Three year old really struggling to poo on loo. Help!

[missmillimentscardigan]

My ds is 3.8, but was 3 months premature, so 3.5 corrected. He's pretty reliably dry during the , bar the odd accident, but wears a pull up at night. We're really struggling with poos though, as he says he can't do a poo on the loo or the potty, and always poos in his pants and then tells us afterwards. I've tried reward charts, being really casual, being cross, being a bit sad, getting him a big step so he can climb up to the loo on his own - nothing has worked so far, and he's the same at nursery.
He's also started to withhold poos a bit, I think, and then do a few massive ones (sorry!) a few days later, possibly because it's all a bit stressful for him.
Has anyone got any advice please? He's my first child and I'm not sure whether I've gone about this in completely the wrong way.

Thanks!

The only thing that worked for my DD with poos was this ...

My DD2 was similar. She knew when she needed a poo and would even go and put a pull-up on herself to do one.

I tried running out of pull-ups and she withheld for 3 days and was in a lot of pain. I gave in and she immediately did a huge hard poo in her pull-up.

She eventually started pooing in a potty aged 4 when I told her she could play on my phone while she did it.

A bit silly but we did poos mean prizes for my 3 year old, a selection of toys cheap tat/plastic that little ones seem to love and every time she did a poo she got a prize. Obviously not forever just for a few weeks. But it worked. She still says poo poos mean prizes bless her. (Was conserned she will be asking for prizes till she's 21)

Look up the poo goes to pooland app to watch together. I would also head to the GP for some movicol to make sure he isn't constipated. The longer it goes on the harder it is to rectify... We've had the same issue with ds1 who is now 3.5 and he's had movicol for 6 months now. Things are much better now as long as he does a poo every day which sometimes needs some enforcing when routines change.

Mine likes to poop on the floor and watch it come out but that's neither here nor there! Have you tried a stool to support their feet?

My DD was like this, wees sorted within a few days but refused to poo on the potty/toilet and would hold it in until she could no longer and would do it in her knickers. We tried stickers charts with a reward at the end and the poo goes to poo land app. However the main think that worked was taking her to choose her own knickers, I then told her if she did a poo in them they would have to be thrown away, she really made an effort to poo in the toilet after that.

My boys liked to blow bubbles with bubble mixture on the loo. It made them relax and they seemed to poo without realising. We would then wave the poo goodbye as they flushed the loo. They still talk about poo going to the seaside (via the loo) for a holiday!

I have this with ds, almost 3. Dry very quickly at 2.6 but doesn't want to do a poo on the loo. He's capable, he's done it occasionally, but he prefers a pull up. Luckily he's very regular and goes straight after breakfast, so it's easy to manage. At the moment I'm just going with it because I want to avoid any withholding issues (if I don't give him a pull up he just won't poo), but some useful ideas here. We've done the prizes thing but only worked for a couple of days.

Thanks very much for these ideas. I downloaded the 'Poo goes home to Pooland' just before bedtime and watched it with DS. He found it funny and really interesting, so hoping that might help a bit. I'll try the bubbles too, and I've heard trying to blow up a balloon uses the same muscles. I just really don't want him to feel worried about it.