Will wee on a potty but not poo.

[NoOnesGoingToEatYourEyes]

That's it really.

We started today, DS will be three at the end of March. He's always been a bit shy about doing anything and hates having his nappy changed.

He will deny being wet or having done a poo and he will not tell anyone that he needs to go. He tries not to poo even in his nappy and holds it in until he has stomach ache.

Tried him with little underpants today because if he wears those nappy-pants he just goes in them and won't ask for the toilet or potty or say he needs to go.

He took them off, so he's been half naked all day, and that's worked quite well. He has sat on the potty unprompted every single time and done about eight or nine wees altogether. He hasn't had an accident anywhere either and has told me each time he has been.

But he will not poo and I know he wants to go and is holding it in. When he realised he would have to poo on the potty he hid it, wouldn't sit on the toilet either and has cried and screamed and begged for his nappy on

I've put him a nappy on now but I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do or not.

He'll be going to bed at about 7:30pm.

Not sure how to go about this now, with regards to a poo, or what to do about getting him dressed tomorrow.

Should we have another half naked day, or put on underpants and trousers (which can be difficult for him to pull down on his own quickly enough) and what about getting him to poo?

Any help would be appreciated.

We had this problem with our little girl, every night when she would go to bed and have her night time nappy on she would do a poo as soon as it was on - and eventually we linked her needing a poo and having more wee accidents as she didn't want to use the potty in case her poo came out.

If we recognised that she needed a poo (by doing a squirm and a funny noise) we would put a nappy, let her poo, clean up and carry on with no nappy, this progressed to her coming to us to say "poo nappy" so we would put one on her.

It allowed her to get better with knowing when she needed to week without worrying about a pooing. I think we did this for a 5/6 months as she just refused to use the potty for a poo. Eventually one day I could see she was squirming but ignored and she told us to late she needed a poo and said it was coming out of her bottom, there was a potty near by so I plonked her on it, while she screamed like it was the end of the world. But we made a big fuss, took photos to show daddy and rung grandma for praise. It then took about 2/3 weeks before she would happily poo on the potty after that breakthrough though.

It's taken a long time, quite frankly this whole potty training business has been a nightmare, but we got there in the end.

So my advice would be small steps, perhaps consider saying he can poo in his nappy but otherwise it's pants, and take it from there! I never wanted to force the poo issue as a friend has a horror story involving a toddler, a 16 day poor strike and a trip to the hospital for an enema!

Good luck

Thanks. That sounds like a good plan.

I'll give that idea a try

My friend did the same - nappies for poos. Went on for bloody ages iirc, but get there in the end with no major trauma.

My dd would not poo inher potty. She used to hide behind the sofa or in corner even to do a poo in her nappy. After a while I realised that she does not want to poo in full view so I placed her potty near the bathroom door where my very long dressing gown hangs. I pit her on the potty and covered her face With the dressing gown ( I know it sounds daft but the on,y place she could fit her potty in and hide) and she was happy to poo there. She only did it a few times until she started pooing normaly on the potty

we solved this by putting a pull-up when he said he needed a poo then bribing ds to sit on the potty with the pull-up on, after a few weeks of this i put a nappy in the potty and bribed him to sit on the potty with no pull-up on.

we did this until the packet of nappies ran out, then when ds needed a poo, we were all "oh NO!! there are no nappies left!!" etc and we coaxed him onto the potty with praise and promises of sweets.

after we cracked that it wasn't long before he was wanting to use his sooper-dooper snazzy toilet seat.

My ds did this - would only poo if we out his nappy on even though he was completely potty trained in other respects. It was in the autumn and we threatened that Santa would not visit unless he went on the toilet. He held out until Christmas Eve when he announced that he would be using the toilet from then on and he did (he was two-and-a-half)! He was entirely in control - never had any accidents and of course as with all phases it resolved itself eventually. In the meantime of course I had to put up with all sorts of criticism and advice, mainly from my father who thought it was ludicrous that we pandered to him. I would praise the wees and give it time - he's obviously in control as he is not having accidents so think of that as an encouraging sign. I always took the view that better to put an nappy on once a day than clearing up accidents all over the place. Good luck - I'm sure he'll get it.