4 y/o ds will only do poos in a nappy - any suggestions?

[RozzieR]

he potty-trained late (at 3) from cloth nappies, skipped the potty altogether and went straight (well, with a bit of difficulty) to do wees standing up in the loo. he's fine at that, but because he never sat on potty or loo, he never did one by chance while sitting. he'll try, bless him, and sits gamely on the loo while we read stories, sing songs etc, or while we leave him alone to cuddle his mouse (=best friend), but he just can't let it go.

then he had a bad experience when a rather sloppy poo leaked out of a nappy and down his leg, so now he's scared of leaking and insists on 2 nappies, one on top of the other.

oh yeah, and he's smearing his pants all the time. i don't think he's constipated, because his poos are soft, and he says they don't hurt him.

help!

show him the last set of nappies .. to last a week maybe .. then say at the end of the week the nappies are going to a baby who needs them .. countdown then get rid

he might have some accidents .. but he'll get it

also teach him the digestive system in a positive way .. use a child encyclopedia and talk about the miracle of food and the goodness that helps him run and play and that the stuff the body doesn't need comes out other side of intestine as poo

I don't think he's potty-trained yet if he's still wearing nappies btw

in some countries they don't potty train at all and just let the child decide when .. you could try that but you'll probably have difficulties with schools if child is NT

Im astounded tbh, how on earth can a 4yr old still be in nappies?! My 2dc were both out of nappies ASAP. My youngest now 4 and starting school this september. I just can imagine a 4yr old in nappies.
Not much good advice im afraid, just soo suprised.

My friends daughter still did this at 5. I also was quite shocked but now that I have two kids of my own I would never comment on anyone else's kids still being in nappies at WHATEVER age.
She used to ask for a nappy to be put on when she wanted a poo and would go in it straight away. I thought (pre children) that this was outrageous but now understand my friend's concern that the alternative was a completely constipated child as she just wouldn't go otherwise.
She just grew out of it. No requests or advice from others worked. If she thought there was anyone trying to convince her to poo in a loo or potty she just absolutely would not go.
you might just have to accept it as a phase... (sorry thats the best I can offer!).
My 2.8yo was fully potty trained and almost dry and night - till last week when he just regressed so I have the utmost sympathy for anyone having botty probs with their kids!

I suppose this is not a very good answer, but the only thing that worked with my dd was bribery. I am almost ashamed to admit that I promised her a scooter if she did the deed - of course I had chosen a moment when I knew she wanted to go, and was lucky in that she was a pretty "regular" girl. So there she was perched on the toilet, determined not to let the poo out, and me hovering over her, saying go on, go on, we'll get you a scooter if you do it, and everyone we know will be SO pleased with you. God how embarassing.....

Id go for a sticker chart, where she is rewarded for at least attempting to try the toilet, gradually over a week or two. My dd had a sticker chart at nursery when she was potty training where she used a stamper to mark the boxes when she went on a big girls toilet. Seemed to work very well. Obviously a prize at the end of the chart to keep her interested in the goal.

Will your dd be starting school this september??

Good luck!

Sorry, your ds not dd.

Have to say sticker charts didn't work with my savvy 2.5 yr old. He took to standing up wees quickly (like your ds) as 'Daddy did it that way'. Does your dh/p show your son how 'big boys do it?' Smearing is quite normal so don't worry about that we still get ot occasionally (he's 3.5 now) as he just can't bear to leave what he's doing.

Cold turkey might be the only way. Take away the nappies buy some 'big boy pants' -let him chose, our current favourite is either Bob pants or Noddy Pants -or go to somewhere like instore where they sell them for £3 for 10 ish? We threw them away if they were that bad. When an accident happens, quickly, quietly clear him up and send him on his way again. No fuss. He was scared by being out of control and so he's frightened of this happening again so he's avoiding the situation. You need to help him face it...

Posters who say they are amazed about your situation need to be ignored. That's not going to help your anxiety which will then transfer to your ds.

