arghhh! how long can this go on? (extended potty training support thread)

[babymutha]

OH KAY.......
I know that DD WILL LEARN TO GO TO THE TOILET at some point before her 18th birthday. But at the moment she's 3 and a half and I am washing out up to 6 pairs of poo encrusted pants and leggings a day some days. It's been over a year of potty training and it's just NOT GOOD.
I've tried all the recommended "stuff", but now my 'inner mother' is telling me to just be PATIENT. When she's ready she'll be ready and this is just her way.

So Please... come share your months/years of unspoken angst. Let us band together in an ongoing struggle for liberation from our offsprings' collective excretions and gain solace in knowing that NOT EVERY CHILD POTTY TRAINS IN A WEEK (or a month, or a year........)

My daughter will be 3 in June and just won't sit on the toilet or potty! :( managed to get her to sit on it with the bribe of chocolate buttons once 2 months ago but that's it, she just won't sit on it, I've even bought 3 different types of charachter toilet seats trying to bribe her with everything she loves but it's just no! No! No! No! No! :( chocolate buttons or sweets not working, even covered our wall next to the toilet with stickers to drag her on it but no :(.... She will be starting nursery in September and I am lost as to what to do - somebody help me! :((((

Oh, nice not to be alone! DD has been half-trained since September - all poos in the loo or potty but up to four wee accidents a day. I'm so tired of all the washing - apart from anything else it's been such foul weather recently that it's really hard to get everything dry

My turn for tears today. We have been in training for 18 months. DD now on lactulose as started having lots of poo accidents. After initial improvement she is still doubly incontinent. She peed all over me tonight and I lost it. She knew she needed to go too. She was bathed and into bed in under 15 minutes with no story . I am f*ing fed up being told not to get cross, about kids who trained on a long weekend and how it will all get better. Aye, but in the meantime our family life is a bloody nightmare as taking DD anywhere requires half a wardrobe of changes and I can never relax. So fed up. I've been so cool about her accidents for weeks and it has made not a blind bit of difference. She starts school in August. I'm dreading it.

I'm not sure if we are in a less common situation. My DS who si now 4.7 toilet trained before he was 2. I don't even remember what we did, it just happened. He had been pooing in the toilet since he was 7 months as he always did it before his bath, it was very easy. Then started him using toilet before going for naps etc PLEASE KEEP READING, IM NOT BEING SMUG I ASSURE YOU ;) I now can't tell you when the change happened but I know it was an issue last summer so at least the year but has been much worse over the last few months. My DS now has accidents of either sort almost daily because.....he didn't want to loose his place in the queue, he didn't realise it was there, etc etc etc. He has a vast number of reasons if I do the WHY WHY WHY didn't you just go tot the toilet, made all the worse by the fact that he used to do it! He goes to kindergarten till 1 which is lucky because he naturally now seems to poo after his lunch and so we can catch it at home, but not if I have anywhere else to be in the afternoon. I get stressed before I even go out with the thought of it and havign to carry round trousers and pants all the time along with the nappies for my DD who is 2.3.

What bothers me the most is that he can do a small poo in his pants and leave it there ALL DAY if it was not found by me! It does not bother him. He can tell me exactly when it happened so he is most definitely aware but it seems to me that he just CHOOSES to ignore it. I tried to leave him to experience being wet and dirty and allow him to feel the discomfort to then choose for himself, but I don't want him to get teased if he smells or if they notice he's wet, also issue with others houses and their furniture!!!
We are trying a coin for every time he listens to his body saying 'its on the way', NOT 'it's already here!

I think the imminent sunny day is giving me a calm feeling today and he did admit that he needed the toilet in the park on Friday which is great because he also just completely denies that he needs it, probably because he thinks I'l get cross and scream like a banshee. Which to be fair I have been doing, so showing him a calm exterior is definitely a must.
Also does anyone have a link that works for the poo goes to pooland story? My DS would love the toilet humour :)

