Help!! 2.5 year old scared!

[Dazedandfrazzled]

My 2.5 son 'got' toilet training almost instantly, he only wet a couple of times on the first day and has been dry after that. The problem is despite having rewards he seems to be afraid to poo, he will say he wants to go then go to the toilet and change his mind, this goes on for hours until he can't wait any longer then will cry as he sits on the toilet or will go in his underwear. I'm on Day 6, he's said he's sad and scared. I feel really terrible for him and am not sure what to do. We've also watched things on YouTube which he reacts positively to, but it hasn't improved the issue. Can anyone help? Thanks.

Hopeful bump

Does he have a toddler seat on the toilet and a stool to get off and on?

I think it can be quite scary sitting on the toilet and feeling like you could fall in. You could also offer to hold him round the waist while he’s sitting on there.

We have a pile of books in the bathroom so we read a couple of stories while he waits to see if he’s going to do a poo.

Day 6 is really early though, he’s doing really well so don’t be disheartened.

Thank you so much for replying! Yes he has a special seat that is fitted on top and he also has a Potty so he can use either. He won't stay long enough on it for me to read a story, I was desperate yesterday so was going to show him something on youtube but also no interest. That does make me feel slightly better as the guidance I was reading said they should be doing it all in 3 days. I also think it's more him being scared as I feel terrible for him.

3 year old is potty trained for wees and daytime. But for poos she requests a nappy. We do it for her. I think the key to potty training is no stress. No pressure. We say, do you want to do it in the loo for a chocolate button? she says no thank you, we roll with it. It will happen when she wants.

That's exactly what I'm worried about creating stress around it and making him anxious, he still seems so little. With the nappy, how does that work, does she tell you she needs to go and you put a nappy on?

I also resorted to letting my DS watch YouTube when we were potty training to make him stay on the toilet for long enough to relax and poo. Once he’d got the hang of it I stopped. There will always be a tricky patch sooner or later though.

I think just keep it as chilled and positive as you can.. well done for sitting on the toilet, let’s wait for a few minutes and see if you need to poo. Okay, let’s try again later.

There’s no easy answer, it will happen though.

We managed to get our DS fully toilet trained by the age of 2.

He was also very wary of having a poo in the early days. We just tried to make the whole process fun and took all the pressure off him which seemed to work.

When he went and sat on toilet we just started talking to him about something totally unrelated to take his mind off what he was doing. It worked in the end.

Once curious thing we discovered was that he wasn’t keen on using a potty. I reckon he used it no more than half a dozen times ever. He always wanted to use his special seat on a normal toilet so we went along with that.

Since then we have never had a single accident in the day but still use night pants at night just in case but even they are normally kept dry and clean.

Let him ask for a nappy to poo in. Try again in a few months. We did it 6 months later (continuing with using the potty for wees), by holding him all the time (he was scared of falling in) and covering as much as possible with toilet paper to replicate the covered feeling of a nappy.

We had the same and resolved by putting an open nappy over the potty. It took a few goes but eventually my daughter gave in. We then phoned Nanna to tell her and got lots of praise!