To reply that my child isn’t potty trained?

[whattosayy]

95% reliable for we
8 months after starting still soils pants - we’ve never had a poo on potty or toilet 😭

I have been on Eric contacted hv team etc but so I just need to accept he isn’t trained & may not be before school?

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

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!

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

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

What a load of utter bollocks 😂😂😂

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

When my DS started school nursery at nearly 3 and a half he was potty trained for wee but refused to poo on the toilet, always had to be a nappy!
He used to be collected from nursery by a local pre school for wrap around care and when my DH picked him up one day he told him he’d had a poo on the toilet. I guess he was just so desperate he had no choice but to use the toilet and we never used nappies again.
It’s different to your situation as he never soiled himself but hopefully it’ll just click for him at some point like it did for my DS.
Good luck!

Definitely do not wait until summer to get a gp appointment. If there is a problem, the sooner the better to find it or it will get worse. Good diet doesn't preclude constipation or compaction - my nephew was under paeds monitoring for this and his diet was great (way better than my kids!) it didn't matter. He needed to have laxatives daily for months to get him sorted, so you really aren't helping yourself or your son to put off seeking medical support for another two or three months.

I would also support what another poster has said about not letting him continue to soil his pants with poo. This is a bad habit to learn, you'll have to do a lot of work later unlearning it. Speak to him about going back into pull ups for pooing. Or just full stop for a few weeks to break the cycle.

If he’s pooing in his pants don’t put pants on him.
This is the way that DS learned.