Poo regression in 3 year old

[FiFTM]

Hi all, I'm at my wit's end here as to what to do with my son. He's 3 years 2 months, and we started toilet training end November. He took to controlling his poos fairly quickly, wees took a bit longer but in general now we only have little drip accidents instead of full on wetting himself. The problem is he's now worse with his poos, he soils himself on a near daily basis. I don't mind little marks on his pants when he's realised he has to go and then heads to the toilet, but now it's full on pooing himself and then going to the toilet after he's done. I know he undersea the sensation as he will tell us sometimes that he has to go and head out but I just can't fathom why he's back to doing this. What do I do? Go back to sticker charts again, withhold treats? Has anyone made any headway? He's still in nappies for nap and bed time, but he rarely poos in his nappy anyway. Should I get rid of those and see if that improves things? All help greatly appreciated xx

Hi, I have worked with 3 year olds for years as a nursery practitioner and it is soooo common for this to happen. The poos are always harder for them to grasp than wees and takes time. He WILL get there in the end, they always seem to just click one day. Does he go and hide to do it? This means that he is fully aware of his needs but doesn’t want to go to use the toilet for a REASON. In my experience, when talking to the children I have found they have anxiety due to the water splashback (seriously), or they get embarrassed if they have been made to feel that ‘poo’ is disgusting. Or sometimes it is literally just laziness.
I found that when dealing with these children it depended on the child’s personality. What is your DS like?
for example. I had one little girl (3) that soiled herself everyday clearly for the one on one attention she would get afterwards (taken to be cleaned up and spoken to about it) - she would always laugh about it / brag about it in a malicious way. Sometimes even say she was going to do it if she didn’t get her way.
We found the best way of dealing with this was with a complete poker face, no verbal contact , no eye contact, just took her to the toilet, and stood back silently whilst she changed herself (she was capable) . She soon got bored and snapped out of the habit!

then again I had a little boy that was lovely and very smart and again, knew he needed the toilet but refused to go and would hide behind the bookcase/ under a table EVERY DAY to do it and then come and tell us he had done it. It turned out he didn’t like the water/splashback and was scared to use the toilet.

sometimes it is best to embarrass them into it (depending on the reason/ child of course) so for the first example I gave, We told her that she was behaving like a baby and therefore had to have a nappy on now and all her friends get to wear nice pink knickers. (She HATED this and it motivated her) . But with a fear or something like the second example, talking to them as a friend and seeing if there is maybe a reason why (without putting words into their mouth as they will then use that!) and then reassuring them that it’s okay and normal and such and such does it too. and using milestones / treats definitely helps. (If you have 3 days of no accidents mummy will take you to choose some new big boy underpants)

it is just a phase and so so so common at this age do not worry too much

Thank you so much for all your feedback!! I think he's too distracted or lazy to go out to the loo, he used to hide to do them in his nappy before we started training him. He went out to the toilet yesterday morning when I was standing beside him and it was fine, but then yesterday evening and today just went in his pants and then went into the toilet afterwards even though it was all done! It's not like he just wanders around and is ok with it in his pants, it definitely makes him uncomfortable

I feel the pain, my nearly 4 year old has started to forget to go to loo for a poo. So hardwork absolutely fine for wees, I'm hoping it'll pass 🤯

Yeah it sounds likely that he literally just can’t be arsed 😂 (excuse the pun) . He will snap out of it for sure. The boys are usually worse I have found. Especially in a nursery setting, a lot of the time they are distracted and don’t want to leave their toys unattended incase someone else gets them! And I have literally had a child say to me that he ‘couldn’t go to the toilet because George would get his dinosaur’ . Children have great priorities! Just work with him and try be patient. (Defo offer him new pants though as a treat) they love that. Also we told the children if they soiled their undies, they have to go in the bin . This upsets the child as it’s usually they’re favourite paw patrol ones etc and vice Versa if they are clean and dry for X amount of time, they can pick some snazzy new ones

Brilliant I'll deffo try the new pants thing, thanks!

'Poo goes to pooland' app, I laughed and thought im not downloading that when it was mentioned to me before starting potty training but later down the line when faced with poo regression we tried it out on her and it worked along with the sticker charts etc.