Wee's in the loo but poos in pants !!! Help !

[Tillysmummy]

DD is nearly 2.5 and has just started nursery 4 mornings a week. She seems to be settling ok although we've had a fewe tears but she's getting used to it. I am now 7.5 months pregnant.We were going to potty train her at Christmas but thought it would all be too much with the nursery etc and decided to wait for her to settle in at nursery. Anyway after the her first few nursery sessions she announced she wanted to go to the toilet and ever since then (last weekend) has been fine with doing her wees in the toilet, pulling pants up, washing hands etc etc. She probably has one accident a day but occasionally none. So I don't think this is too bad. She also did a couple of very small poos in the toilet last weekend. For both poo and wee we heaped praise on her and got her to phone her grandparents and tell them all about it. She was really excited. On Sunday she did a very small poo (smaller than a rabbit poo !!) and then got off in excitement to see what she had done. She then must have realised a few minutes later that she hadn't finished her poo so she did it in her pants. I was a bit fed up about it so told her she should have done it in the loo but that was it (I know I shouldn't really have said anything other than never mind). It was everywhere and I had to shower her off. The next two days she didn't to any poos and I was a bit worried then on the Tuesday she did on in her nappy she had on for her daytime sleep. Again I was a bit frustrated and told her next time to tell me and we could do it in the loo. Then I think it must have been the next night we had put her to bed for the evening and she announced she wanted to poo. We weren't sure if she was mucking around or not but we got her up and put her on the loo. She got on and off a few times and started playing with the taps. We didn't think she did want to go really so we put her nappy back on and put her back to bed. She then did it in her nappy. Needless to say we felt awful for not giving her the benefit of the doubt and leaving her a bit longer but we thought she was messing around. Then the last couple of days of this week she has done poos in her pants again despite me telling her to try in the toilet. She says it's because she was busy doing this or that and we had a chat about it and I tried to find out if there was a reason she was avoiding the toilet but she says no I was just playing with dolly or I was drawing in my diary etc etc. I started a poo star chart yesterday to try and encourage her and told her if she got 5 stars this week we would get her a highchair for her dolly's she's been wanting for a while. She seemed really into it. But today again did a poo in her nappy after her daytime sleep and before we'd had a chance to put her pants back on. I dont really know how / what to do. Is it a phase ? I know telling her off isn't the way of dealing with it but it's really frustrating. It's not as if she can't speak and I can't communicate with her. She has no trouble conversing and I have asked her so many times if she wants to go to the loo and do a poo. Am I pressuring her too much ? I don't know how to break this pooing in pants and nappies. Im fed up with cleaning it up !! It's so annoying when we do talk about it too and she says yes I will do my poo in the toilet next time mummy etc etc and then doesn't.

i dont think this will be of much help but anyway.i had the exact opposite problem with my ds,all poos in loo or potty but wees-omg-i honestly never thought hed get it right,i used to change him 7 times a day sometimes!i read every book,trawled the net,spoke to experts,bored my friends but eventually he got the idea of not just weeing where he was but making some sort of effort to go to the loo.he used to give exactly the same reasons as your daughter,i shed so many tears as this went on for months and of course all his friends were fine!so,please dont stress or worry,she will get there eventually,and she is only little-my ds was 3 when all this happened.

Tillysmummy, my dd did this and unfortuneatley took nearl a year to grow out of it!! However I would give you two bits of advice,

1. Does she really need the napppy for her daytime nap? She seems to have good control on the wee front and this may just give her an excuse for laziness
2. Don't stress, she sounds like a switched on intelligent girl, and she knows she is pissing you off (!) it is a power game I would totally ignore it, star charts can work, but I would say she is a little young for them (IMHO) you are doing everything right by praising her, but if she does one in her nappy or pants, try to just say nothing. I found this seemed to work better than any bribe as I wasn't playing her little game, and she was getting no reaction. I find now dd2 has a similar 'game' yelling out she needs a wee wee or a poo all the time, we go to the loo and then nothing, her particular fave is in a restaurant and she used to end up going 3 or 4 times until we stopped playing her game and saying she could wet herself instead! We still go twice just in case

Good Luck, in a matter of weeks it will be OK, I just got through a lot of baby wipes and pants at this stage

My ds used to just do it on the carpet when he was using the potty for wees fine and it used to drive me mad..I gave up going on and figured if I got uptight it would be like a power game, the more I let it upset me he saw this and did it...Some children are actually scared of doing poos as don't like seeing them in the potty (strange but true)...it took us about 6 months of trying lots of stuff..but I think when they're ready they're ready...try not to let it bother you though as there are no rules here, every child is individual and just because Matildas child the road potty trained at 18 months doesn't mean yours are funny because they don't.

Lavx

My ds was great from day 1 with both but then forgot that you used the loo for poos and started to do them in his pants - we just explained that they were better in the loo - calmly (seething inside!) and eventually he started doing it again - very frustrating especially after he had initially mastered it. Everything was fine again within a couple of weeks - good luck - I'm sure it will right itself - you could always try rewards too - we used sticky stars! and the usual choc choc bribe!

