Will only poo in pants

[Cindy1802]

Hi all, I know this is a common problem but hoping for some advice. 2 weeks into potty training our 2.5 year old. He's smashing wees, very few accidents. However poos are a different matter! He knows they need to go in the toilet or potty (he tells us this) but will only do them in his pants. I've seen a few posts on here that say to put him in nappies when we know he needs to go and cut a hole in it etc, but we don't know when he needs to go - he won't tell us. He'll only tell us after the event.

I'm not concerned re. Constipation or hard stools, he has toddler diarrhoea which is being managed by diet and thankfully he doesnt have watery poos, but it means they are always really soft.

I don't want to go back to wearing nappies full time cos he will just regress with wees, and if he won't tell us when he needs to go, how do we ever get out of nappies? He does know when he's going but he runs away and hides - but he's really active so he's always running around so it's not as if he runs away only when pooing if that makes sense. Even when he was in nappies he would go away from us to poo - so I'm wondering if we put a nappy on him and put him on the potty, I don't think he would even do it there!?

I would never go back to nappies, or pull up, I think it just confuses them.
We spent what seemed like forever picking poo out of pants but in the end we had little rewards for whenever he went on the potty or toilet, say a little 99p toy car or a sticker book or something. It’s just a case of perseverance tbh.

Thank you. Yes I was just thinking about rewards. I do suspect he will throw a wobbler though if we tell him his reward is there, then not be able to give him it when he doesn't go. Is this mean?! How did you handle that?!