Potty trained for wees but struggling with pooing in the toilet

[LaylaSun77]

Hello mums

I have a 3 year old son. I have two older children- this is my youngest. He was potty trained a few months ago. He got on great with peeing. He picked it up really fast. Pooping was less straight forward. He often hid in the corner of the room and pooped in the corner. He only went in the toilet or potty if I spied him going and brought him to use the potty or toilet. Or he would poop in his nappy pants at night when they went on him, however as he is dry at night and wakes when he needs to pee, he no longer wears them.

I have tried getting books about poo, gently encouraging him, using star charts etc and taking advice from health visitor but nothing really seems to work. If we make progress one day and he poops in the potty, the following day when im
not looking he poops in his pants again. He seems to not like pooping in the potty or toilet, and doesn’t even like talking about it. Has anyone been through anything similar with their child? He is starting nursery school in September so I am worried about this. Never had this issue with my older children so it’s a new challenge. I feel for my little one as he is quite sensitive and we have had quite a stressful time lately due to a number of things, I wonder if this is affecting him. Any advice or encouragement from parents who have got over this type of issue would be very very much appreciated.

Yes, my just turned three year old is the same. I’ve offered her a nappy to poo in but she won’t talk about it. We had a successful poo on the potty on Wednesday and I thought great - progress! Then today a big accident at the park.

It is quite common though. I’m trying to encourage without pressure and just say ‘oops, poo goes in the toilet.’

My little boy didn't like pooing in the potty to begin with, he used to get upset and hold it until we put a nappy on him. We eventually tried laying a nappy out on top of the potty for him to sit on and poo, which worked, and then after a week or so we just got rid of the nappy so he was pooing straight onto the potty. Sounds really daft but it worked!

We also told him loads of stories about 'poo land' and all the mischief the poos got up to there. No idea if that helped any but he loved the stories!

Thank you. My child recently pooped in his pants at the airport which was a little stressful as we were preparing to board and had to then dash to the toilet before the plane took off. I kindof have to bring spares all the time with me incase it happens out and about. Perhaps I am worrying too much. It’s nice to hear he’s not the only one.

Thank you. I should have done this when he still liked to go in his nappy. He doesn’t have a nappy anymore and won’t have one near him so not sure this would work. But thank you I will try it anyway and these are good ideas. I’m glad to hear they worked 😌

Hi OP.
I had exactly the same issue with my now 5 year old, it was very stressful for us all and she was totally petrified of pooing in the toilet. Like your son she is sensitive and a real deep thinker and just became so anxious about it. She managed twice on the potty aged 3 and it was so traumatic for her we decided to not force it as we didn’t want to make it a stressful experience and something she had negative associations with.
We tried every bribe and every trick in the book and nothing worked with pooing despite being dry in knickers and through the night.
We just decided to take the pressure off and not force it. I asked her every time if she wanted to try on the toilet, and she finally, aged 4.5, decided one day she was going to do it. We made no fuss, sat her on the toilet and pottered around in the rooms next door semi chatting to her, and put zero expectations on her.
Lo and behold she did it and has never looked back. It’s probably not the textbook approach and she was definitely late to the party but it worked for us in the end and that’s all that matters.
Key take home would be don’t fret, don’t put pressure on him, he’ll do it when he’s ready. We’re all different. Good luck.

Honestly, it’s so common if you search on here. DD has been trained for wee since march but poo is a nightmare! My ds was exactly the same and I got so stressed about it which looking back is the worst thing I could have done. It just … took longer, I guess!

Thank you for this. That’s really interesting and helpful. Did her nursery or school not make an issue of it? We have kindof been adopting the same approach as you have to date but I’m worried that in nursery school the teachers may make a fuss or even just the fact that he does it and needs changed in the setting of nursery school may make him anxious.

Thank you. It’s very reassuring that this is common. Just because I didn’t have this with my older two I wasn’t sure how much of an issue it was. Thank you for your message 😌

I had similar. Pees he got in 2 or 3 days and never had an accident again and poos took agesss. He was trained for pees in the December and I would say it was the summer before I felt completely confident he would always do it in the toilet. What ended up working for us was letting him watch something rubbish he was never allowed to watch usually and that encouraged him that and some hefty bribes 😂

Watching it while on the potty/ toilet? When you saw he needed to go? We have tried telling him if he poops in the toilet we will take him for a toy and he agrees but then when it comes to it he just goes in pants. I can see sometimes that he’s going but he tells me he isn’t and if I’ve tried to take him to toilet most of the time he just won’t go. I did think about giving him my phone on the toilet but wasn’t sure that was a great idea 🤣

Yeah anytime he was farting a lot of looking like he might be trying to go we’d pop him on and give the phone to make him sit a bit longer and eventually he got it wasn’t scary and then it was all good. Once he got it changed it to just listening to a nursery rhyme when he was doing a poo and then cut it down and about a month after he nailed poos he didn’t have the phone anymore but it served it purpose. However I will say that I’m one of those parents who is incredibly strict about screening (30m-1hr a day with a limited selection of what he can watch) so the novelty maybe made it extra appealing 😅

I didn’t tell school. Nursery were aware there were some issues as I sought a bit of help but it didn’t work! She was very good at holding it in and I just made sure I gave her the opportunity every morning to have a poo before we left. If not she would do one after so there was never any real concern over accidents. I just implied she was fully toilet trained when she started school. She was so anxious and embarrassed about it I think it would have made it an even bigger issue.