3.11 year old refusing to poo in potty or toilet.

[Hippee]

DS2, nearly 4, was potty trained, but since an anal fissure at Christmas has now regressed and has not pooed on the toilet or potty since. He hides and poos in his pants, up to three times a day. I have tried patience, encouragement, bribery and, more recently (in desperation) meanness (I have told him that he can't go to big school until he can do it on the toilet). Nothing has worked. He was on lactulose for several months, but that didn't make a difference (just made the cleaning up stickier). I am going to take him to the doctor's again, but wondered if anyone had had any success with type of problem.

Yes, we had this problem, and I think we've finally solved it (still a bit reluctant and will hold it in for a couple of days until he's desperate before going, but at least he does now go in the toilet). We tried many, many, many things, but I think what was most effective was...

one sachet of movicol each day to keep poos soft
a star chart with decent prizes to earn
changing the toilet seat to one of those double 'family' ones (ebay have lots)

Good luck!

Will he go in a nappy? I had some success with this method as have friends.

Step 1- dc asks for a nappy when needs to poo - so they are recognising need and waiting until appropriate time - then let them go or do whatever they need to do to be relaxed enough to poo.
Step 2 - dc has still uses nappy to poo, but ask them to be in the bathroom so they learnto be relaxed in this environment.

Step 3 - between taking pants off and putting nappy on ask dc if they would like to sit on toilet.

IME with my DS and friends, step 3 happened naturally - dc asked to use toilet.

My DD is 4 and starting school in september and she would only poo in a nappy until a couple of months ago, It was very frustrating for me and upsetting for both of us:(

She used to ask for a nappy and at times I tried refusing to let her wear one but she would just hold the poo in and then she would get tummy ache.

Anyway in the end I decided that this was just a passing phase and I would let her have the nappy on but she had to stand in the bathroom to poo.

When she was comfortable with doing this I asked if she would be a big girl and sit on the toilet with the nappy on, this was a big step for her and it took us weeks to get her to agree to it but she finally did, she would sometimes cry and say she didn't want to but because I knew she could do it I didn't want to go backwards iykwim and we got her to carry on with it.

Finally and knowing that she was confident with pooing in the nappy on the toilet I had the idea to cut a hole in the nappy (without her knowing), She went to the toilet as normal and obviously the poo went down the loo. She was amazed and so proud of herself and I was so proud and relieved that I cried.

If you can get him to wear a nappy this might work for you op, Good luck. x

I do put him in pull-ups when I just can't face changing another pair of pants, but perhaps I should try it as a stepping stone back instead. Thanks for the suggestions so far.