Bloody, Fecking, sodding poos!

[mooglycrunch]

DS is 3, we have been potty training since the end on April, he is bright and has no other barrier to learning.

I am still having to take him to wee every 30 mins, he will quite often not empty his bladder properly and wet himself 10 mins later. He has occasionally taken hime self for a wee. Basically if I don't take him he will more than likely wee himself and even if I do it's 50/50 if he will wee himself between 30/40 mim trips. I have tried to explain about making sure he empties himself but he just says there is no more wee to come.
Poo's......I think he is withholding.

There are 4/5 skiddy poo encrusted pants a day. I can see him going red and shaking trying to hold it in, I can put him on the toilet and....nothing in fact nothing regularly for 2 days, just poo smeared pants.

We thought we had found a way round as he says he wants the potty for poos. We put the golf on (his request!) poos were produced. Now however he is wise and he just sits there watching TV. If i take him off, poo smeared pants within 15 mins, if I leave him on he will just sit there
(I lasted an hour before I lost patience and took him off and was rewarded with skiddy pants within 20 mins).

He has a soft seat for the toilet, will now sit there and sing to himself quite happily but not actually try.

He does NOT want to talk about it, quite often any mention will start a teary temper event or shouting NO, STOP TALKING!!!. He will say there is not poo in his pants even when I am showing him.

He says he has done one when there is nothing there, him: there is mummy I can see it in the toilet!
We have tried Poo goes to Pooland (him: no he doesn't want to go to Pooland,
Bribery: I don't want ANYTHING
Holding him on the toilet (I am ashamed to admit) Result, I got covered in shit as he tried to climb up me away from the toilet with a crap smeared arse.

I am sick of the house smelling of shit, I am sick of poo covered pants, I am heartily sick of it all. It feels like there has been no improvement but I do not want to go back to nappies. Nursery say he is ready, I really do think he is ready he is just determined and stuck, any ideas?

[JuniperNarni]

He definitely doesn't sound ready.

[Summ3ers]

Sorry to hear you are going through this. I have just recently posted something myself regarding poos. It is an exhausting, frustrating and often quite upsetting journey.
Not sure what advice I can offer but I’ll share my experience. My son is a master withholder, he will hide, go on tip toes, clench, shake etc when he’s doing it. For him, it all started after some painful constipation. How often does your son manage to go as sometimes children can leak poo around hard, constipated poo when they get backed up. This often shows up as smears and often they don’t even realise it’s happened. Although we are currently going through a stage of withholding again, one thing that works is making my son’s poo so soft that he has to go and can’t withhold. Messy but it gets the poo out which is important. The Dr prescribes him laxatives but I find that chia seeds mixed into his porridge and prune juice also makes him loose.
Might be worth a trip to the Drs to see if he is backed up. There’s a great charity called ERIC that also has lots of information on withholding.
We have been advised to give my son a nappy just for when he needs a poo and then take it from there once he no longer withholds.

[mooglycrunch]

Summ3ers
Thanks, it did cross my mind that he may be constipated however today has been a day of many tiny "snipped off" poo's (nursery's terminology!)
I get the red, silent shaking just like you. We are feeding him prunes every day so I will try and add chis seeds in too.
I'm not sure what started him off, there was a time in the beginning when he seemed a bit scared of his own poo - I think the talking poo in Poo goes to Pooland freaked him out.
It's very frustrating that any way we have found that works only seems to work for a day or two. Then we are back to square one again.
I'm starting to feel trapped in the house and when you have a 9 month old as well it's not a good feeling xxx

[Lookingforadvice123]

If it was just the poo I would say he is probably ready, but with the wee issue as well I don't think he is, sorry.

We potty trained at 2.7 and DS took to wees straight away on day 3, no issues. Poo was a different story and he would withhold and get the skiddy poos in his pants like you're describing. It made him constipated and he'd then be really whiny where he was uncomfortable. We saw the doctor who prescribed movicol, it worked really well although we had several mini regressions back and forth for months, one week he'd be great and take himself off for a poo voluntarily, others we had to coax/encourage.

He's great now though, finally, and we've almost stopped the movicol altogether (he's now 3.5).

I would put your DS back in nappies, and try again in a month or so.

[Summ3ers]

I totally feel your worry and frustration. I spent a day trapped in the house too, googling all I could to try to find solutions etc. One thing I did discover was that poo anxiety is very common and often starts alongside toilet training. Also, I haven’t found many potty training books that have been very sympathetic towards it either. They usually just assume that a child will just naturally go if you train them correctly and very rarely touch on the major and quite common issue of withholding.
The snapped off poos could still be a sign of constipation and I really recommend you get in touch with ERIC. They have been so helpful. I only spoke to a lady there yesterday and she said that so many of her calls are from parents with children who withhold. Xx

[MadeForThis]

Have you tried blowing bubbles on the toilet. Apparently that encourages them to relax and poop.

[mooglycrunch]

madeforthis
Yes I tried this, he refuses to blow them now and we get a tantrum because he demands I blow them - not him!

[TigerQuoll]

Have a read about encoporesis and see if it sounds like your son

[Gannetseatfish]

Poor we guy! we have had something similar with our DS but with pull-ups and lactulose we are making progress - or at least not withholding anymore. Its easy to say they are not ready but not so easy to go backwards once you've started.

After our first attempt failed we tried to go back to nappies but DS just didn't go at all then so we have had to keep up the potty for pees and pull-ups for poos. He didn't poo for 8 days at one stage which was very worrying. He is very sensitive about it has to be on his own no one looking at him etc.

Could you try and go back to pull ups to take the pressure of yourself if he is having accidents everyday? DS hates when he pees in his pull up so they do work for him. Also I would try and take him to the potty/toilet way less if possible. Our DS hates the whole thing and shouts at me every time I take him (he has never taken himself) so I have kept it to a minimum (4 times a day for us). DS has amazing powers of bladder control though so realise this is not for everyone!

I really feel for you though and hope things settle down soon. My friend told me her DS trained in 3 days recently and he's more than a year younger than DS and I nearly cried. Its just not that straight forward for some children, why does that have to be ours arghhh!

[Lennon80]

I’ve got a three year old still not ready - when they are you don’t get all the accidents they just take to it.