3 year old terrified of pooing

[Udford]

We’ve been potty training our 3 year old for 3 weeks. She’s mastered wees but is absolutely terrified of poops.

She started withholding and is now on Laxido. Even though her poo is extremely soft, she is absolutely terrified of doing a poo. She knows she needs to go, is asking to go to the toilet every 10 minutes but will try her absolute hardest to hold it in. She screams and shakes when going telling us she is scared and doesn’t like it. She’s also not herself anymore in that she has no interest in playing etc as she’s concentrating so much on not going to the toilet.

It feels like we’ve tried everything… we’ve made sure they’re soft enough to pass, offered books and toys, offered privacy and also loads of cuddles and affection, constantly reassuring her. I’ve also offered the potty and nappies back but she doesn’t want those either. She seems to be getting worse rather than better.

Does anyone have any tips on breaking down this psychological barrier? Should we force her back to nappies? We’re starting to lose our cool as it seems to be dominating all of our lives and she’s so distressed by it.

To make matters worse, I’m 37 weeks pregnant and incredibly conscious that such a significant life event coming up is going to knock her even more.

Do you know what she's frightened of? Some kids can't understand why something solid that is part of them is flushed away, some are frightened of the toilet itself, some are just awful and powerplaying for some unknown reason
You sound like you are doing all the right things. Perhaps it's worth just sticking her in a nappy without really talking about it first thing one morning, and see if she can poo and reset??

Try an app called poo goes to Poo land it helped my children when potty training my DD use to be a tad scared of going for a poo and we were given the advice of this app worked as well for us.

Also we did read a lot of potty training books about poo one in particular was about different animals having a poo and then finishing with human child having a poo in the toilet that also seemed to help ease any anxiety they had.
Unfortunately as stressful as it is it's one of those frustrating moments you have to ride out until they finally get over it which they do eventually.

This happened with my son when he was 5 and suddenly wouldn't do a poo. I remember it being such an extremely stressful time trying to help him through it and also managing the discomfort as he started to go days without doing a poo.

I can tell you that he did get over it eventually - I can't remember how long it took in total, but he's a healthy teen now and he hasn't had any problems since then.

I'm sorry I can't help with ideas as I can't remember what worked, if anything, in the end.

It's so hard watching them desperate for a poo, but they can't / won't go - that was really stressful. I hope it willl click with her soon.

We went through this, so stressful, you have my sympathy! Around that age we had some luck with a reward chart and huge over the top praise for doing a poo. Also distraction with balloons - if you can get her to try and blow up a balloon while sitting on the toilet, it engages the same muscles and might help the poo out.

I know you’ve tried everything. Have you let her watch something on an iPad (or similar) while sitting on the loo? As a distraction

This has happened with both mine.
We just stopped potty training poops.
Eventually they both cracked it on their own terms. Eldest was about 4, youngest 3.8 And it’s just clicked now with no issues.
It was so much quicker when not forcing it when they were younger.
Wee’s on potty or urinal etc and popped a nappy or pull-up on for poops. (Use pull up if needed for a while).
I totally appreciate we had the time to let it be as long as needed as we didn’t have the pressure of childcare necessitating it.

We went through this. It was quite stressful. The only thing that helped really was her realising that when she pooed it didn't hurt and her tummy felt better. Now she will go anywhere! Asking them to blow bubbles whilst on the toilet js meant to help. Good luck.

We went through this - it is so normal and a developmental thing. My DD cracked wees instantly but was exactly the same as your DD with the number 2s, terrified, personality changes, ended up on movicol. It was such a worry. And so traumatic to watch her in such a grip of fear and distress. I just want to tell you that she will get it eventually. We relented and gave our DD a nappy when she needed to poo and worked on getting her on the toilet. This went on for well over a year, maybe closer to 18 months? She eventually did her first poo on the toilet at close to 4 years old. They reach a point developmentally (if they are NT) where suddenly it's not scary anymore. I had the same problem with my now 12 year old son and he literally just decided one day that he was ready, he was also around 3 1/2 - 4. We were at a friends house and he just came marching into the room proudly saying he did a poo on the toilet. All those tears and stress in the months before and he just decides to do it on his own!

I promise she will get it, just keep on with the movicol to keep it nice and easy to pass and one day she will just be on the toilet going for a wee and will just decide it's time. Happened with both of mine, although my DD was a worse case and needed a slight amount more of encouragement x

Can you hang an open nappy under the loo seat? So dd sits on the loo and a nappy catches it? Tip the poo down the loo... She gets to flush!

