3 and a half year old wont poo in potty!

[Mella9191]

Hi everyone,

I started potty training my son mid July, its been four and a half months and he still wont poo in potty. I had him signed into an amazing nursery (we live abroad) and the nursery had a potty trained policy. They accepted DS in September and mentioned that they would only accept him with the hope he would 'get it' in a few weeks time. He hasn't 'got it'. It has got to the point of them stressing both DS and I every day. They are now asking I pop in to change him when he soils himself. It is a 30 minute drive and I would have to wait until someone from work is available to cover for me - so DS will be potentially waiting soiled for an hour.

His Nursery is the only english speaking nursery (with a British curriculum) in the area and I really don't want to pull him out and have him go somewhere else.

I am really getting frustrated at the schools behaviour and on this situation. Everyone keeps telling me how there toddlers were trained in 3 days!! Any tips on potty training will be much appreciated

Boys tend to be slower to pitty train, but when kids are ready often they do potty train quickly.

My son hated the potty but we got a cheap folding toilet seat with two little steps up, and he liked that a lot more.

Your nursery is being ridiculous though, lots of kids are still training at 3.5 yo

I never bothered with a potty. Mine went straight on the toilet.

DS got wees really quickly but would wait to poo until his night nappy was on. Bribery all the way worked for us OP... I put a wrapped present on the windowsill of the bathroom in paper that attracted him and said he could unwrap it when he did a poo in the toilet. That worked for us.

Good luck, it sounds really tough with the nursery aspect.

My daughter wouldn't poo in potty as she did it once and was horrified when she looked at it ...so from then on she used the toilet ..she was two and tiny but managed to use it ok .

Similar situation to you but we started at 2.5. The wee aslect came really quickly and he was dry after about 6 weeks but pooing was another story. It took another year until her felt confident to do a poo. It took a LOT of praise and bribing but he eventually got it. We never went back to a nappy (except for bed) and i lost count of the amount of underpants we went through but he got there in the end. Nursery were also very supportive and reiterated how it was completely normal. Id just say be consistent, dont put nappys back on and dont force him! Good luck!

Wee aspect*

We’ve had a similar issue with my DD, who’s the same age - it doesn’t make a difference whether it’s the potty or toilet, something about it unnerves her, although we’ve had no issues at all with peeing.
I got this advice from my sister, who ended up taking her daughter to a specialist for issues around pooping, and this seems to be working for us: a couple of times a day (morning and evening if you do childcare is fine), you have a ‘poo party’ where you all go into the bathroom and sit your child on the toilet. You make the atmosphere party-like with music - then you have your child try to blow up a balloon while sitting on the toilet, to encourage them to go. After they’ve sat on the toilet for say 5 minutes, they get a sticker on a chart. Once they get 5 stickers, they can choose a toy from a jar - it helps to get them to choose their own selection of little toys at an inexpensive shop.
Making the atmosphere light and fun has helped our whole family I’d say! Good luck.

He may be impacted and not be able to feel when he needs to go. I highly recommend the Eric continence webpage. Great advice for parents for all different types of incontinence. Very useful.