Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask a slightly disgusting question re. your toilet habits?

211 replies

MattDillonsPants · 07/05/2016 01:01

Don't read if eating.

Well DH and I have a disagreement.

I say if you need a poo, you need a poo...well I do anyway...there's no waiting about it. Personally I have to go immediately.

He says he can decide when to go...he knows "I need a poo" but can choose to wait sometimes for hours.

I say he's caused himself issues in this department by waiting habitually...which he does regularly.

He has all kinds of digestive problems including wind, diarrhoea and constipation.

He says these issues are simply because he has food sensitivities...he MAY but won't get that checked out...I say if he would listen to his body and poo when it wants to...then a lot would be sorted out.

OP posts:
HawkEyeTheNoo · 08/05/2016 16:16

I usually go once ever two weeks or so (I have been to the docs as DM thought there was something wrong with me as a child so was there on and off for years since aged 13 and I'm 40 now). I can feel like I need a poo, no stomach pains or anything, then it will go away and maybe I'll get the feeling again four or five days later and I'll go then. I never have the urgent need to go there and then

HawkEyeTheNoo · 08/05/2016 16:17

I'm also in and out in a couple of minutes and it's not mega smelly or anything, in fact sometimes you wouldn't know I had been as DP will often remark if he thinks I haven't been for a few weeks and I'll say I was just there before you showered

2rebecca · 08/05/2016 17:40

I don't get women who are in there for ages either, I tend to presume they are really constipated or something, although if I go for a poo and it's not happening I'd just try again later, not sit there for 10 minutes.

VulcanWoman · 08/05/2016 17:58

Yeah, but constipation is weird and horrible, you so feel like going but the f'a just won't come out, sometimes it takes sitting there for ages until it decides to make an appearance. I've been there for 45 mins sometimes, I take my laptop in there with me Grin

SawdustInMyHair · 08/05/2016 18:14

It does seem to be a thing with men that they poop by appointment.

Perhaps they should be working on their pelvic floors, as it seems like they quite often get to their timeslot and can't perform. Or it takes forEVER.

dowhatnow · 08/05/2016 18:33

I was on a train in a foreign country a while ago. I suffer from IBS and had to go. 5 out of order toilets later, down the train, I came across one that opened but hadn't (and couldn't be) flushed. I had no choice but to add to the contents. Felt awful leaving that for someone to sort out but I was in panic mode. I was almost at the end of the train and would have had to soil myself and sit in it for the rest of the journey. The relief when that toilet door admitted me was indescribable Blush

FeckOfffCup · 08/05/2016 18:51

Yeah I don't get the pooing at a certain time of the day thing. I go whenever, probably more often than not in the evenings.
DP is a 8.17am and not a moment later type of person Grin

EBearhug · 08/05/2016 20:24

They might not be in there for poo. If my period is heavy, if I've flooded, it can take a while to mop up and so on. Plus it may also be accompanied by a period poo.

And then there was the time at work I popped into the loo to clear my head, and half-dozed off with my head leaning against the wall. It wasn't a good day.

What I don't like is people in adjoining cubicles who are doing whatever while carrying on a conversation on their phone. You could wait. I am not so bothered about people in the next cubicle hearing me, but I don't want it going down the end of the phone - which actually, doesn't make sense, because people in the next cubicle are more likely to hear me than someone at the other end of a stranger's phone. But then, most of these loo-related hang-ups don't really make sense if you look at them entirely logically.

polyhymnia · 08/05/2016 23:23

In an earlier thread , I was amazed to find some germophobe women had bizarre rituals of totally covering toilet seat with loo paper for 'hygienic' purposes, which I felt at least explained why it takes some women an inexplicably long time to use the loo, keeping the rest of us waiting ridiculously long.