Very relieved to read this thread. I'm in despair of what to do with DS. He's just turned 4 and we're still having a nightmare with him. He's been out of nappies for over a year but he's no where near being fully potty trained. We waited till he was ready and he even turned round one day before he was 3 and said that he was a big boy now and wanted to wear pants and not nappies. We thought great this is going to be easy - yeah right! We moved back to this country nearly 6 months ago so I guess that a lot of the problems may be a result of that but he was never that great at going. We would have good weeks and bad now it just seems to be bad all the time. He does wee's and poos (although not normally a full poo in his pants) and this afternoon has wet himself twice. He won't go to the toilet and if I ask him he'll have a melt down instead saying he doesn't need to go even when I can see he is wet. His nursery suggested leaving a pile of clean clothes put with a wash basket in his room and telling him to change himself if he has an accident and not mention it so the emphasis is totally on him. Thats not working as he just completely wets himself. He'll go and change himself and this doesnt seem to bother him. The thing I'm worried most about is that he starts school in September and he can't be having
accidents like this by then. I just dont know what to do with him.

On the other hand I have a 19 month old girl that started self potty training a month ago and she's almost day time dry! Shes still in nappies but she tells me when she needs a wee and sometimes poo as well! I'm hanging off fully potty training her as I can't cope with even more washing!

Got our first visit with the health visitor on Thursday so going to see what she says and whether she thinks he needs to see someone about it.

Like many people I'm very glad to have found this thread - it's good to know I'm not alone. I've been fairly lucky with sleeping and eating, and couldn't of course expect it all to go my way, but toilet training is obviously my children's chosen nightmare to inflict on their parents.

For all you poor parents whose children will only do poos in nappies, take heart (or not...) from my experience with DS, who trained easily for wees the week of his 3rd birthday, but skipped the potty and went straight to weeing standing up at the toilet. Which of course meant he never did a poo in the toilet at the same time as a wee, so it became an issue and although he knew fine well when he needed to go, he would only poo in a nappy so we had to put one on him when he told us he needed a poo. The rest of the time he wore pants, and was dry at night by 3.5.

We tried everything - sticker charts, stories about poos, cold turkey on nappies (so he didn't go for 4 days, got really grumpy, and we ended up relenting and putting a nappy on him, upon which he immediately did a massive poo and felt much better), not getting cross but just changing the nappies without comment, bribery (bought him an expensive lego set and left it on view but out of reach on a shelf, and told him he could have it when he did a poo in the toilet, then took it back to the shop after 4 weeks).

All through this, he usually wanted a poo at the same time every day (evening just after tea and before bath) so we diligently put him on the toilet for a sit every night, and every night he would say 'can't do it!' and we'd take him off and put a nappy on him. This went on till he started school aged 5 - he just didn't do a poo at school at all, but waited till the evening, so it was never an issue with school.

Then one glorious day, aged 5 years 5 months, he sat on the toilet after dinner and needed to go so badly that it came out before he could hold it in. And that was it - once he'd realised he could do it he never looked back, and never wore a nappy again, and he's now nearly 9.

I never tried Poo goes to Pooland with him because i didn't know how to get hold of it, but lots of people find that helps, and I'm hoping to get it to use on DD (but that's another story).

My nephew had a similar problem, and my sister found this helpful:
www.eric.org.uk/assets/downloads/97/children%20who%20will%20only%20pass%20a%20motion%20into%20a%20Nappy.doc

Just one month after DS cracked pooing in the toilet, DD was born. So I had one lovely month out of the last 9 years free of nappies.

Now my problem is DD, aged 3.5, who is scared of letting go of a wee on the toilet. But i think I'll started another thread about that, since this one seems to be more about poos.

Good luck everyone - i feel your pain!

DD still weeing herself intermittently most days. She does not want to interrupt whatever she's doing to go to the toilet. School in September, so I won't be there to pick her up from the floor where she is crouching and trying to hold it in. Poos come in pants/toilet depending, luckily she is no longer holding it in for a week. It's not as bad as it was, but it's not great either.

Successes - fruit and a drink of water in the morning before breakfast - to get it all moving and syrup of figs if all else fails.

