Stubborn DS will only poo in pants.. not toilet/potty/pullups

[lollyloo88]

I'd love to know if anyone is also in this boat, or was in this boat and sailed out the other side...
DS nearly 3 was a reluctant potty trainer but he slowly got there with a wees and now he's 95% there on them. Poos however he will only go in his pants.

People say to tell him to ask for a pull-up, but he won't even do that.
We've tried sticker rewards, chocolate rewards, toys, you name it, he just goes in his pants.
He won't even go hide somewhere either, he just goes in front of us and then tells us after.

How did you get your pant-pooer to even wear a nappy for a poo? Let alone use the toilet?
From a desperate mum! X

Poo goes to pooland app.

Sorry the answer was no, I didn’t have a big issue but the app was really helpful when I potty trained DD2. It was created by a member of CAHMS and it’s a free NHS app.

Don't put pants on him. Just baggy trousers, like joggers.

It’s awful. We were stuck in that phase for the better part of a year, from 2.5-3.5, and we’re only just coming out the other side of it. The nursery workers and the paediatrician all said it’s 100% normal and nothing to be worried about… but that doesn’t make washing chunks of poo into the sink several times a day any less grim.

What ultimately helped was

1. a course of laxatives to relieve compacted poo (our GP sent him for an X-ray to rule out anything sinister, and found that despite his maaaany daily poo accidents, he was actually quite constipated)
2. we bought a watch that vibrates every 2 hours as a reminder to go to the potty, so that we weren’t always pestering him about it. If the “magic watch” told him to go, he went. No more arguing with mama and papa. He felt more in control.
3. after breakfast, when he was most likely to poo, we would encourage him to stay on the toilet for longer than usual, and we put a stool under his feet to lift up his knees (better position for pooing). We’d sing songs on the toilet for a couple of minutes. When we heard a plop, he was allowed 5 minutes of Netflix on our phones… usually we don’t do much screen time
4. to encourage him to really void and not just do tiny poops multiple times a day (which were most likely to end up in underwear), we made a game of looking into the toilet and saying « ohhhh the baby poo has arrived! Where’s his papa? Where’s his big sister? »

All things I never thought I’d have to say or think about, but here we are!

Good luck, and solidarity.

Yes sort of had this but my child was a full year younger so probably quite different. I wouldn’t be using pants with a child isn’t trained yet, it’s like muscle memory for a nappy. Baggy joggers only, although given you aren’t having any success with poos yet, I’d go back to basics and spend the weekend at home bare bottomed. When he goes in the potty he can have a chocolate, go to the playground etc.

I had this with my dd and tbh nothing worked, it went on for about 6 weeks and then one day she just did it in the potty and that was that. I guess it just happened when she was ready.

I could have written this.
Mine actually goes into hiding when he's doing his.
Sometimes I catch him in the act and quickly put him on the toilet but he never imitates it first for poos.

He's playing you.

Tell him "Boys who poo in pants just have to stay in nappies. Boys who poo on the toilet or potty, can wear big boy pants".

We went through this, for a full year. DD would hide to poo, so a little different and would only do it at home, so it wasn't an issue at nursery. We tried bribery (as well as poo goes to poo-land), initially with no success. What cracked it for us was when she got slight diarrhoea and ending up pooing automatically when she went for a wee. She got the promised bribes (small toys, which she'd chosen) for that, and it pretty much solved the issue in a week. She wasn't constipated before, but that's worth checking.

Put him back into nappies. If he complains, tell him only babies poo in their pants.

We are in this boat too. Getting much much better bit by bit. Our DS is definitely not “playing us”, he is just learning. I think for him he is still learning to recognise the sensation of “I think I might need a poo soon” rather than waiting all the way til “oh a poo is coming NOW”. Not helped by the fact he has very soft stools.

anyway things helping us are

• making a huge fuss when he does it on the potty (appreciate you can’t do this if they do none on the potty)
• narrating when I need to go “I think I need to do a poo, I’m going to go to the toilet and try.” Etc
• watching him like a hawk. If I see him starting to poo get him straight on the potty
• sitting him on the potty to try at the time he most usually does a poo. Putting something he loves on TV at this time so he will happily sit for a while (I know some will say bribing him with a screen is not good but at this point I just want to reinforce the association of pooing in the potty, so to me it’s worth it)
• a potty training book called No more nappies

he also used to do the millions of tiny poos instead of one big one, this is getting better as he is learning to hold it to go all in one go / keep sitting and trying til he’s actually finished. It was actually one of the reasons we went ahead with potty training, I felt like I would have been teaching him to do twenty little poos in a nappy instead of learning helpful habits for the future! I am glad we did.

qlso not easy but try not to show him you are stressed when he goes in his pants. Always ask him, “where do we go to poo?” Hopefully he’ll reply “to the potty!”.

solidatrity. It’s the pits having to wash out soiled pants over and over again 😞

Bribery. DD loved a specific vintage cartoon which you can only watch on YouTube. Each about 4 mins long.

So once the first episode was over while sitting on the loo the iPad got switched off with a promise of another one once a poo turned up. It took ages but when she eventually cracked so got a solid 40 mins of tv and heaps of praise. Never looked back

We're in a similar situation. We started toilet training a couple of weeks ago, and DD (nearly 3) figured out weeing within a week, but has started holding in her poos. She'll complain she has a sore tummy or will say she needs to be changed and get a pull up (which we still use for nights) but if we put her on toilet or potty she gets straight off without going and won't go in pull ups either. It's becoming a power struggle because we're prompting her but she's refusing, and then she gets hysterical.

This. It seems harsh, but it's true and works! The other option is buy him the waterproof crinkley old fashioned Terry toweling pants. And you explain that poo doesn't go in pants, poo goes on the loo. So, if you're going to keep pooing on your pants you'll have to have these pants.

You can buy potty training pant liners that may help with the poo chunks in the sink scenario....

My DS saw a toy in the supermarket that he really wanted and I said he could have it if he did a poo on the toilet. So off we went, he performed, wild celebrations etc and he got the toy. And that was that, he was fixed.

My youngest was the hardest to train. Wanted to only wee in potty, wanted to hide and poo and then not tell me. He liked to hold onto things and hide.

We used a combo of (like other posters said) babies have nappies, older brother is in pants and we let him choose some pants just like his big brother.

At that point he was attached to pull ups and refused to poo in potty. So we bought trainer pants and just kept having to do the lovely scooping of poo out and sit him on potty and watch do a poo songs on you tube.

What worked best for me was to be really positive and try reason best I could with him. I can't believe I did this but I said do you need a hug whilst you poo? Thing is, it worked. I mean it's minging but he wanted a hug or his back rubbing. I felt like a total tit.

He was just really scared to poo in a new way on the potty. So we kept talking about it (in a way a two year old could understand). So gradually he didn't need the hugs and Instead I clapped or acted amazed. He'd want reassurance so i would step back a bit and say you're doing great.

Might not work for everyone but at that point I was desperate. All children are different. It takes so much patience and positivity.