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Potty training

Is your child ready for potty training at nursery? Here's the place for all your toilet training questions.

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Original poster

DS 3yrs 9 months refusing to poo on the potty/toilet

14 replies

Beckyboo123 · 28/04/2023 17:40

Please help me I am at my wits end. I have a wonderful but very strong willed and very stubborn 3 year old. He will be 4 in August and going to school in September. We left potty training very late as he seems so very young and he just never seemed ready.

We bit the bullet and started in January and despite a bit of resistance from him we cracked the wee wee’s fairly quickly.

For probably the last 6 months he poo’s pretty much constantly. He will maybe go one or two days without doing anything but then will literally go just a little bit every time we either put clean pants on him or a pull up. I really could change him 10+ times a day. This has been going on for so long I really don’t know what to do.

We initially thought it was constipation so we went to the doctors and got prescribed laxido which was so very difficult to get him to have as he will only drink water and could taste the difference. When he did drink it he would be sick.

We can tell when he’s going to poo and have very quickly taken him to the potty but he flatly refuses to go and screams at us and has a total tantrum until we take him off.

He also tells us when he’s done a poo.

He goes to nursery 4 days a week and he is exactly the same there and has never not even once done a poo anywhere other than his pants or nappy.

I love my boy more than anything but this is breaking me and I am so utterly fed up. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

OP posts:

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Panda8383 · 28/04/2023 17:59

My little boy turned 4 in march, we’ve been trying for 9 months for him to do a poo in the toilet, this just happened a few weeks ago..he decided he was pooing in the loo and has been doing great with it, don’t know if he just decided to do it or the fact I bought actual nappies instead of nappy pants by accident and he had to put it on and that’s maybe made him do it on the toilet

ThickSkinnedSoWhat · 28/04/2023 18:01

Beckyboo123 · 28/04/2023 17:40

We bit the bullet and started in January and despite a bit of resistance from him we cracked the wee wee’s fairly quickly.

We can tell when he’s going to poo and have very quickly taken him to the potty but he flatly refuses to go and screams at us and has a total tantrum until we take him off.

He also tells us when he’s done a poo.

He goes to nursery 4 days a week and he is exactly the same there and has never not even once done a poo anywhere other than his pants or nappy.

I love my boy more than anything but this is breaking me and I am so utterly fed up. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

My daughter was similar and it was constipation in her case. She is on Laxido but was originally on 5ml of Lactulose, which is basically syrup. Do you think he'd be okay drinking that or taking it through a syringe?

ThickSkinnedSoWhat · 28/04/2023 18:01

Also, you could have a look at the ERIC website for help with constipation :)

Original poster

Beckyboo123 · 28/04/2023 21:51

I’m not even sure if it is even constipation as he just goes all the time. Maybe I need to take him back to the doctors and see what they say.

OP posts:

Bringonthesunshineporfavor · 28/04/2023 22:02

You could be describing my grandchild . Who refuses to poo in loo or nappy only in pants and then gets very tearful. We have tried everything and so far no luck.
Just hoping that they will agree in their own time . It’s very frustrating and difficult to be out and about. They are 100% fine with weeing in looo or potty.
Has been on Movicol since 6 months and if we stop they become constipated.
Good luck.X

Whattodo121 · 28/04/2023 22:04

Oh my goodness this gives me flashbacks. DS was the same and it was an absolute nightmare. He’s now 11 and it’s a distant memory, so I hope this can be reassuring. In our case he was constipated, had to be put on movicol and was having accidents all the time.

What fixed it for us was the following:

waiting until he was ‘cleared out’ and no longer constipated before trying to tackle anything else
bribing him massively to ask for a pull up when he needed a poo, rather than pooing in his pants. This was along the lines of when he was showing signs of needing a poo I would quickly think of a high value treat (like training a dog!) and offer it immediately. So things like ‘if you do it in a pull up I’ll go to the shop RIGHT NOW and get you a kinder egg,’ and fulfil your promise.
fairly quickly he realised that a pull up was far superior to having dirty pants etc so we could wean off the movicol as he started to go when he needed to, rather than withholding
as we lessened the movicol he only needed to poo once a day. As a creature of habit he would do it immediately after his bath, so he’d have a bath, have a pull up, go into the bathroom and do a poo and then he’d put pants on and pjs and go to bed.
we then followed the ERIC website advice of getting them to move gradually towards the loo, and then do it sitting down on the loo with a pull up, and then cut a hole in the pull up so it dropped in the loo etc etc. that stage took two weeks and then it was never a problem again.

