2 year old soiling

[MeadowHay]

Hello, wondered if anyone had been through the same thing or if there is anyone who works in early years/paediatrics that could advise me.

Our DD is 2 and we have been potty training for two weeks. She took to it pretty well. We have had no pee accidents for a week now.

She attends nursery 3 days a week. Prior to her attending nursery she was passing bowel movements on the potty completely fine at home in the first few days of training. When she went to nursery she began to soil herself. Since then she has become increasingly reluctant to use the potty for a bowel movement and is clearly trying to withhold her stool as much as possible. Over last weekend etc I was essentially 'catching' her stools so we didn't have accidents per se but she wasn't happy about being on/near the potty for it suddenly so I wasn't sure what to do.

This week at nursery she's been soiling herself at least once a day and the staff report she's getting increasingly upset about it each time but also refusing to use the potty when they can tell she needs a bowel movement.

What should I do? I don't want to push her if she's unhappy about it. Should I start offering a nappy for a bowel movement? She hasn't asked for them at all and she can tell me that poop goes in the potty and she's getting upset at soiling but also upset using the potty for a bowel movement. I also don't get how she was fine using it all the first few days but this has suddenly developed days later?! It's not as if she was stressed about it at the start. She knows when she needs a bowel movement and she's been telling us for many months now whilst she was in nappies so it's not like it takes her by surprise or anything.

I’ve known people have success by placing an open nappy in the potty. Maybe worth a try?

Also try tipping the poo from the nappy into the toilet and let them flush it away and sing a goodbye song. This is helping with my potty refuser, who now sometimes sits on the big loo.

We had something similar with my now 3yo when we potty trained her at 2.5. She ended up v constipated and sore from it and we reverted back to a nappy for poos for about another 9 months. We kept tying every few months but it was as though she was scared, but then suddenly decided she wanted to use the toilet (not the potty) and we got rid of the nappies entirely v shortly after. My advice would be to treat wees and poos as two separate things when potty training and just get her comfortable going again and not withholding even if it is in a nappy and she’ll get there when she’s ready

It seems like she is getting scared now but I don't understand how when she wasn't scared to start with?!

Nursery have asked that she start wearing underwear as they think she might get less upset with the accidents if they're more contained in the undies. As we've been doing commando so far as per oh crap.

We always do flushing the poo down the toilet and at first she was very excited and shouting "Look! It's a big one! I did it!" after her bowel movements in the potty and high fiving us etc. It just seems that the more she soils herself at nursery the more afraid she is of pooping on the potty. I'm struggling to understand why though when they're two separate things? It's not like the unpleasant soiling experiences are driving her to not want to soil herself by using the potty.

I can try nappy lining the potty that's a great idea thanks.

I will deffo offer a nappy for poo if we have to but she started so well that I'm reluctant to do that unless absolutely necessary as she did loads of poos on the potty fine in the first week of training.

Do you think I should try a sticker chart for poops on the potty?

She's not actually constipated in the sense that she is going at least once daily and her stools are a normal consistency.

I've tried the toilet btw too as once she asked to go on it but then she got scared immediately asked to come down.

I've bought a training seat so could try that too I suppose.

Wow @Lydiamallettkeyworth, that's about the smuggest post I've ever read on MN!

Sympathies OP. My DD also withholds and it's incredibly stressful. Hope you get it sorted soon.

Toiletting regressions are really common, especially in the early days of TT.

I would just try backing off for a month and then trying again. Don't let it stress you, if you get uptight about it this will pass on to your little one.

Good Luck!

@MeadowHay

Hello, wondered if anyone had been through the same thing or if there is anyone who works in early years/paediatrics that could advise me.

Our DD is 2 and we have been potty training for two weeks. She took to it pretty well. We have had no pee accidents for a week now.

She attends nursery 3 days a week. Prior to her attending nursery she was passing bowel movements on the potty completely fine at home in the first few days of training. When she went to nursery she began to soil herself. Since then she has become increasingly reluctant to use the potty for a bowel movement and is clearly trying to withhold her stool as much as possible. Over last weekend etc I was essentially 'catching' her stools so we didn't have accidents per se but she wasn't happy about being on/near the potty for it suddenly so I wasn't sure what to do.

This week at nursery she's been soiling herself at least once a day and the staff report she's getting increasingly upset about it each time but also refusing to use the potty when they can tell she needs a bowel movement.