Good luck, let us know what you decide and what happens!

Im sorry if my shock i wrote about causes you and therefore your ds any anxiety, this was not my intention. But ive never seen or heard of a 4yr old who is still in nappies. And i was shocked and suprised! But that is what MN is all about, discovering how others manage and cope with parenting.
My youngest dd is 4 and i find it difficult to comprehend. Just the same as when i see a 4or5 yr old with a dummy or in a pushchair. Suprising and shocking to me imo.

I dont mean to be negative. Apologies for my opinion. And good luck!

Haychee .. in Switzerland it is extremely common for 5 year olds to still be in nappies .. they don't do potty training .. the kids just do it themselves when ready

RozzieR
My ds is now nearly 4 and we got him out of nappies at about 3.5.
Our problem was that he didn't want to sit on the loo or potty for any length of time.

Fortunately for you, your ds does do this.
I think he just needs a confidence boost, tbh.

First of all, I think you need to try to stop showing an interest in him getting out of nappies. Difficult, I know. But its really important that you do.

Second, do as Haychee suggested, give him a deadline as to when he will start wearing pants and no more nappies-play on the fact that its gonna be great. Then pop to the poundstrechers and buy loads and loads of cheap pants.
Third, Have you tried a sticker chart?
Get him to help you make one. He'll get a sticker every time he sits on the toilet, whether or not he does anything. Take him to the toilet every half an hour to start with. Loads and loads of praise for sitting on the toilet.
Fourth, Anytime he does a poo in pants, with no fuss get him cleaned up and just put them in the bin. Be prepared for this happening a few times the first few days.
Fifth, After he has done his poo in the toilet for the first time absolutely loads and loads of praise.
-My ds had such a problem doing poos in the toilet that I started using chocolate - firstly as a bribe to get him to try - and when I was at my wits end with him going for days with no bowel movements, I started giving some to him before he went to the toilet-this helped me to go when pg. It worked.- Then it turned into him getting chocolate when he did a poo in the toilet. When I say chocolate I mean like 1 choc button-nothing massive. but it worked and then eventually he would do without.

You being calm and not anxious about it as well as absolutely hundreds and hundreds of praise for your wee boy is the key to this.
Be confident about it all and your wee boy will pick up on this.

The other thing I would suggest is have you spoken to your gp or health visitor? It was my HV who helped me out. I reckon I was a bit anxious and me ds picked up on it.

Sorry for the long post, but hope it helps.

Oh, we do 'the poo dance' when he does a poo in the toilet. He LOVES it, seeing mummy and daddy doing something silly is the ighlight of his day.

Invent your own...

(Interesting in public loos though )

thanks everyone for your help advice and understanding.

however have now realised i have misled you by lack of clarity in first message: ds is in pants most of the time - he tells us when he needs to do a poo (so he's totally aware - these are not just 'accidents' in the nappy) but we have to put a nappy on him, like flibbertyjibbet's friend. then he does one straight away, we clean him up, and back into pants. sorry i didn't make that clear.

we've tried bribery: we bought a fine car transporter as an incentive - it sat on the shelf for about a month being ignored, then went back to the shop. we've tried star charts and chocolate (although not for a while - it might be worth a try again). he says he's uncomfortable on the loo, so we're swithering between a potty chair (his conventional potty, which he never used, is too small for him now) and a different sort of toilet seat (with handles?) DH is quite happy to use the toilet himself in front of ds, so he knows very well what he's aiming for.

i phoned the HV - she said with boys, nothing is abnormal till the age of 5, so don't worry. that was before the 2 nappies rule was introduced though. i'm concerned about taking him to the GP in case that reinforces to him that it's a problem and he feels bad talking about it to a stranger.

fortunately not at school for another year. he won't do a poo at nursery, just holds it in, smears his pants, and does it when he gets home.

love the idea of a poo dance! especially in a public loo!

