Help! 4 yr old DS has never managed a poo on the toilet & he starts school in jan!!!

[maclady]

Never posted before but I can see there's wealth of good advice out there , so please can someone advise me.
My DS was 4 in July and is due to start school in Jan but has never managed to do a poo on the toilet yet.

He is fine with wee's and will happily take himself to the toilet, no help needed whatsoever, so I know he's not scared of sitting on the loo.

He has been very late developmentally in lots of things such as talking, getting himself dressed & generally doing anything for himself. The potty training took some doing too but we are there now with wee, but just not with poo.

Up until recently, he would poo in his pants wherever we were, but recently he has started holding on until he has his night time nappy on, so this is a plus in my opinion (less messy!) but still not the ideal.
I have tried the angry mum routine, the 'never mind, don't worry' thing and the no-reaction thing - none of which seem to have any effect on him.
Is the fact that he is pooing in his night-time nappy a step in the right direction. Do you think it will eventually just click for him?

Pre-school have been brilliant about it and have been willing to try anything I have suggested so that we are all doing the same thing consistently. I have tried star charts, chocolate bribery etc but nothing has worked so far.

I'm just worried about it happening at school in Jan. I know at the moment he is managing to hold on until evening time, but sometimes you just have to go when you need to go.
To be honest, he is quite lazy in lots of ways, or maybe it's a power struggle between me and him?

All suggestions gratefully received......thank you!

I haven't posted before either, but really pleased i found this thread. My ds will be 4 in Jan and is severly digging his heels in over potty training. I waited for him to take the lead but he never seemed in the slightest bit bothered about having a dirty or wet nappy. So I stuck him in pants about 3 weeks ago. And we have had a grand total of 3 wees in the potty in that time, not that many poos (one spectacularly big one on the piccadilly line...., and certainly no interest in telling me when he needs to go or going himself.
Sittingbull's present idea is a brilliant one - ds also has no interest in stickers or sweets. He's a smart cookie and we've had pretty major tantrums since the pants went on (not really normal for him) so I think it may all be a control thing and we're in a battle of wills, which I AM going to win !
Fab advice. Thanks.

You have my sympathies. My DD would go for wees on the toilet no problem but had a problem with poos - she would either hold it in or ask me to put a nappy on her to go. When I spoke to the HV about it she said it is quite common.

She said to try and give her food/drink that will make them go for poos, i.e. orange juice, fruit etc, so she will won't be able to just hold it in. This actually worked for us because we took the HV's advice, DD was bursting for poo but we didn't have any nappies on us at the time so she HAD to go on the toilet. We never looked back.

She had just turned 3 when she was properly toilet trained.

My son was doing up to 10 poos in his pants a day and quite proud of the fact which made me even more angry! I constantly had a bucket of pooey pants in soak outside the backdoor and got through hundreds of disposable gloves and bottles of disinfectant! I was very worried that he would still be doing this when he started school as he wasn't holding the poos in at nursery either but fortunately he cracked it a few months before. Can't say for sure what made him change his ways but possibly it was when I completely lost the plot and out of sheer frustration said that he could clean his bottom and pants - I was sick of doing it. It wasn't planned but I really was at my wits end. I literally walked away leaving him shocked. He got upset and then I agreed I would check his bottom after he had wiped it. Until this point, the psychiatrist, star charts, rewards etc hadn't worked. I'd tried being nice and understanding and also tried the angry approach and they hadn't worked either. Psychiatrist said my son was strong willed and this was another example of it. There is a briliiant charity called ERIC who help with child incontinence and they were very supportive and helpful. It was a trully horrible period in my life and as none of my friends children had the same problem, no one understood how awful it was.

Wow, this has all been really helpful. My ds1 will be 3 in January and although he's been weeing on the toilet since August with relatively few problems, he absolutely won't poo on the loo or on a potty, but either waits for sleep-time pullups or just goes in his pants. I was beginning to think that there was a problem, but it sounds as if it's all quite normal... Phew! Might try SittingBull's idea if nothing changes though!