14mo deliberately pooing in the bath

[pastabest]

Not sure what to make of this really.

My 14mo DD has always loved baths so I'm confident it's not a fear or dislike thing, if anything the bath is where she is at her happiest. Since she turned one she got in the habit of having a wee in the bath (stood up) as soon as she got in. More recently, and only when it is me giving her a bath and not her dad she has done a poo within seconds of being in the bath.

She's pretty regular and generally otherwise goes pretty much once a day the same time every day (mid morning, never in the evening when bathtime is) but she's also taken to going into a corner away from us to do it which started around the same time the bath pooing started.

She definitely IMO has control over it, each time she has done it she gets into the same position, maintains eye contact with me and grins and then reaches to be picked up out of the bath and waits while I clean it up. Once or twice when I have run the bath again and put her back in she has done it again. Last night she did it twice, and after the second time I put her in the shower instead (she also loves a shower) as she really needed her hair washing and I didn't want t fill the bath again. Tonight she did it again and while I was emptying the bath she hopped in the shower by herself and pointed at it wanting me to turn it on. I'm pretty sure she did it tonight because she decided she wanted a shower rather than a bath. Is that a bit odd at 14mo?

I'm assuming this is linked to some development in awareness of having control over her bladder and bowels but it seems far too young to start any kind of proper toilet training. I'm also not sure exactly how to react to it, so far I've not really been reacting, just calmly but sort of telling her off, lifting her out and starting again, but I'm wondering if I should actually now be getting really cross with her, but don't want her to start trying to hold it in because she's scared, or possibly put her off getting in the bath. The first few times it happened I held her over the toilet assuming it was out of her control but she just sat there looking bemused. Not sure what (if anything) I should do.

Everyone I ask in RL just laughs as you can imagine.

I would get her to sit on a potty or toilet before her bath but not potty train her at other times. Hopefully being rewarded with a piece of chocolate or sweet will make a pre-bath wee routine.

Why not ask her if she prefers bath or shower to save time? There will be times that she picks one then changes her mind but hopefully she'll generally stick to the one she chose.

My dd did this for a little while at about the same age. We used to sit her in a potty whilst running the bath to try and prempt it. If she did anything we did huge enthusiastic congratulations and a chocolate buttons.

We also got her out of the bath straight away and had sad disappointed faces, did some gentle chat about how sad for the toys and how sad she couldn't play with the new bath toys now. (Bought as a bargaining chip)

She stopped in about a week.

Cheers both,

widget did you find that was the actual start of potty training for your dd? 14 months seems very young, my niece is only potty training now at nearly 3? I'm also due DC2 in 8 weeks so don't want to start something I can't see through!

Unfortunately I can't see DD sitting on a potty even with a bribe, she never sits still even to watch her favourite programmes. When the bath is running she is either trying to climb in it, trying to empty drawers, unfolding all the towels or doing slidey skids across the floor. I would love to be able to ask her what she wants but her only words currently are no, bye bye and (ba)nana. She can show you what she wants if she decides to (e.g deciding to get in the shower) but is only just starting to respond to being asked stuff.

Her dad is going to give her a bath tonight and she has never done it with him so far, so I'm going to see what happens tonight

WHen she starts to poo take her out and put her on the toilet..
Maybe the warm water is affecting her to have a poo..warm water relaxing the body and relaxing the bowels..
so if u see her do the screwed up straining face to poo lift her out and put her on potty or toilet..or just put swimmie pants on her then clean her after..

@pastabest no that wasn't to start of potty training, although 2 friends had children who potty trained themselves at 18 and 19 months, so not completely absurd to think about it. But no, definitely not potty training for us at that point!

She only just potty trained a month ago at 2 years 10 months.

Oh weird, I literally came here just now to post EXACTLY the same thing. Well, near enough. DD is 22 months. Not yet toilet trained. I couldn't say whether she's doing it deliberately. She certainly doesn't seem to be making any sort of naughty/cheeky face. Only her 'I'm doing a poo' face. It's been three nights in a row now.

I'm wondering if we just need to toilet train her.

Anyway, OP, if you don't mind my joining in, I'll hang around for tips.

Sometimes it seems like it’s just habit. When my son was about 18 months and we used to go a park, he would always run off, hide in a specific bush and do a poo.

Even now that he’s 7 we still call it “poo bush”.

I think he just did it once and then kind of remembered “oh yeah, that was a good place for a poo”

In your situation I would just move to showering but that’s because I never enjoyed bath time with mine!