Hi all thanks for the advice. I think you are right actually. Maybe i'll try ignoring it. I guess that maybe she picks up on my desire to get her fully trained before number 2 arrives. I guess she took the lead in telling us when she was ready to do it in terms of wees so hopefully as you suggest she will do the same with poos ! Yuk, don't know how many more logs in pants I can face
I have been criminally wasteful and chucked a couple of cheap pairs away but think if this is ongoing I will have to brace myself and get covered in s**t !!!!
The joys of toilet training !! Thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll stop hassling her. One question, if I catch her just about to do the deed in her pants and ask her to go to the loo but she says no should I ignore her and plonk her on anyway or is this terrible ??!

Yes, if you can see she's about to go, plonk her on the loo. DD would occasionally yell at me that she didn't need a poo/wee whilst in mid-flow. I think sometimes they just get too preoccupied elsewhere.

Don't worry about throwing away pants, if she's really mucked them up then no amount of Vanish will get them skid free! I'd just buy cheapy pairs for now. Adams had packs of 5 for £1.99 recently.

We've been having exactly the same situation with 2 and half yr old ds. Wees in potty, poos were in bedtime nappy - have to admit, we used chocolate rewards for poos in potty.
First I caught him as he was pooing in nappy and flipped the poo into the potty, pretended I thought he had done it there and gave lots of praise and choccie buttons. Then told him that poos in potty meant chocolate rewards (he doesn't normally have any chocolate/sweets etc), and that's done the trick - all poos in potty now..... but he does point to chocolate bars in shops and says 'Chocolate poos in the potty' very loudly'

I would try very hard to ignore any accidents.

With DS no.1 I used to pop him on the toilet/potty every time I saw him straining to avoid messed pants.

Result was a child who got incredibly constipaed and would only poo in his pants in a corner when no-one was looking. That carried on until he was 4 years old I am afraid to say.

I think you should put her for a sleep in her pants only as already suggested. Try not to ask her all the time is she needs a poo. Just toilet her when she gets up from a sleep and let her tell you when she needs to go. If she has an accident, say nothing and pop it down the toilet. She will twig where it has to go and not get stressed over it.
DS is 16 years old now and I still remember the trauma of toileting I didn't make the same mistake with the other 3 children.

Another vote here for sweets. My dd started off doing poos and wees no problem. About age of your dd or just before, dd started doing poos in pants. Solved this by telling her she would get a "surprise" which was a few smarties whenever she got a poo in toilet/potty. She was very motivated by this and it was sorted within a few days. We had to give the smarties for quite a while afterwards, but since she only does a poo once a day after lunch it was no big issue for us. We stopped doing it a few months later.

TM we have all been there and it is quite frustrating. DS now 4 but when he was training at 2 picked it up in a week but did not stay on his toilet seat for a poo. He did it in nappies or just avoided doing one at all!!!!! But give it time it took him about two weeks to eventually do a poo in the potty then he progressed to the toilet seat about two weeks after that. I don't know what it is with children, I don't know whether they think it is part of their body leaving them or whether they are so used to the poo sticking to their bums that it feels weird for them to just do it and it leaves their body. But holding the frustration is even harder when you are pregnant, believe me I know ( we are both on March pg thread). But you must try and I promise you she will do it when she feels comfortable. All small children I know have been through exactly the same thing and when she does get the hang of completing her poo in the potty or toilet seat do what you have been doing, go really over the top in congratulating her. My nephew did his first poo in the potty last week and he has been training for months. A friend of mine has a ds who was trained from about 2.5 years but kept doing little poos in his pants till he was about 3.5 but as annoying as it was she tried to keep calm. But now he has got the hang of it. So it will happen.

Sorry haven't read all posts. It will take time to master things just praise her when she gets it right and buy v. cheap knickers that you can throw away rather than scrape.

I think I read somewhere (Penelope Leach?)that they do find it physically harder to get the signals right for pooing than weeing. DS 2.5 has recently decided to potty train himself, but is very diffident about pooing, and if he thinks he might be about to, he asks me to put a nappy on. He has managed it a couple of times, but he just doesn't seem confident about it, so I'm not making an issue of it.
Cheap pants are a good idea...bet Primark have some good offers?

Have to agre with all here, went throught it my ds1( he is now 3yrs 10mths) and only stopped doing it in his pants in November, but he has now "got it" (touching lots of wood as I type). Friends were great, and like has been said before buy cheap pants and just chuck away. Although some people -non friends, and surprisingly my dad - did say " you know he is too old still to being doing that" to which I replied "really, cause I have told him it's Ok, and of course it doesn't stress me at all"

It will get better, I know I thought it would never end,and you feel yours is the only one doing it. One day it will happen, and you will be typing encouraging messages for someone else, that's mumsnet for you. Big hugs, and take care!

I've just read all the previous messages, my son being identical in behaviour. I'm now much cheered after four/five months of scraping s..t out of pants and having a chocolatey bum waving at my face! I am resolved to ignore it. Thanks people. I just hope its not another four months!!

hi hope someone can help my daughter who is nearly 3 has been dry day and night for nearly a year but constantly poo's in her pants we have only ever had the tiniest of poo's in the toilet or potty and these are very few and far between she attends nursery and is settled in well their advice is that not to make a fuss and she'll grow out of it but i'm at my wits end even though i don't show this infront of my daughter sometimes it can be 10 times a day she says sorry it's only an accident please help i'm up to my eye's in poop and washing