Potty trained 3yr old keeps sh*tting in his pants or on the floor!!!!

[saffymum]

Help, my DS (3) won't go to the toilet when he needs a poo. He has a good regular routine of wanting to do one when we get home from nursery and the only way I know he is about to do it is that he hides behind the sofa and shouts no mummy. Then we usually bribe him by fetching and ice cream and saying if you sit on the toilet a poo is going to come out and you can have this ice cream. OMG that sounds terrible but it seems to work. The problem is when you don't spot him he does it in his pants and we have had 3 days of accidents and this morning he took off his pants to wee by himself as usual but then pooed on the floor all through the house. I need suggestions please, how do I get him to come to the loo, I know he knows its coming because he hides.

my cousin has a few kids and she tried everything with the first to potty train her, and it was mistake after mistake after mistake. With her second she decided just to wait until she was ready and she was potty trained in 5 days. I have taken her advice i have twins and i am trying to potty train them but we have had a few mistakes and although i dont like cleaning it up i have found they hate messing even more and its done their head in, so now ive given up, im of the mind when they are ready they will just do it, not many kids go to school un potty trained, some learn quicker than others, bribes etc just confuse them even more, toilet should just be about i need to go to the toilet...then job done does that make sense

Is he ok with pees?

My husband's best, and oldest, friends have four boys and a girl. All the boys were pretty much the same in terms of potty training - to start with none would go on the potty at all, and would just go beside it or in a corner. Then it was wees on the potty, and eventually the poos followed. We've taken their advice and are just being relaxed about it. When indoors pants are left off entirely. He no longer tries to hide when he's going to do a poo after I stopped grabbing him and throwing him on the potty (he'd panic when he saw me and try to run away).

It has meant a lot of cleaning up poo off the floor, but to be honest that is easier than trying to get a pooey nappy off him as he really fights that!

It has been two weeks now. They reckon that by the end of a month the boys had it all down pat OK. Their daughter on the other hand was happy to go on the potty from the word go, and was fully potty trained in a week!

One thing I have done is make up a wee wee and poo poo song. When son says he wants to go wee wee or poo poo I start singing 'wee wee on the potty wee wee on the potty' but I don't push him in the direction of the potty. He started wee weeing on the potty pretty soon after that. Now for the poo!

Thanks for the messages of encouragement. We've got the wees all sorted out no trouble. I've been advised to try and stay calm and I think I might do what you suggest and leave the pants off but I'm not sure how many more steaming mounds I can clean up... give me strength!! I don't want to distress him anymore because like you Gategipsy I have to grab him and he keeps running away and its really very distressing!!