At a potty crossroads - help experienced parentals!!

[MissKittyFantastico84]

Hello MN!

As title suggests, we're in a potty situation with 2 year old DS (well nearly 3, in Oct).

He will do wees fine in the potty but has to be prompted. He is getting better at finding his own way to the potty when he needs it.

Poos however - nope. WILL NOT poo on the potty. He'll wait until he has his nighttime nappy on just before bed, or have an accident in his pants.

We have been putting him in pants everyday because he's doing so well with wees and we don't want to confuse him.

But what should we do? Keep going this way or go back to pull up nappies to avoid No2 accidents?

We just want to do the right thing. He gets so upset when he has a poop accident and I don't want him to get a complex about it!

Any advice?

Thanks!

X

Have you tried the toilet rather than a potty? Have you tried a reward chart? I'm going back 10 years now but we sorted poos with chocolate button bribery

Smartie bribery here. A poo was worth 3 smarties worked like a charm

I have a controversial experience with my previous charge. Same as your boy. Wee independently, no accidents. But would say she needed poo, would sit on potty but nothing happened. I suggested putting her in nappy when She said she needed poo.
It worked well, after a few months we suggested she poo on potty again. Did want to . Tried again a month or so after that and it happened. Now no nappy apart from night time and independent and in control of toileting.

Does he poo at predictable times every day? DS always does one after breakfast for example! I would make him sit on the potty when I knew he needed to go and would just read him stories until he did a poo, then massive praise when he did. We used to talk about what it might look like when it came out (eg a snake or a mountain 🤢) which he enjoyed. I think it can be scary for them at first but he’ll get there.

I've been there! DS managed wees on the potty from about 2y9m but he's only just started doing poos on the potty at 3.5, we've had to be very patient over the last 9 months!

Even chocolate bribes didn't help (and he loves chocolate). I don't know why but he seemed to have some kind of mental block. When we first started potty training he did manage one or two poos on the potty but he didn't want to keep trying. He had constipation for a while which is obviously a vicious cycle as it gets difficult and painful for them to poo. So we decided to take the pressure off and while we always suggested trying potty or toilet, when he didn't want to we didn't force it. He would tell us when he needed a poo and ask for a nappy, so we'd take him to the bathroom and put a nappy on him - rather frustrating but better than accidents in pants I guess! And it got him into the habit of going to the toilet and getting undressed, at least. He would always insist on being left alone in the bathroom with the door closed, we had to give him privacy (shame he doesn't give us the same courtesy when we want to go to the toilet alone )
Then one day recently he just decided to do poos on the potty 🤷🏻‍♀️ He poos a lot more frequently now so clearly feels comfortable doing it at last.

It helps that when he gets up in the morning, he takes himself to the bathroom for a wee on the potty, and I don't think it's a coincidence that he also started doing a poo at that time - he was completely independent and not being supervised or nagged by us, he just decided himself.

I bought a couple of books about it which made mine excited to do it!

Although saying that within a week it was in the toilet so try there. No one wants to look at their poo after they’ve done it!

"No one wants to look at their poo after they’ve done it!"

I'm pretty sure kids do! Mine does anyway. He would ask to look at the poo in his nappy and was quite amused/proud to see his poo in the potty to begin with.

Yes @Fallowdeerhunter my son loved looking at his! He found it fascinating. They don’t learn to be disgusted by it until they’re a bit older.

We had problems with poos on the potty so we got a seat for the toilet and he used it fine.

My daughter always found it gross. She likes talking about it but not looking at it!