I do think it can be connected with the fear of a 'part of him leaving his body' .. its something that has always been held close to him and appreciating that its waste product is half the battle

do the whole biology thing the food coming into the mouth - stomach - intestines where all the goodness is taken out blah blah blah .. get a book from the library at a kiddy level .. some kids need to understand it on an intellectual level

some kids also need to be left alone to do it so try not to hover whilst he's sitting on the toilet but walk away and let him close the door if he wishes

haychee - I had to write to say how much your unsupportive ignorance disgusted me. Mums, especially first time mums need all the support and reassurance they can get. For your information difficulties with potty training are extremely common. This can be a major stress for a parent and all they want is for someone to tell them its 'normal' and there is hope at the end of the tunnel (which there is) Lets hope you never have any issues you need support with for your children. If you can't say something supportive maybe you should consider saying nothing at all. VERY

I am very interested in this thread as my daughter is 4.5 and will still only poo in a nappy.

She was potty trained as far as wees are concerned very easily when she was 2.5, but she has always had a problem with constipation and as a baby and young toddler would often not go for days on end.When she did go I think it was sometimes quite painful for her and she became very anxious about pooing. She has done poos on the potty but not recently ( probably not for a year now that I think about it) and rarely without it being a huge trauma for her.

I have tried everything - bribery, sticker charts, taking the nappies away (which just made her totally hysterical and meant she retained her poo for days and days)and have consulted our GP and HV. My husband is a GP and I am a psychiatrist so we also have quite alot of personal knowledge ( you'd really think I'd be able to sort this problem out wouldn't you - but no..)

Anyway, I don't have any magic cures. I've come to the conclusion that she will only poo on the toilet when she decides shes good and ready to do so. She a very bright girl who is fantastic in every other way. Her older brother regularly gives her demonstrations of what to do so she has a good role model!! But she is very stubborn and any suggestion that she tries the toilet is met with a flat refusal. I have found it best to completely down play the issue and let her do her own thing, with mininal fuss and attention.

She starts school in Sept but I don't think that'll be a problem as she mainly poos in the evenings. I hope that seeing other children using the loo may spur her on. Also my youngest dd will be potting training soon so maybe when she sees her using the potty and getting lots of praise she'll feel inspired.

Sorry for rabbiting on so. Thought I'd let you know Rozzie that you're not alone and actually its not that uncommon.

Would love to hear from anyone else who had this problem and how it was finally resolved.

Toilet seat with handles is good; the thing I want to say though is don't think just cos his poos are soft he isn't constipated. I know it sounds odd. but little ones can get so constipated that the hard stoll doesn't come out and they leak soft poo round the edges. They then need some poo-softening medicine (lactulose or similar) to get things back to normal; so if you think that maybe the case do take him to the GP!
We went through nearly a year of the same with DD1; in the edn we had a new baby and moved house within 2 weeks of each other. Somehow in the move she forgot about poos in nappies and just started doing them in the loo; I think it was just that we were so busy the whole issue got ignored for a bit and she just settled down.
So, just have a new baby & move house, problem solved!

Spockle, how old was your dd when she started using the loo?

My dd is on regular movicol now ( tried lactulose and senna with not much success) so I know shes definately not constipated.

She was 3.25 when she finally started getting it, but come to think of it she used a potty rather than the loo for ages as she couldn't get on & off the loo without help. I hid the potties once she was physically able to do it due to horror of emptying big smelly poos down the loo.
Though to some posters here, I guess the splashy plop of a poo hitting the pan would be like sweet music....

