To reply that my child isn’t potty trained?

Pull-ups and set a timer to take him to the toilet every half hour. Get him to blow on something it helps them relax and gets their bladder and bowel moving when their sitting on the toilet. It helps if they have a step to put their feet on so they feel steady.

My son had a Thomas train when he blew the whistle the Thomas train moved and played the tune. Incontinence nurse said to only let him use it when he's sat on the toilet though.

I also bought every children's potty training book I could find. The little princess I want my was one my daughter loved.

The Oh Crap book has a chapter dedicated to reluctant pooers. I’d give it a read.

My experience is that nothing works until it works.
I agree with this! I lived in dread of a phone call home but it turned out that DC never did a poo at pre-school, always waited until he was home.

Who said anything about school? I was responding to this:

He is three and 5 months: he will start the preschool bit of the school he will attend in September when he’ll be nearly 4.

I consider that a child of almost 4 is already long overdue to be out of nappies in the daytime. Assuming there are no medical reasons and no SNs, it would be respectful to the preschool staff to not expect them to change your child's shitty nappies when they are old enough to ride a bike, hold an in depth convesation and too large to fit on a changing mat.

Oh and i do think its true there is a window after which children get very stubborn and have hard habits to break around pooing - they can get secretive and scared to change and stool withholding becomes a vicious cycle that is hard to break.

For some reason people think they should start with wees but bowel control develops earlier than bladder. The best time imho is 18 - 32 months. By the time kids are 18m they will often have a pattern of pooing after a particular meal and its easy to follow their natural cues

My experience is that nothing works until it works. I know that doesn't make much sense as a sentence but if you've been there you know 😂

Just keep plugging away at it. Keep trying.

I wouldn't panic about this for pre-school. Reception is a bit more stressful but you've got time.

There's an app called 'poo goes home to pooland' which may help. It's a story your son can watch on your phone.

You don't necessarily have to do anything. My DC just did it when they were ready. I didn't do anything except facilitate. He may be picking up on your anxiety around it.

You've still got ages for him to get there and besides he's only starting nursery so there will be other DC that aren't fully toilet trained.

Harsh. She started when her child was less than 3. We trained at 3yrs 3 months. My child wasn’t ready before that. We tried during that ‘crucial’ window and it was a disaster. Don’t recall seeing you there.

Don't get an appt for summer, get one for now. Get his bowel checked (just a poke and a prod)

Mines at school nursery, lots of kids in nappies still,staff join knowing they'll be changing nappies. It isn't a stigma, and school help, praise, send home nicely wrapped bags of soiled clothes. It isn't ideal but it's life. Keep going, be honest and use pull ups for school

Oh and if hes not going with some predictability, its likely he is holding it in to some degree.

There are natural processes which lead us to poo around half hour after eating. Make sure he has a good diet to reduce constipation (raw carrot, kiwi etc) then try after meals

OP, are you only using a toilet with toddler seat, rather than an actual potty? My 3 boys did so much better on a basic potty for poos, as the squatting position is really helpful to encourage the bowel movement.

If only using a toilet, a step can help, but I found a basic potty was necessary to break the poo-in-nappy routine.

It is goady to spout absolute crap as if it’s true though. There is no “crucial window”.

You've got a full term.

Start by asking him to help you take the soiled pants/nappy to the potty and put them in the potty when he has been. Because that is where poo goes.

Make sure you let him see his father poo, in the bathroom at home. He needs to know everybody poos.

then ask him to sit, in a pull up/nappy , on a potty, for a poo. If he hides behind a sofa or anything to poo, put the potty there where he likes to go. Bribe, reward etc.

If you can get him to do this, you can get there.

Next step - undo one side of nappy, continue asking him to sit on the potty with it on to poo. Do this for a couple of weeks

Next still with nappy, work on undoing the other side

Then have a nappy under him in the potty for him to poo

Then cut it gradually smaller and smaller until you can swap it for some tissue.

Pre school will be used to this. It is not unusual,

Quite a few children will be unreliable in reception as well.

With mine because there was a regular routine of when they poo'd I built in story time on their potties then. (Twins).

Does he have a noticeable routine?

You really don't need to be panicking yet

We had the poo situation. My daughter is the same age as your son. Only cracked it this week, so keep going! We basically let her wear a nappy, then a nappy on the potty, then the nappy half on, then distracted her until nappy off and potty only. She then got a nice present as a reward. Plus I think when they are in a new environment like school they hold poo in, it’s unlikely he’d go in his pants there (I don’t think I ever had a poo at school even when desperate!). Don’t despair, he’ll get there and you’ve got 5 months. Good luck x

What a load of utter bollocks 😂😂😂

Firstly some children are harder to toilet train than others. Shit happens. If you have an easy one then it's easy to say it should be done by now. Some get anxious about toilet poos, others it just doesn't sink in.

What do you do when he does a poo? Does he help with tipping it in the toilet?

I know it sounds gross but letting him know it's his responsibility for poo being in the toilet did help us. And we showed him how to flush the toilet and washing hands because poo went in the toilet. We did the routine of a poo having been done in the toilet without the poo actually ending up in there.

No one knows how stressful and tiring it can be when every poo is in pants and you're continually cleaning and wondering how to resolve the issue

See if you work out any routine to toilet times so you may be able to do some stomach pushing exercises on the toilet within that timeframe. If there's no routine (mine wasn't) it's so much harder. One day I saw him going in his pants and did a quick toilet run and managed to get the last bit in. Did a toy reward etc and that was the turning point.

Keep watching, keep trying, keep talking. Also try to ask if he knows the feeling of needing to go - and why he doesn't

That's a shame. Hope you find a solution.

I’ve got to say that for us the ‘they’ll get there’ response caused us to delay realising there was a medical issue, which I feel led to the problem being worse and prolonged. Anyone who hasn’t experienced this does not understand, we had years of multiple daily accidents (despite medical help), it was awful. Nearly a decade later I’m pleased to say we’re out the other side!

No she doesn't he isn't starting school for 18 months.

Yes, I echo this. Our diet was good - but I was letting him have too much milk and DS2 ended up constipated. Thinking about it, that probably explains the delay we had with his potty training - he was past 3, almost a year later than DS1.

I'd rule out medical problem with GP - you can get overflow.

Some kids are just harder - DS has issue with occasional pooing pants though to year 1 - school was not great though they could have been worse. Yet one of our three kids trained early and easy.

With DS was a mix of him not being very aware of bodily functions generally - also gets in concentration zone - suspect some ND - it did stop it sort of trailed off though we did get some in potty or toilet with seat (oddly slight better with that for solids) along side wee though from off.

Also I went though phase of fermented foods seem to settled his stomach issues as well finally.

You still have a lot of time - preschool should be bit more understanding than school but I agree it's just frustrating - he will get them eventually though.