I am a monster of impatience amd will mentally scar DS for life.

[openerofjars]

We are on Pants Day 3 and DS (2.11) will not poo anywhere other than in his pants, on his own in the front room, usually two minutes after I have taken him to the potty because I know he needs to go for a poo.

The second time he did it this morning, I was exasperated and grumpy, not kind and soothing, and he was upset. I feel like such a cow. He is so small and doing very well, really.

He is getting the hang of weeing in the potty (only 1 wet pair of pants today as opposed to 7 yesterday). He is really proud of himself and I have told him I am proud of him. I have royally undermined this praise by being so sharp with him about the poo.

I don't deserve such a lovely little boy.

I am 7 weeks pregnant and not sleeping well, feeling sick, weeing all the bloody time myself and bored out of my mind after 3 days at home wiping poo off the carpet, none of which excuses how mean I was to him.

For both our sakes, please tell me it isn't going to last for weeks.

With my DD, we started training on her 3rd birthday (November), and it took one day for her to wee on the toilet. Hardly any accidents after that.

HOWEVER, she would NOT poo on the loo, and asked for a pull-up to poo into when she needed it. I took her into the bathroom, stood her next to the loo, put on a pull-up, which she pooed into very nicely . I took it off, and we emptied the poo into the loo and flushed it away.

It took about a month and a half of this before she decided (on Christmas day!) that she didn't need the pull up anymore. Hurrah!

you really just have to try and go with the flow - she will get there in there end.

Good luck

I'm afraid ime, the poos take a bit longer to get sorted. DD was dry within 1 day but didn't get the hang of the poo thing for another 3-4 weeks. My friend is training her DS at the moment and he's pretty much 100% hit rate on wees and has been since day 4 but he's still pooing in his pants. They are on week 10 She is patience personified but even shes's beginning to lose it

Try to grit your teeth - it's only day 3!! Sounds like he's doing pretty well to me. All my 3 potty trained fairly easily, but none the less the poos definitely took a little bit longer - i.e. wees pretty much sorted within a couple of days but poos more like 10 days - 2 weeks. Things that help.... good elastic in the pants (particularly around the legs) that don't leak poo everywhere if there are accidents and a pair of scissors. It may sound horribly wasteful but the easiest way to deal with pooey pants is to lie down on changing mat, cut the sides and then clean up like a nappy. It doesn't tend to go on that long so hopefully only a couple of pairs of pants chucked.

Once mine actually got their first poo in the potty we were pretty much set, it was catching the first one that was the problem. So if you can face it I'd advise some time of very close watching with no pants on and a potty to hand that can be shoved underneath him the minute he looks like he's about to squat down.

Advance bribery might help too - i.e. get something very nice (chocolate or toy) - show it to him, talk about it, put it on a high shelf in clear sight and promise it to him as soon as that first poo goes in the potty.

Thanks all. I found yesterday that the thing most guaranteed to make him poo was me leaving the room! He has been promised chocolate button/s for a poo and got one yesterday when he did half a poo in his pants and the rest in the loo during cleanup.

I don't think the nausea and hormonal mood swings are helping at all!

I have done a chart so I can keep track of what's actually happening, and yesterday was a lot better than Sunday.

I am a bit concerned that I will make him constipated by leaping on him when he looks like he might be going to poo, but I can't see how else I'm going to keep the crap off the floor.

Thank you again for your very sane and helpful replies.

Well, he's not constipated: two poos on the potty today, thanks to a day of leaping on him if he so much as grunted and throwing a potty under him. Bless him, he was so proud of himself!

And only three pairs of pants used all day. Mind you, I did kind of cop out by taking him swimming: loads of public loos, it's somewhere he's used to going and I really don't know if he weed in the pool or not but he definitely didn't poo in there. Thank goodness.

You were right: it does get better. Thank you.