Any ideas on how to tackle poos and the toilet?

[dodi1978]

My DS, almost 3, is very good with wees on the potty (although he has to be reminded / bribed constantly and does have accidents).

Our two big problems are
a) getting him to go on the toilet (he did it a few weeks ago at my parents, with the toilet seat adaptor, but back home refused again). The reason I am keen to do this is that I don't have to drag a potty round when out and about!
b) getting him to do poos on the toilet (or potty, if necessary - mainly not in his pants).

Any ideas? We had an epic tantrum today, when, after two wee accidents (they are rare these days and I know he can do better, so I got a bit annoyed), me and my husband tried to coax him onto the toilet. We won in the end, but, oh my god, it was an epic one! Think hostage negotiation situation....

Just wait until he's ready?
My girl has just turned 3, using the toilet for the last 6/7 months for a wee but flatly refusing to poo in anything other than a pull up. I asked pretty much every day if she wanted a poo on the loo - no!
Friday we were out and she needed a poo, I said I'd run out of pull ups so she'd just have to use the toilet (I've used that one before and she'd go into hysterics) she said ok then..... And she did! No fuss, I kept it light and lots of praise, no more pull ups!

Ah bless him he's still only little and doing really well Try not to be too hard on him, you don't want it to become a battle ground. The odd accident here and there is completely normal.
WRT poos on the toilet, google Poo goes home to pooland, a really child friendly story to make doing a poo on the loo less scary!

Thanks everybody!

Well, the thing is, he doesn't seem to find doing poos scary at all! Sometimes, he does them in his night nappy - great. But if they come during the day, he just does them in his pants... and I don't want to go back to pull ups during the day because he is quite successful with wees.

Yes, I know, I mustn't be too hard on him (and I won't be). However, he has often made big steps forward when he had a bit of a telling off ...

Might try poo goes to pooland, but I understood that's for kids who suffer from constipation / poo withholding (which is not the case for him). I got a book today (captain of the toilet) which is supposed to help kids transition to the toilet, so I'll see if that will help.

Going on the toilet will make going out just soooo much easier!

It worked well for us to have 'poo tries' where they just had to sit on the loo for five minutes or so and try and have a poo. My reasoning was that they can't always perform on command but they can sit and try! Also sitting backwards so they faced the seat, or had a stool to put their feet on, seemed to improve the whole thing immeasurably. Plus, if they're facing the seat, you can give them dry-wipe markers to draw with which they seem to enjoy!

Do a youtube search. There are loads of parent made videos on this and some of them are so funny they will cheer you up anyway even if you don't find them helpful.

A couple of things helped for us.

1. Me getting a sense of when it would be best to be at home to keep an eye on when to encourage going to the toilet - took about a week. I think being reluctant to use non-home toilets is normal at least at first.

2. Big sister made a big cartoon poo instruction poster for the bathroom

3. Ridiculous positive praise for all progress in the right direction

Pressure doesn't work cos as you are finding it just leads to poos in the night.

3 is still quite young. Some kids appear to have this cracked earlier than others only because they happen to have very regular habits which also coincide with times when they are at home close to a toilet.

I don't mind if he doesn't do anything on the toilet, for the time being I just want him to sit there! I emphasise actually that trying is enough... it took him ages to do something on the potty, but he did it eventually!

At my parents house, we cracked it by saying "There is a fire in the toilet" ... he would then race there with his fire engine in true Fireman Sam Style. That trick has stopped working....

Oh, well, I guess it's just a waiting game... I am expecting DS2 in 10 weeks though and was hoping to have him trained by then... no such luck it seems!

Watching this with interest. Ds is 2,5 and will wait until he gets a nappy on to poo. He was ok until earlier this year and then just stopped. I've tried poo goes to pooland,playing with the iPhone, play acting with teddies, bribery when we know he needs to go.

We're not making a big deal out of it- I don't want to cause any problems with constipation-but hope I might pick up some tips on this thread.

Yeah - managed to coax DS on the toilet this morning with his tablet.

Luckily, his tablet doesn't keep charge very long any more and expired after 15 minutes - perfect timing for an attempt of the toilet.

He didn't manage to do anything, but at least he sat. Also took only 5 minutes of negotiation rather than the 20 yesterday....

We'll see how it goes from now!