty in his room and the iPad in there so he can take his time. It's good distraction. Also ours hates pull ups is yours wearing normal pants generally? The hand driers are a pain aren't they, we have to use tissue to dry hands out and about as they terrify him!

[Haggisfish]

My dd would only poo in a nappy for about three months while potty training-we just went along with it and she stopped using them eventually. Loads of kids are scared of hand dryers-not surprisingly, given they are loud and unpredictable. I let dd dry her hands on toilet roll or me!

[youngestisapyscho]

My nephew was the same, he would only poo in a nappy. He would also go off somewhere he couldn't be seen to do the poo in the nappy.

[teacher54321]

Thank you for the replies! He just will not sit on the potty when he needs a poo, he jumps up and runs around screaming and then poos standing up. When he was withholding he didn't have as many accidents but wouldn't go for days at a time and was in horrendous discomfort. He won't let me put a nappy on him in the daytime, as have tried that. I wouldn't even mind if he saved it till bedtime and had his nappy on, but the movicol means he can't control very well when he goes. I am starting to scale down the dose in the hope that it will give him some control back.

[FlukeSkyeRunner]

Movicol shouldn't really cause a loss of control should it? It makes the poo softer and easier to pass rather than stimulating the bowel. I wonder if he still has impacted stools with leakage bypassing the blockage? My DD had similar problems but quickly improved when she started movicol. She is now 5 and still needs daily movicol to keep her regular but has no accidents. Maybe worth a trip to the go to rule out impaction?

[FlukeSkyeRunner]

...trip to the gp, obviously...

[HenriettaTurkey]

Our ds (3 1/4) is exactly the same. We could try naked from the waist down at home...but I wonder if he'd just wait. We were out yesterday and be said he needed the loo so took him to shopping centre toilets where he weed. Then two minutes later he did a poo in his pants.

Then another in his bedtime pull up later that day.