Failures - night time and anything vaguely resembling daytime consistency. jeesh - don't get me started.

praise be for washing machines. how did our grandmothers cope with this....
[low level hand wringing and teeth gnashing]

I have read most of the messages I think and I have to say I found some of them so amusing and I hope to God that we will find it all amusing in a few years time. I'm training 2.6 DS now for 8 weeks, wees are fine, dry at night but does not like to poo in the toilet. About two weeks ago he asked to do a poo in the toilet for three days and nada since. I knew by the look on his face when he was going he was afraid so I knew it was not going to continue. He poos in his pants everyday.He holds on at his minder which he goes to for 3 days and he goes when he comes home eventually. If you try to remind him about the toilet, he knows he should use the toilet but I suppose he is afraid so he tends to hold on for the day. So its like being caught in a no win situation because I cant say too much because he will hold on.

I just hope this does not go on for too long.

I have another DS who is now 13 and he was 5 before he did a poo in the toilet or even sat on the toilet. He used a pull up for two years. After ignoring it for most of the time ( I don't know how I did) I asked him one day when he would do a poo in the toilet and he said when he was 5. So when he turned 5 I reminded him and he remembered and he just went to the toilet did a poo and that was that.

Untill I started TT again I had forgotton (imagin) and I brought it up and guess what he has absolutely no recollection of the whole thing. I cannot believe it and I was fit to kill him. Now its his running joke "two years and proud"!!

So even though its hard, frustrating tear jerking and every other negative you can think of they do get there eventually and they grow up.

Its just when you hear of your sisters children, SIl's children and the neighbours and the cousins TT in three days and really did not even need to be trained its heart breaking. I just keep saying why me and why oh why did I not wait untill he was 3 and I might not be in the situation I'm in now. Why me again!

Rozzie - thanks for your message of support and hope!! hope DD is going better!
x

soupmaker - I feel your pain love! DD starting school in September - and I am never without my big bag full of wet and/or pooy pants in little plastic bags. Thank the lard for disposable gloves from the 99p shop. But after years of Health visitor angst I have finally managed to talk to someone helpful. She has given me a strategy where I don't ask DD if she needs the toilet I just take her calmly to the loo and then praise her to high heavens when she's there (whether or not she does anything). I don't know if it's going to work I'm just v happy to have found a sympathetic, sensible and non-patronising health visitor after 4 and a half years. AND she's going to call me next week to see how it's all going!! amazing.

We seemed to have a bit of a breakthrough today...

I could see that DS [3.3 yrs] wanted to do a poo. He was starting to run in circles and get more and more agitated. So I asked him if he wanted the potty or a nappy to do his poo. He said "nappy". I said "oh we can lay the nappy in the potty and you can sit on it" and he actually agreed! And came and sat on the potty! However then the poo sensation went away - I don't know whether he was better able to hold it in sitting down or what. But he sat there for a while and I read him a story. Finally he got a bit bored and got up but then a bit later came back to sit on the potty completely independently! He went back and forth a few times then finally got up to play again [not having done a poo]. Eventually the inevitable happened and he began to run around while looking very strained and groaning and the poo was just coming out of him all over the floor . Major clean up job. I asked him why he hadn't gone on the potty and he said he had just wanted the poo to go away. I think he tries really hard to keep the poo from coming out and he actually gets upset at his failure to make poo go away rather than 'having an accident' or pooing on the floor This is also why I think he is a bit resistant to the Poo goes to Pooland story which works so well for many reluctant potty/toilet pooers. He enjoys the story but he isn't really motivated by helping Poo go to Pooland, he just wants control over Poo and to make Poo go away!

But anyway this felt like some sort of breakthrough as at least today DS acknowledged that he needed to do a poo [normally when I ask him all I get is no, no, no!]. And he was willing to give sitting on the potty to have a poo a go, albeit whilst on top of a nappy...

Childminder & children's centre/playgroup staff are all adamant that he will get it and that it is very likely to happen before he goes to preschool in September... However that is only 8 or so weeks away and I am dubious. He has been training for around a year now and we have made such little progress really.

DS is weeing in the potty but only at home and only when he has no pants on. Otherwise we have him in pullups - we have tried him in pants and trousers whilst out and it is useless. DS denies needing to wee and then just does it in his pants. He doesn't tell us when he needs to go or even if he has wet himself. I just see the wet patch and he is playing without a care in the world.

Still getting lots of well meaning advice from people whose little ones trained at under 2 years of age, or over a weekend, or decided themselves that they wanted to be out of nappies and wear big boy/girl pants.

If I have one more person ask me have I tried sticker charts or chocolate buttons i will scream!!!