BillBrysonsBeard · 08/05/2016 23:36

Polyhymnia I've walked into many a cubicle with toilet seat neatly covered in loo roll all the way around! The mind boggles..

icy121 · 08/05/2016 23:44

OH goes every morning without fail. 20 mins in there. I'm another IBSer and go whenever wherever. Random times, sometimes lots, sometimes nothing. I go at work almost every day (nice loos, male dominated office)

I went in M&S today :-)

In and out in moments, usually - unless it's a particularly weird IBSy one. The worst are when you've finished up, flushed and realise you need a round 2. If I'm in a quiet public loo, I like to change stall in that event - making sure I can flush properly! I'm a scrupulous flusher + always use the brush, if provided.

I also find I poo mucous from time to time. Because of the IBS, I almost prefer to poo on the go; some of my poos are frankly offensive and I'd rather not abuse my own loo!

I was on hols with a mate once on a remote island with no proper plumbing system. She'd flushed a tampon earlier that day. I obviously then did a massive and horrendous poo, the loo was blocked and we had to call out hotel people to come and fix it. Just brazened it out! I'll never forget the sight of one of the workers dashing out the bathroom and scuttling off across the way... only to scuttle back with a tin of air freshener! The shame!

Original poster
MattDillonsPants · 09/05/2016 06:32

Poly I do that. It takes me seconds. I don't leave it there though. I don't want to sit in some woman's' thigh sweat or pee!

OP posts:
VulcanWoman · 09/05/2016 06:47

I do the toilet paper on the seat if I'm desperate to use a public loo for a number two, flush all the paper down though, I find it hard to believe the paper is still neatly left on the seat, it falls off or sticks to you when you get up.

polyhymnia · 09/05/2016 10:24

Really don't get the paper on the seat thing - what harmful thing could anyone possibly catch through the skin on the cheeks of their bottom? But each to their own!

OldFarticus · 09/05/2016 11:42

I also do the paper on the seat thing (or the paper toilet seat covers if I have had time to order them). It's not the idea of catching something, just the prospect of sitting in someone elses wee. Aeroplanes are terrible for that - everyone seems to be pissed incapable of peeing straight. I keep some old body spray with a high alcohol content in my handbag, clean the loo seat with that and a paper towel or loo roll, then paper over the seat. Then I can go! Grin

I used to just avoid public loos but after bowel surgery I no longer have the option, so I clean first and then grimace through the fresh-creeping awfulness of pooing in public.

Milkmaestro · 09/05/2016 12:03

My sister deliberately did not poo for 4 days during Glastonbury Festival as the toilets were gross. No idea how she managed it...

polyhymnia · 09/05/2016 13:21

Guess I've been lucky as haven't come across many/ any wee- soaked seats, which I agree is gross. If I did, I'd just go to another cubicle.

BillBrysonsBeard · 09/05/2016 14:36

I hardly see wee seats either, if I do just a quick wipe with a bit of loo roll.

StickTheDMWhereTheSunDontShine · 09/05/2016 14:50

At home, if I have to go, I have to go. There's no arguing with it.

Away from home, everything goes shy and I just fart horrendously until I can get home and sit in my own quiet bathroom with my feet on a stool..

MiddleClassProblem · 10/05/2016 14:55

A Thai restaurant I used to go to had seat covers that you just pull a leaver and it whizzed around a new one

AppleSetsSail · 10/05/2016 14:58

I'm a poo-holder, as are my children (they refuse to poo at school).

The moment we cross the UK border, my body knows we're in a Foreign Country and it will be 5 days before I poo again. Not sure why. Unpleasant to say the least.

My husband is like clockwork and has a private bathroom at work, so the world is his oyster.

BartholinsSister · 10/05/2016 15:22

Sometimes I like to hold them in to make sure they have, er, 'set'.

newtscamander · 10/05/2016 15:25

I can wait Wink

VulcanWoman · 10/05/2016 19:02

Barth Grin so they have to be a certain consistency. When I'm baking a cake I test to see if it's set by using a metal skewer, hopefully you aren't doing the same. Grin

Mov1ngOn · 10/05/2016 19:35

I wonder how so many people have grown up with these kinds of poo issues.

Were you told public toilets were unclean as a child or made to feel bad about pooing. Or parents embarrassed about poo?