poos in pants for 6 months - is it time to get tough about it?

[1fish2fish]

my twin boys are 3.4 and have been in pants for 6 months now since they were 2.10. They got the hang of wees quite quickly and within 8 weeks were completely dry daytime and are now 100% dry day and night. BUT WE HAVE GOT NOWHERE WITH POOS absolutely no improvement at all in 6 months.

First DS will occasionally poo on potty, but its very hit and miss and i always have to put him on when i notice he needs one, he would almost never do it himself. Second DS has issues, will not poo a whole poo, always little bits through the day cos he is witholding and 'nipping it off' as my OH puts it! I really feel lately that they are capable of getting it but refusing, they definately do fully understand intellectually what they need to do and will talk about it and come up with excuses.

They will say things like 'never mind' 'i will do it on potty next time' 'we are still learning mummy' then will say 'we are not learning very good, are we mummy?' and will laugh about it.

I have never got tough about it, my attitude has been gentle encouragement and to not make a big deal out of it and be patient and they will do it when they are ready - but its just not happening/ working

So now i'm thinking of a complete change of attitude and an wondering if i would be better off yelling at them! Have started a reward chart where if they get 2 poos in a row on potty they get to choose a reward from my 'shop' and if they keep on pooing pants i will take toys away, to the point where possibly all of their toys and locked away,not allow them their favorite TV shows, no sweet treats etc

Bear in mind i have been a very lenient mummy this will come as an absolute shock to them but probably the shock that they need? i would hate to make it worse tho, esp with DS2, the one who withholds i wonder if it might have negative effect . Help & suggestions please!!

Had the withholding issue with DD. she was dry day and night in a week at 3 yo. But the bloody poo issue went on for over 2 months. We had sticker chart.

I made a major mistake by telling her off after the first month and she started withholding poo. Went for 5 days without a poo. It was agony to watch and she would tantrum and act up because she was in pain. Total nightmare.

I couldn't let my DD suffer like that so I bribed her. Every time she did a poo in the toilet, she got a bag of choc buttons, a couple of sweets and a Little Miss book. I know it sounds a lot but I has been through two weeks where she had only pooed three times and I was desperate.

It worked like a charm. After 10 days she stopped withholding and would go with encouragement and rewards after. After 3 weeks she would just go herself to the toilet and poo and shout mummy I have done a poo. All sorted.

So my point of the long and ramblings above are that it's serious bribery time. They will be more encouraged if the recieve choc or sweets immediately than having to wait to fill a sticker chat. They will be so consumed with getting the poo done on the toilet to get reward that pooing on the toilet will become second nature.

Definitely don't 'get tough'

You will just create a negative feeling around the issue which will be totally counter productive.

Don't get tough one bit. Keep pull ups around the house and use them when you see they need a poo or put up with polo in pants but relax don't comment and let them get it them selfs. A friend of mines son was still with holding at 5 years old and I believe that was a result of the drama and fear from parents caused by the with holding and pooing in pants. Dot make a big deal and let them get it in their own time. Reward from shop is great idea but removing toys is a bad move they will begin to associate pooing with loss and that is not a good thing.

My dd2, 3.5 has recently become more reliable re: pooing on the potty since we told her she could have some chocolate treats if she did her poos on the potty.

At first we were having to spot that she needed to go, ask her if she needed a poo and we'd put her on the potty so she could perform! - even if she said 'no'.

When she did we made a big song and dance about the fact that she'd done it on the potty and then, when everything was flushed away and hands washed, we immediately got her a few milky buttons & choc stars as her treat. She was pretty chuffed about the praise and the treats.

When she got the hang of this we changed the goal posts slightly and told her that she would get her treats for TELLING US that she needed a poo, rather than us having to ask ( which is very recent) and also for then doing it on the potty.

She is telling us every time she needs it now which is such a relief, instead of having to second guess all the time hoping that we don't miss it and have messy pants to deal with.

This is the method that worked for us anyway.

Maybe try the immediate treat method first and if that is not working try the following.

If your dts have rarely pooed on the potty OP you may want to take it right back to the beginning for that side of things and start putting a nappy on them if they feel like they need a poo or if you feel like they are about to. This way they might start to relax about pooing again. Once they're used to that you can tell them that the fastening tape on the nappies has broken (actually cut it off) but that you can put the nappy on the potty so they can still use the nappy to do the poo (thereby getting them used to sitting to do their poo). When they seem established and happy with that you could 'suddenly run out of nappies' one day and ask if they could sit on the potty to do a poo without the nappy in place. This way it's like getting there in small steps. I know it's a pain and feels like a step backwards but it just might be quicker than ploughing on with the hope that it will just happen. They could still get the treats after managing this at each step.

I'm sure I have just mentioned the word 'poo' more times in one go than I have ever done in my life so far.

Good luck OP.

PS, I agree with NOT getting tough. You don't want to create any negativity around the whole issue.

It took me over 6 weeks of poo in pants to "crack it" with DS(DC3). He wasn't liking the poo getting on his legs as I tried to wrangle off soiled pants, even by cutting them off times. So I started calmly telling him if he went on the toilet his poo would plop and wouldn't get on his legs.

He was starting playgroup and needed to be pretty much TT for that. So went with an approach a friend who was staying with us had been told by her GP as her DS was holding on, badly constipated etc etc and that was to make it a routine. Her DS at 7 still gets undressed at night finds an empty toilet ie not where his sister is getting bathed, goes then has bath and bed.

I reckoned DS was more of a morning person so now he has breakfast and goes to the toilet before getting dressed. I used fireman Sam on you tube on my laptop to get him to sit there for long enough to go. And for the first 2 weeks when he did a poo in the toilet he got a 60p toy car from Tescos. It took a few days but he fell into the routine and a month on we have only had one poo in the pants! He now just gets a malteser for a poo!

It poo in pants stage seemed like ages at the time but now seems like ages ago and it was only weeks! Good luck!

OH here again, well i have made a little 'shop' out of a cardboard box covered in wrapping paper and filled it with tat from poundland and cheap chocolate lollys and they showing tiny bit of interest in that but not hugely excited by it. not sure if it will be enough of a bribe in the long run to motivate them, we will see... yes i will hold off with taking away of toys for now. the thing that really bugs me tho is that they laugh about it - they will say 'i pooed my pants, ha ha ha' and really laugh with each other, completely undermining me and not taking it seriously. they are also terrible or should i say very good with selective hearing. if they dont want to hear me then they completely blank me. i guess its the twin factor, the fact that there is 2 of them both doing it that makes it so hard. if one could stop pooing his pants i'm pretty sure the other one would follow. arrrgghh! its driving me mad.......

Hi 1fish. I feel for you, I really do. I also have twin boys, they are 3.8, and they are not completely potty trained. One of them says that he doesn't want to go to the bathroom but is making a wee 2 minutes later. I also don't know what to do, I guess I will have to be tougher - their school is putting a lot of pressure on me, they say they're the only ones not potty trained in their class.

Maybe it was my fault, I only started training them when they turned 3, perhaps I should have started earlier? Anyway, too late now, we have 6 weeks to make it work otherwise the school says they will ask my boys to stay at home and re-start next August only! :(