Loving this thread because I haven't met anyone in RL who has these same issues. All DSs little peers are potty/toilet trained with the occasional near miss and accident. No-one has a reluctant, nervous trainer and friends and family are at a loss to give any advice based on their experience.

So keep the stories coming because they are keeping me sane and smiling!

I am so glad to have found this tread, I am really sick of people who's LO's trained them selves in a week (ok really jealous). We started potty training our little girl who is now 3 and 3 months around January of this year when she was two and 9 months, we did have battles and bribery and she flat out refused to wear knickers so I let it slide unless we went out but I think I left it too long. Now with a bare bum she can be 100% perfectly dry (IF SHE WANTS TO BE).
She is due to start preschool so I have started making her wear underwear all the time but in we are getting there with damp knickers but she has started not being able to do a poo apart from in her knickers and it is driving me insane. I try not to get cross but there is something about cleaning poo smeared off her bum that makes me livid and I think it is making it worse.

I think the problem is that I have a very strong willed little lady who has seen this as a way to control me, and its working. HELP!

Haven't found the time to read this thread all through so unsure if this book has been highlighted.

Would highly highly recommend 'constipation, withholding and your child' a guide to soiling and wetting by Anthony Cohn.

It's a very accessible and easy read and totally explains the withholding problems so many of you describe. It also advises that many GPs and HV don't fully understand the issues too.

Good luck everyone, I am struggling along with 4 year DS who will only poo every 3 days without medication

charlie burt - ditto, me too, I feel about 80 years old trying to run up a hill today.... I never thought I would feel bullied by a 4 year old!!!
and LBsBongers - thanks for the book tip I am off to amazon it now.
xxx
keep on going everyone. ha ha de ha ha ha......

Ok DH and I have now read 'constipation, withholding and your child' a guide to soiling and wetting by Anthony Cohn and recommend it to all of you. It's a good book and Cohn knows his stuff. Still not quite sure what I'm going to do about it, but have started with some new boundaries around cleaning up and changing herself. Health visitor coming round tomorrow and school starting in under a month.
yay.

babymutha can you briefly describe why you found the Anthony Cohn book helpful.. I may consider buying it myself.

Since I last posted in July DS1 [3.4 yrs] has now pretty much got the wees sorted. He wears "big boy" underpants at home and underpants and elasticated waist trousers whilst out. He pulls his own pants down to wee in the potty at home and will now tell me when he wants a wee when we are out and is able to hold it till we get to a public toilet or if outdoors a handy tree!

Big improvement after about a year of training and he seemed to suddenly get it over the last month or so [so since I last posted really]. It was just like something clicked and he decided he wanted to wee in the potty/toilet and also that he felt confident that he could do it too.

However the poos are another story. He is still poo refusing and denying, tells "poo" to "go away!" and tries to hold it in as long as he can. He's not pooing on the floor anymore, now he will hold it as long as he can and then ask me for a nappy.

I can sometimes coerce him onto the potty if there is a nappy on it for him to sit on iyswim. But when he sits down the urge seems to leave him and even if he sits for 10 minutes he doesn't poo. Finally he'll get up, start jigging about again and then ask for the nappy on. At this point I oblige and tell him he's a good boy for having tried to sit on the potty to do poo. The inevitable poo occurs in the nappy, I clean him up with a minimum of fuss and matter of factly tell him that next time he'll get poo in the potty.

I am not sure what to try next with the poos [we've done praise, rewards, etc in the past with little success]. I suspect it will be just like the wees, one day he will decide he is ready to do poo in the potty and that will be that. But when? He starts preschool next month and I am worried that he will be asking his teacher for a nappy to poo in [or otherwise trying to hold it in, getting distressed and ending up pooing on the floor ]

Willnever the Cohn book brought me to tears as it was the first time my sons stool withholding problem appeared to be understood by someone, after months of being told by GP, HV etc to increase fibre get him to blow bubbles on the toilet, the book accurately described the cycle of pain he was experiencing in relation to poo. it's not constipation it's stool withholding.

It advises that whilst there are approaches you can take towards the problem which help, essentially you need to take the control away from the child through medication / diet until the fear of pooing has been forgotten.

