3yo boy pooing in pants

[leeannemumofboys]

my 3.5 year old boy has been potty trained or over a year but for the past 4/5 months has been refusing to poo on the toilet, and poos in his big boy pants!
i have no prob getting him to go to the loo to wee.
i know he understands he shouldn't poo in his pants, think its lazyness!
tried talking/explaining, ignoring, bribing, pleading, shouting..... nothing works!!
any ideas?

My son was exactly the same at that age. Tried bribery, co-ercion, even kept an eye on him (dh and me between us) constantly for 3.5 days till one of us inadvertantly looked away and he nipped behind the sofa and delivered the goods as it were.

He just wouldn't do it on the toilet till he was about 4. One day he said he wanted a rabbit alarm clock. I said ok if you poo on the loo (in a resigned sort of way as I'd said that to every request for anything for months) and he just sauntered in and hey presto!

I think he was just ready and thought he might as well get the rabbit alarm clock while he was at it. Anyway, never looked back after that.

my ds was the same, haad been dry for months but just wouldn't do poos anywhere other than in his pants or a nappy. then suddenly he started doing it. think you maay just have to put up with it til he's ready.

sorry

ds1 was like this - perfectly capable and intelligent enough to know that he should use the toilet - he'd do all his wees on the toilet and then wait until we put a nappy on him at night, and then poo!

In the end I did what all the books say you shouldn't - I lost my rag and said that was it, no more nappies and he could poo in his pyjamas for all I cared but I wasn't going to clean him up...

No more poos in nappies - he went to the toilet that night and has done ever since.

Not suggesting it would work for all, but I knew it was more about him having some control emotionally/mentally rather than any physical difficulty, so I called his bluff - he hates mess and I knew he would never poo in anything other than a nappy or toilet.

Good luck with whatever tactics you go for - might just be you have to wait until he's ready.

Ah, good for you Dottydot. I would have done that, but he was already out of nappies completely because he didn't have one at night.

I didn't have the same problem with my 2 dds as they did have a nappy at night for a while after being dry in the day. Changing a soiled nappy is not as bad as soiled underwear.

One way I encouraged dd1 to poo on the loo was to get her to sit there longer, first by reading to her and then, for some strange reason I can't now recall, I stood at the bathroom door JUGGLING - with balls, not career & motherhood!

DD2 first pooed in a potty the day she ate too many fresh plums - I whipped it under her just in time to prevent disaster. Then she would only use the potty to poo - not the toilet till she was about 4.

Re-reading the OP - he's pooing in his pants, so doesn't mind the messy feeling. In which case I'd be a really mean Mummy and start taking a favourite toy away each time he does it - put them on a high shelf where he can see them (or favourite video, etc. - whatever he loves) and he gets them back one at a time each time he poos on the toilet.

I tried that Dottydot. Didn't work. He didn't care about any toy as much as he cared about not pooing on the toilet before he was ready.

What are they like?! It probably wouldn't have worked with ds1 either - I was lucky in that he's very anal (ha, ha) and hates the thought of mess.