What should I do? I don't want to push her if she's unhappy about it. Should I start offering a nappy for a bowel movement? She hasn't asked for them at all and she can tell me that poop goes in the potty and she's getting upset at soiling but also upset using the potty for a bowel movement. I also don't get how she was fine using it all the first few days but this has suddenly developed days later?! It's not as if she was stressed about it at the start. She knows when she needs a bowel movement and she's been telling us for many months now whilst she was in nappies so it's not like it takes her by surprise or anything.

Couple of things:

It's early days
You could take a week off and refocus on training from block one
You sound a little uptight around the language for poo? Are you relaxed with her?

I really believe potty training and then straight back to nursery too soon causes problems.

Whatever you do, don't offer a nappy for poos, it could be a short term fix causing a long term problem

Maybe she doesn't like to/doesn't get an opportunity to ask to go at nursery? You never know what actually happens at them. What a shame that's set her back.
We never did potty training per se, just had a child's toilet seat on the loo and sat her on it from time to time rather than her wearing nappies or training pants (except at night). The only time we really used a potty was when we were out. Not focusing on it or making it a big deal seemed to make it all go very smoothly.
Strange for her to go commando! I'd definitely have her wearing knickers! Can you agree a strategy with nursery so you're being consistent?

@Carouselfish

Maybe she doesn't like to/doesn't get an opportunity to ask to go at nursery? You never know what actually happens at them. What a shame that's set her back. We never did potty training per se, just had a child's toilet seat on the loo and sat her on it from time to time rather than her wearing nappies or training pants (except at night). The only time we really used a potty was when we were out. Not focusing on it or making it a big deal seemed to make it all go very smoothly. Strange for her to go commando! I'd definitely have her wearing knickers! Can you agree a strategy with nursery so you're being consistent?

Commando is very much a part of the Oh Crap method, which by the way is an absolutely sensible way of training. Worked for us. My son is 2.5 and fully day trained

@Lydiamallettkeyworth oh, you went too far too soon. Poor effort.

Hi op, I believe it's quite common for little ones to become a bit freaked out about poos. It's quite a different sensation needing to go and then having to sit there and actively participate?! This certainly happened with my Dd anyway, but not with my ds. With Dd she began to withhold her poos to the point of not going for 6+ days, and of course then became constipated. She had a course of medication from the doctors to help with that but because it didn't resolve the root problem we ended up giving her prunes and prune juice daily to try to ensure her poo was always soft so definitely didn't cause her any discomfort.

For Dd it was really a psychological issue though rather than physical. We got a book called 'poo goes to poo land' which is about this turd man going down the pipe to join his family (really!) which has since been turned into an interactive kind of app?! You can download it for free. We talked about poo a lot, how everyone poos. When she was in the loo she used to hang off my neck and we used to sing songs.

I didn't find a reward chart much use, at this age they can't really manage delayed gratification of collecting stars for a reward. I got poundland toys instead for instant gratification.

It was quite a problem for a while, I would know Dd needed to go but she would be up and down for hours before she eventually did so we wouldn't be able to go out. One time I met a friend at a country park and spent the whole meet up shuttling Dd back and forth to the toilet because she needed to go but wouldn't, until she eventually pood herself while on my hip.

All I can say is that in the end it just gradually stopped being an issue.

Thanks for the reports. We've removed some pretty obvious troll posts. Hopefully things will get back on track now.

For some reason I didn't see anyone else had responded to this, so I've missed the poo troll drama !

As an update, we saw improvement with the bowel movements in the days with me after last week's nursery. I updated nursery again this week and we have seen some small improvement - day 1 she did her first poo on the potty there and they gave her a sticker for it and she seemed very proud of herself. Day two she soiled herself twice. Day 3 she had one soiling incident and one poo on the potty which she got a sticker for. She was asking for stickers at home in conjunction with her poos so we've been carrying it on and I am seeing improvement now at home too even compared to last week at home. So it seems like we are really on the right track now slowly !

We officially have had one week clear of any accidents/soiling including at nursery. Yay!!

@MeadowHay just found your post. Can you tell me what worked. We are in week 3 of potty training. Wee was cracked on day 2! No accidents since. Poos started ok. But then took a step back and now getting accidents every day at nursery in knickers with lots of emotions. Had her bare bottomed over the weekend but now think I've put too much pressure on poo and shes' scared of going. Getting them in the nappy after bed! And during nursery. Just need to know this will soon resolve itself and how! I told nursery today to be really chilled around poo and accidents to remove the pressure!