Potty training- how long did it take your child to master pooing in the potty?

[AngeloMysterioso]

Have been potty training 3.5 yo DS for 3 weeks now. He’s been doing really well and wees in the potty pretty much every time now, only the occasional accident.
However- if he needs a poo he doesn’t even try and get to the potty, he just shits in his joggers. Every single time. What can I do to make him go on the potty? He knows what’s happening because he tells me straight away afterwards, and frankly I’m starting to get really fed up of having to scrape the shit off him and his clothes.

I was tearing my hair out with DS.
He was very late in doing this, I think he was about five before he managed without a nappy and then he went straight to using the lavatory. He was hopeless with a potty.
He's grown up now and has a university degree so don't start panicking about your child.
Some of them just take longer.

And I would suggest that you keep a nappy in your son for a while longer. It isn't harmful and you won't have to scrape poo off his clothes.

On your son

Oh dear, that must be so frustrating for you! Have you tried a sticker reward chart just for poos? Is there something he really wants he could build up to getting?

DS fully mastered weeing on the potty for a good couple of months before he would poo on it. He used to ask for a nappy to be put on when he needed a poo so we just did that until he built up the confidence to poo on the potty too. Could you maybe reassure him that if he needs a poo then you’ll put a nappy on him if he tells you he needs to go? Then after a while gradually encourage the potty again.

My dc never pooed in the potty but were happy to use the "big girl" toddler toilet seat and step. Have you tried that yet?

Apparently poo and wee need to be treated differently in toddlers. Its a bit like you treat cats and dogs differently despite both being a pet. Wees are easy and come on command eventually (dogs) while poos need careful thought and wrangling and can hurt a bit sometimes (cat). Yeah....toddler minds can be very mysterious and wtf at times 😂

Wees are easy and come on command eventually (dogs) while poos need careful thought and wrangling and can hurt a bit sometimes (cat)
Brilliant!
We went straight to seat on the loo for poo's. Unlike a wee, poo tended to be needed around the same time each day so there was quite a bit of story time in the toilet while we waited (the careful thought as described above) and a nice treat when we were through.

It took 3 days to be accident free for wees and a little over a week before toddler would poo on the potty - toddler was withholding until bedtime nappy went on (then some point after toddler bedtime but before I went to bed toddler had poo'd in the nappy).

I gave toddler a small dose of Lactulose to soften things following pharmacy advice (because of the withholding) and watched 'Poo goes to pooland' on YouTube (it's an app but there's videos on YouTube of it) which worked a treat. No problems after the first week/week and a half.

Good luck

Yeah, solidarity here from us, pretty much the same, and once we realised we were getting annoyed about it and that was not constructive, we just went back to nappies for another few months.
Second time around he didn't poo for a few days although wee was going well this time and we were considering going back to nappies again.
The secret turned when we bought him a musical keyboard for Christmas and he did a poo in his pants every time he played it. So we set up the keyboard in the toilet and sat him down. He was happy with sitting there hogging the toilet for ages but it worked, then we had to wean him off. Now he says he needs it, although he would still rather carry on playing where possible.
We originally let him use the potty but second time around we said only wee in the potty, as we didn't want to deal with a smelly potty in the dining room/etc.
Good luck, it's so stressful. Hopefully someone will be along with recommendations for books/videos to distract you! Once you've read/watched them all, magic might have worked in the mean time.

Oh and just to add, we found the Ellyn Satter (Google it) and good inside/Dr Becky philosophy of being a good parent really helped reduce the stress. Not specific to potty training but you can reframe it

In a nutshell it's that your job as a parent is to give your child the opportunity, and your child's job to decide when they are ready to do whatever it is.
This helps particularly because our son has never slept well, eaten regular meals, or really conformed with any of the traditional expectations. It really helps to feel better about your parenting while giving your child freedom. I say that while sitting next to my preschooler who is still napping at nearly 5.30pm, I just have to trust him, but it's hard not to expect him to wake up.
Good luck!

My DS actually cracked poos first weirdly, and we're just taking a little longer with wees. I wanted to add though that he loves doing his poos on the "big toilet", and only uses the potty for wees.