I asked GP for a referral to a paediatrician and armed with this book got prescribed laxatives which have allowed my son to pass stools daily and we are very slowly overcoming his fears.

I am really sorry to hear what you are all going through with poo problems. I can only begin to understand what you are going through. whilst I haven't had these experiences with DS or DD, I must have put my poor Mum through hell as a toddler.

I have very little memory of the whole time (other than a vague memory of the bottle of liquid paraffin under the kitchen sink), so what I can tell you comes from what I have learned from my Mum.

Apparently I potty trained very easily at 2 years exactly and was clean and dry day and night for a few months. The problem started after I suffered from post-viral constipation and passed a painful poo. This, combined with my ever-so-helpful sisters who would point at all productions in the potty and say something along the lines of "urgh that's disgusting", I decided I wasn't going to poo any more, ever.

I would hold poo in for about a week. At times I would be literally lying on the floor with stiff legs and screaming in pain, leaving me virtually passed out when the sensation passed. The compacted stools lead to 'leakage' which meant that my poor Mum was washing 10 terry nappies a day. In the end she was a virtual prisoner in the house as she couldn't take me anywhere.

This cycle lasted over a year, and the hv and GP were absolutely useless. The GP tried everything (in his opinion). He even, apparently, resorted to inserting a suppository in the middle of his waiting room (this was 1977 so you just didn't complain about your doctor's behaviour then). Eventually, my Mum saw a new GP, much more sympathetic, who said he just couldn't solve the problem and referred us to hospital.

The consultant there was, according to both my parents, marvellous. He said my bowel was completely full and severely backed-up, and that had to be dealt with first. He said that it would take time but eventually I would come out of it. I was prescribed liquid paraffin and sennacot .

Anyway, back in happies I was until everything had cleared out. After a long time and lots of perseverence the fear of pooing passed and I got into a routine. I was back in pants, but would ask for a nappy when I needed a poo.

This went on until one day I was in my ballet leotard and felt like I needed a poo. I didn't want to have a nappy on so my Mum suggested quietly that I go to the toilet and that was that.

To this day I couldn't possibly say why I did it. I have no major issues now. I survived two pregnancies - including two very difficult deliveries - without suffering from constipation. I am rather 'funny' about where I will poo. I couldn't possibly bring myself to do it in a public or shared toilet - camping is totally out for me! I'm also really paranoid about passing this anxiety on to my children (no signs of it yet), and get a bit anxious if they don't poo regularly. I guess I just have to get over it.

This all occurred in the 1970s so, as well as well as having no automatic wasing machine or disposable nappies, there was no Internet. Poor Mum knew absolutely no-one who had experienced anything like it, and had no-one to turn to for support. It wasn't until over a decade later when she was working as a health visitors' clerk, that she realised that other children did this too.

I am so glad my Mum was so patient and loving with me - there must have been times when she wanted to just walk away from the whole situation. I admire all your patience.

thanks radical - it's good to know it's not a new fangled phenomena brought about by some of my weird modern parenting (i didn't really think it was but hey... when things are bad, they're bad).

an update... DD has started school and had no poo issues there OR indeed at home! I seem to have bribed her with an extra bed time story in exchange for a poo in the toilet (how long this will last I cannot say). She is in total denial about feeling any poo come at any point and will sit in a stinky bathroom having just passed a whopper saying "I just did a wee, not a poo". I think that this might be to cover up a recent horror story when she did a massive poo in her cossie while we were in the swimming pool - again apparently completely without her knowledge - I spotted the bloody thing as a lump in her costume! She had the BIGGEST melt down ever because I removed her from the pool - a good 40 minutes of full on screaming fit - yet seemed completely unperturbed by the poo she was covered in.....

ANYHOW... wees are now the issue - she will come home from school 3 or 4 days a week having obviously weed herself 2 or 3 times during the day (small ones), very stinky because she just isn't drinking enough water - and yet again, in complete denial about anything - "oh - I didn't feel any wee coming mummy". School are being helpful and very understanding but it's tricky for them to intervene because she does go regularly to the toilet (what she DOES in there I don't know - I think there's a bit of "toilet charades" going on at home too). I'm hoping the HV will refer us to a specialist after half term but in general things are getting better - I have only had to wash out one pair of poo pants in the last 4 weeks which is, quite frankly, a miracle, especially as when I started this thread over a year ago it was a daily wash of 5 or 6 pairs.