Our son had this problem. He was also on laxido. We eventually made up a thing called 'poopoo' clowns .....one of those little mallows on sticks covered in sugar, and every time he 'got a poo out' he had a poopoo clown. It worked really well for him. It's funny really, he is 17 now and still feels compelled to tell me when he's got a really poo out 🤦🏻‍♀️😂😂

I was like this as a much older child and ended up soiling a lot and trying to hide it. It was nasty.

As an adult I'm on laxido and it's been a God send.

A pdf available online I think it's something like Mr Poo goes to Poo land. Really helped here.

Pooland also worked absolute magic for us! Free nhs app

We had this with 2 out of 4 of my children. Incidentally, they have grown to be very logical, matter of fact type teens. Eldest DS had to know exactly what was going on and why - like the reason for pooing. It was important for him to know that the pop isn’t part of him, but just waste food.

DS3 was a lot more complicated. At first he wore nappies (magic pants) whilst stood in the bathroom, then nappies sat on the loo. Then nappy with a hole cut out on the loo and each week the hole got bigger and bigger until he was sat on the loo with waistband of a pair of pull ups on. All this was happening whilst I distracted him with Thomas the Tank engine chat.

so either explain it straight up or try the ‘magic pants’ approach.

We tried something similar. I popped a straw in a glass of water and asked her to blow to make bubbles. She instantly realised it made the urge to go greater and screamed as she wanted to play the game but felt like she couldn’t.

No, she hasn’t said why she’s scared just that she is and doesn’t like it. I don’t think she’s scared of the toilet itself or even the bathroom as she’ll happily go for a wee no problem at all.

@RaceToTheMiddle Yes, we’ve offered YouTube to try and distract her and calm her down but so far, not been successful.

Our almost 3 year old started potty training back in March and we've only just had our first poo on the potty. We just let her wear a nappy for a poo if she wanted one, and then one day she stopped being scared, randomly decided she wanted to poo on the toilet and now loves pooing on the toilet/potty. I really think they will just get it in their own time, so if she's comfortable doing a poo in her nappy then I would encourage this. It's much better than her being scared and holding it in because that can be a vicious cycle. I don't buy all this stuff that says once you potty train you have to remove nappies for good. Potty training is developmental and so if they're not quite ready then what good is forcing the issue? Just my personal opinion though and I appreciate that won't be the same for everyone 😊 Good luck! X

I really hope this issue sorts itself out soon. I really do feel for you, especially being pregnant too. You probably feel like you have this time limit looming over.

i have a 3 year old, she is pretty good using the loo. But my other older girls at this age were awful. I felt I couldn’t go anywhere.

Remember this is a phase! 🤞🏼 For you

Another vote for 'Poo goes home to Pooland'. It was just a story to print out when my DS was potty training (he's 16 now). He was 3 and really scared of pooing without a nappy, but I read it to him twice one bedtime and he did a poo in the potty the following morning. Never had an issue again.

Yes Poo Goes to Pooland worked like magic for mine as well.

We went through this too and my son is the same age. I really feel for you, it is equal parts distressing and frustrating. We tried everything from books and videos to bribes. We kept our cool. Tried talking in-depth about it to completely backing off. Even with our last resort - chocolate bribe - it still didn't work. As you said it dominated our lives and turned our happy playful toddler into a little boy who was miserable and tearful most of the time.
The only thing that worked for us was to increase the stool softener (movicol in our case) until it was literally impossible for him to hold his poo. Even on 1-2 a day he could easily hold his poo for a week. We had to increase to 4 in a morning (or maybe 5?) then wean down to 2 a day over the course of a week. Then we stuck with that for another week before going down to 1 etc. took us a month in the end to wean off completely as we were every other day then 1/2 a week towards the end.
Basically with the stool softener making it impossible to hold the poo in he had to go, when he went it wasn't painful (because of the softener), and although this had to be reinforced multiple times eventually he learnt that it wasn't scary. We also let him poo in a pull up if he wanted to.
We did do this under GP guidance as I was nervous about such a high dose.
Hope you are past this stage soon!

Hi
I came across your post and could write the exact same right now.
My almost 3 year old is the same and is absolutely terrified of pooing anywhere at the minute, it’s so distressing for him and us as a family.
we have literally tried everything, I’m just wondering what worked for your little one in the end?
any advise would be greatly appreciated 😊