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Behaviour/development

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how to overcome fear of poos / the toilet

2 replies

dodi1978 · 08/02/2020 12:29

DS of 3 years 4 months hear. He initially toilet trained last summer and was dry, wees and poos, after a few days. Congratulated myself and thought we'd cracked it for good!

Unfortunately, two weeks after he had D&V and couldn't feel his poos coming, and immediately after we went on holiday, so complete change of routine etc.

Cue major poo regression which still hasn't ended.... neither nursery nor we can get him to do a poo on the toilet. I wouldn't mind if there was the odd accident, but the most worrying thing is that there seems to be a real psychological block / fear of doing a poo in the toilet.

I have now agreed with nursery that, for the next few weeks, we're doing lots of praise / stickers for good toileting, and simply try to get him to sit for a bit longer... but this is proving impossible. He will go and do his wee, but just not sit there longer than necessary.

If you've had the same, how did you crack it? He's got a Sky (from Paw Patrol) plus surprise eggs sitting on the window ledge for when he does a poo on the toilet... he doesn't seem to care.

I even re-instated the potty this morning in the hope that this might help. Not yet!

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Jossina · 08/02/2020 22:53

I'm not sure you can get the nursery to do it, but maybe schedule 30 minutes of bathroom time at certain intervals in the day after trying a mild constipation med? Or ask your GP, as he may be getting constipated which then makes pooing hurt even more making everything worse. Good luck, remember that this won't last forever :)

Jellybean100 · 08/02/2020 23:37

My little boy took months to get over his poo fear! For months I allowed him to poo in a nappy, he would ask for a nappy when he needed to go. One day I just said this is the last nappy now. It took a LOT of screaming the first few times and me cuddling him whilst he sat on the potty Blush then lots of praise and reward afterwards. I’d say after about a week he was over it. But it wasn’t a good parenting time for me. You have my sympathies but it’s not forever xx

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