So to sum up - nothing is "fixed" but there are definite improvements for us with age and routine changes - the school routine has actually helped despite my fears (and hopefully will continue to do so). No one in her reception class seems to have noticed that she smells of wee, her teacher says she's confident and friendly and made a lot of new friends in the last month.

On a personal level the ONLY WAY I've managed to cope is to try and focus on the fact that she is still only 4, a lovely strong willed child who is obviously very confused about the whole toilet thing and to try and stop taking it personally (which is often a great challenge). My mum sounds v much like yours radical - patient and loving - and I have just had to learn to be so much more like my mum and less like me! It's been good for me (in a strange and difficult way)....

I'm not sure if we count as 'extended' - 4 or 5 months since we started for the second time, and he still won't poo in the potty or toilet. Ever. Generally he'll poo in his pants, but today and yesterday he's been holding it in. Before he went to bed this evening we spent about half an hour sitting in front of the TV together, him on the potty, clearly uncomfortable and needing to go, having cuddles but I can't do anything to help him! I tried offering to put a nappy on him, but he said no. It's so frustrating... definitely empathising with the arghhh in the thread title.

I hope some of the people who posted in this thread in the summer have made progress!

Hello all, hope some/all of you have made some progress.

I'm here to celebrate :) DD2 has been clean for 10 days!! It really really feels like a miracle.

She began in October to have occasional successes on the toilet whilst doing a wee (she has been dry day & night for over a year)
So to help her I bought her some flax seed capsules, I had read somewhere that they could "lubricate" things a little & thought it was worth a try. DD2 is rubbish at taking medicine but I really sold these capsules to her as medicine for her bottom & she takes them well & enthusiastically. She is still taking Movicol daily too. As far as I can see the flax seed does nothing, however it is working marvellously as a placebo for DD2 - she thinks it works & it does her no harm so she is still taking it!!

Very slowly she moved from having the occasional accidental poo on the toilet when doing a wee to getting half her poo's on the toilet on purpose. Once we saw she could do it I'm afraid I bribed her & said that if she was doing all her poos on the toilet by Christmas that Father Christmas would swap her emergency bag (full of clean clothes, wipes & nappy bags) which I took everywhere; for the toy which is her current hearts desire. This literally did the trick overnight!!

The bribery only worked once she could do it, bribery had absolutely no effect when she couldn't, it was like promising someone 5 million pounds if they would just fly to the moon & back.

I honestly at times thought we would never ever get here, now it really feels as if a load has been lifted.

Thank-you to everyone here who has been sympathetic, listened to me moan and shared their own stories. It has helped so much through the whole process to know I am not alone in this - as in RL people just don't talk about it. You've helped me stay sane (ish) throughout it all, and more importantly helped me stay gentle and supportive with DD2 when I felt very frustrated with her. Finally your stories of success (and not) have given me hope when at times I had virtually none. So again thank-you all :)

Also as others have said the Anthony Cohn book is really really good, Whilst it didn't immediately solve our problems it really helped me support DD2 sympathetically until we did. It was about £7ish on kindle & was worth every penny.

My post made me decide to leave an amazon review on the Anthony Cohn book & in doing so I found this leaflet on his website which is very good on childhood constipation. I thought it might perhaps help others reading this thread.

Loony!! That's wonderful! brilliant news. Hooray! And ditto your sentiments of thanks to everyone on this thread who has offered advice, sympathy and empathy. It makes the difference between a very bad day and a day that I could get through.

An interesting recent experience - DD had chickenpox followed by a virus and was off school for a while, she started withholding and soiling again and I took a deep breath. But she's older now (5 next week) and I finally managed to get her to talk about it in a rational way (halleluia!!!) - she told me that she's really scared about the poo hurting. She got a bit constipated when she was ill and had an uncomfortable bowel movement and since then has been scared of having another one. After we talked about it, despite her saying that she wasn't going to let it out, she then dismissed me from the toilet and did a poo. This is obviously a deep seated thing with her which can surface if things change. It is not magically 'sorted' but it is SO MUCH better than before.

Good luck everyone - don't despair, breathe deeply and keep on going.