Alderberry - you sound as if you're in a very similar situation to us. it is good to know we're not alone. you also sound very calm about it which is inspiring to me. i'm a doctor too, so it just goes to show medical training doesn't equip you to cope with your own children's idiosyncrasies. I look after the elderly, and prescribe movicol to constipated old ladies dozens of times a day... maybe i'm just in denial and ds needs it too.

as for Spockle's thoughts: good idea, but we moved in January (never again!). now no 2 is on the way (early days yet and chickens not being counted though) - am hoping ds gets this cracked before sib arrives. ds has no older siblings to offer guidance on this issue, only his dad.

but have really come to the conclusion he just isn't interested. we've now bought him a new Winnie the Pooh toilet seat with handles, and he gets a sticker on a chart if he sits on it and tries to do a poo, 5 stickers = treat, but still if you ask him if he wants to sit on it he says 'maybe tomorrow'

think will take a leaf out of Alderberry's book and just chill out, though maybe a bit of lactulose will help.

thanks guys!

by the way, which poo books do people recommend? had a look in our local library today but all i could find was one book aimed at older kids (primary school?) about eating, with a brief description of digestion. would help to have a title/author so i could search the library online catalogue or Amazon...

We used a book called Everybody Poos, and a rather silly one called The Mole who knew it was None Of His Business. Can't remember the author of either.

My dd wouldn't use the toilet for a poo for almost 18 months after she became dry in the day. She became hysterical at the thought of pooing in the loo, and trying to force the issue just made things much, much worse. She would only poo in one particular place (as far away from the toilet as she could get!), at one particular time of day, and always wanted a nappy to do it in. The one difference between her and your son is that she wouldn't soil her knickers; if we didn't let her have a nappy, she withheld the poo - so became constipated.

We tried bribery, star charts - you name it, we tried it. We got a jar of chocolate lollipops to use as rewards - she's a chocoholic, but they ended up going past their use-by date - you'd think we'd asked her to chop her own arm off and eat it, rather than asking her to try to poo in the toilet. But in the end it just became so distressing for us all that we decided to ease up on it, because we could see real problems in store if we didn't.

We let her ask for a nappy, which took the pressure off her (and us!) because we eventually realised that, just because a child is ready to be dry doesn't necessarily mean they are ready to be clean - they are two completely separate processes. And even if there is pysical readiness, that doesn't necessarily mean they are ready emotionally.

For us, the softly-softly approach was right, because of the distress that it caused dd. Eventually what put it right was a tummy bug - she couldn't hold it in, didn't have time to put a nappy on, so went to the toilet. Once she'd done it once it wasn't so bad (although she still witholds poo even now, and will only use our toilet - and she's 6 now!) She was almost three when she became dry, but didn't start using the toilet for a poo until she was nearly four and a half.

I'd ease up on it in your shoes; it's something you can get so wound up by and in the end just letting it happen when dd was ready was the only thing that worked for us.

Everybody Poos

The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None Of His Business

Variation on a theme - DT1 (number 3 in roll call) is 3.4 & has been dry for nearly a year but seems totally clueless as to when she's likely to poo, resulting in regular mishaps. Like Alderberry, she's capable of withholding for days at a time. You would think the toilet seat had an electric current running through it whenever it might be more than a wee - which she has no problem with sitting to do on her own padded seat or out and about.
When once or twice she's inadvertently pooed in the toilet there's been heaps of praise all round, phone calls to jubilent grandparents, modest trips to the toyship etc.
The problem we have with the bribery /starchart proposition is that DT2 (who mastered the whole business within a day months ago) points out that she has performed regularly so surely she deserves similar reward. Difficult to argue.
Yes, I can keep DT1 in training pants but timing is an issue. In a month they start 3 full days at nursery and they're not allowed to stay for lunch of they're still in nappies.
Any further constructive suggestions?

dear Rozzier, my ds who is 3 and 5 months is only just out of nappies. Had exactly the same problem he would insist on having a nappy on to poo. He would get quite upset and distressed if i refused, although happy to wee on the potty or toilet.

He is due to start nursery in September, so i just went cold turkey and refused to put a nappy on him. He had tantrums for about a week, but now uses the toilet and has never had an accident.

He still has a nappy on of a night. my other 2 ds's were both clean day and night by the age of 2, just goes to show that each child is different!!

As long as i dont have my son's wife phoning me in 18 years to ask me to change his nappy, il be happy lol!!!