We got to stage 4 in about 2 months and then stayed at stage 4 for about 6 months and then did stage 5 in about two weeks.

best of luck!

Iwasafool · 28/04/2023 22:11

One of mine wouldn't us the loo or potty, completely dry and wearing pants but when she needed to poo she had to have a nappy on. We started to say OK we'd put the nappy on but she had to sit on the potty with the nappy on, after a while we would put the nappy open on the potty and she'd sit on it. Then one day she saw a toy she really wanted and I said I would buy it when I could stop buying nappies as I didn't have enough money for both. She tried and found it a bit scary, within a few days she was happily using the potty and starting to use the loo and got her toy. I think it was scary for her and she felt safer with the nappy.

Good luck.

ThickSkinnedSoWhat · 28/04/2023 22:33

Beckyboo123 · 28/04/2023 21:51

I’m not even sure if it is even constipation as he just goes all the time. Maybe I need to take him back to the doctors and see what they say.

You'd be surprised. Constant soiling can be a sign! It definitely might be worth another trip.

TheSnailAndTheWaaaail · 28/04/2023 22:51

Oh OP we have literally just come through the other side of this, it's taken a full year and I don't even want to try and guess how many pairs of pants we have chucked in the bin!

DS grasped peeing on the toilet quite quickly, but he just would not poo on the toilet, or potty. He would sit for 20 mins happily reading a book, and literally a minute after getting off the toilet he would have done a full poo in his pants 🤦🏼‍♀️ Drove me demented.

We tried all sorts of bribes/sticker charts/presents/punishments/making him clean his own pants and fetch new clothes/cold shower to clean him up/praise/ignoring....nothing worked consistently. About 2 weeks before he turned 4 he stopped having accidents and told me he needed the toilet in enough time to get him there. And a week after his birthday he very suddenly went dry overnight as well!

Honestly I thought it was never going to happen, but it did.

Original poster

Beckyboo123 · 29/04/2023 22:07

Thank you everyone. At least I know I’m not alone. I will take him back to the doctor and see if we can get him a different medication as laxido didn’t agree with him. Then will have a go with the advice from he ERIC website. Thanks again.

OP posts:

santamartin37 · 26/06/2023 22:14

How are you getting on? We are in a very similar position with our almost 4yo daughter starting school in September. Very strong willed and seemingly resistant to even high value bribes. Just impossible to get here to sit on loo when she clearly needs to go. Keep being told she'll just get the hang of it. It's been the single hardest part of parenting for us! Good luck to you

PigsEnigma · 13/07/2023 14:56

How are you getting on now? This is my daughter. She has been dry day and night since April but we cannot sort poos. She's off to the doctor to discuss possible constipation next week but I've started her on lactulose in the meantime. I'm not 100% convinced she's constipated but I'll see what is said. She's 3 next month and starts nursery in September and I just really really want to crack this. I'm sick of poo pants!

HollyJaye · 15/10/2023 18:32

Hello, I’ve just come across this message thread and my god I could have written it myself! It struck such a nerve that I could’ve cried! We are currently in this exact situation with my DS who is 3.10. We protruding trained in February as he didn’t seem ready before that. He took to doing wees on the toilet really well and has continued to do really well with that. He’s also dry through the night so doesn’t have pull ups. We’ve had laxido which didn’t help, tried rewarding with stickers, hot wheels or small sweets/chocolate. We’ve done reward charts, I’ve bought books designed for children who are struggling with pooping, I read to him on the toilet, I sing, I cuddle him, I rub his back, I take him with me when I go, we look at the poo together, I’m always positive about it, I always say it’s a good thing and talk about how natural it is to poo. Nothing is working and we’ve been trying this now for 6 months. Any advice would be so welcome, I am so drained and just want him to be happy and healthy :(

KDorAsp · 31/10/2023 20:04

My daughter has just turned 3. Has been in pants for almost a year and has only just figured out having dry pants. Her issue is poos. She holds it and holds and stops/starts bits throughout the day. Sometimes asks for a pull up to do a poo in but not always. She will not do a poo, on the potty/toilet has done a couple times in the past but it is painful for her. We have had laxitives but that was just causing a massive mess and making it way more stressful as it was just coming all the time. So now gets laxatives when she hasn't pooped in a couple days and is obviously bloated or can tell us when she has a sore tummy
Please help 🙏

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