3.5 yr old DD happy to poo in pants after nearly a year of potty training - help!

[Flora1985]

Hi everyone.

DH and I are at our wits' end with potty training and hoping some of you on here might have some advice, or even just solidarity. We have two DD - one 3.5yr old and one 16-month-old. We've been potty training with our eldest DD since March last year, so nearly a year now, and tbh we feel we're going nowhere or even backwards. We started because she had all the signs of readiness, and we took time off work etc. to follow all the advice about starting with a bare bum, spending a long weekend at home, etc. Initially things were kind of okay - after a week or so she was mostly doing wees on the potty- but poos have been a major issue since day one, and now nearly a year down the line we're still unable to do poos on the potty or the toilet (they all go in her pants).

It's been up and down - sometimes she goes through a phase of doing some of her poos on the potty/toilet - but mostly down, and we're not sure what to do next. For the last month or two she's been doing 6+ tiny poos per day in her pants (they're always tiny because she witholds whenever she needs a poo so the large poo comes out in lots of tiny bits rather than just in one go). We were worried she might be constipated so we're using a small dose of movicol every day, we really focus on her eating plenty of fibre, and we try our best to get her to drink plenty of water - but none of that is changing anything. Plus I'm just not sure it fits...the consistency of the poos are generally type 4 on the Bristol stool chart (smooth and fairly soft) and she doesn't seem in any pain when she passes them. She also doesn't seem to be scared or worried about the potty or the toilet, she just seems supremely unbothered about being soiled (she's even said to us before "I don't mind doing poos in my pants."). I mean, where are we supposed to go with that.....?!

We feel like we've tried everything - reward charts, pom pom jars, reading on the potty, watching TV on the potty, giving her more autonomy ("do you have the feeling for a wee/poo? Up to you." etc), having a stronger routine (sitting on the potty at regular intervals), making sure she knows her toys etc. will wait for her while she goes (to avoid FOMO), etc.

Peer pressure seems to work temporarily (at playdates, when she sees other children going to the loo she'll say "oh I need a wee too" and go with them just for the fun of it) but that never lasts, and obviously as soon as she's home she goes back to not caring and just wees/poos her pants and carries on playing like nothing has happened.

Aside from this she seems to be hitting the expected milestones on everything else - her vocab is great, she's very chatty, very active and outdoorsy, not a fussy eater, has lots of friends, etc - and her nursery say she's hitting all the EYFS milestones expected at this age. Most importantly, she's a very happy girl and seems to love life and family time (we had worried this might be something to do with her little sister, but she's 16-months now and eldest DD absolutely adores her and hasn't really shown many signs of jealousy, which we were very relieved about). We try to give her loads of connection time and are always very aware of not giving her baby sister more attention, etc.

We've had to go back to nappies several times over the last year (we've had breaks of a month or so) and then try again with it, but to no avail - we're still in the situation of multiple poos in pants every day and having to chuck away soiled pants every week. It's starting to really grind DH and I down - I think mostly because we just don't understand why she's so unbothered about being soiled, and why she doesn't seem to make progress with this. Is she just not ready? Even though she shows all the signs of readiness that we all read about? Should we go back to nappies again? We are open to that, but worried about childcare and also about her starting school in September (if this is still happening in September and the school refuse to change nappies one of us will literally have to give up our job to drive into school multiple times a day to change nappies...)

Any advice, or solidarity, would be much appreciated - thanks so much Mumsnetters

No advice, but hoping someone will come along and provide some as we are in a similar position.

My daughter will not poo in the toilet/potty, she tells us when she needs a poo and if we put her on the potty she’s hysterical and asks for her disposal pants.

She’s fine with weeing but we can’t seem to master the poos xx

@Rosesanddaffs thanks for the reply, sorry to hear you're in a similar position - it's so hard isn't it.

At least your DD tells you when she needs a poo - ours just pretends it isn't happening and carries on playing, even when we can see it's happening and tell her she needs to go! Soooo frustrating and confusing.

How long have you been trying for? Is your DD a similar age?

Hopefully someone will come along with some advice for us soon xx

https://www.cntw.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Poo-Goes-To-Pooland.pdf

this story helped us 7 years ago. We read it at various times and talked about poos going to poo land and it did help. I think it helped as it wasn’t just us saying poo in toilet… but it was in the story. Good luck.

Don't worry my son was the same. And was fully potty trained with no accidents at around 4yrs 5 months was pretty late but he did it when he was fully ready. Trust me we did everything book, prop, song, praise in the book and it didn't matter. I really do think it's the own child getting their head around their body and knowing timings.

@Flora1985 we’ve been trying on and off for a year, she’s just turned 4.

We have been trying to master it before she starts school, as the last thing we want is to keep her in disposable pants xx

@citysnow thank you for this xx

I was also going to recommend this. My child had really issues and I really dreaded school starting but once it did they decided they were grown up and went in the loo!!

my Daughter was 4.5, refused to poo in the toilet/ potty - asked for a nappy every time. The only thing that conquered it was bribery! I said if you do your next poo in the toilet right now, we will go straight to smyths and get a toy. It actually worked and she has been fine since! I was at the end of my tether!

Also came to recommend this!!

DD was the same with poos, and this was a huge help. Even if she didn't care about pooing in the potty / toilet, she wanted to help the poo get home.

When she soils her underwear, do you sort it out entirely yourselves, or is your DD inconvenienced?

We've had a similar problem with our second child. It helped when we installed that he took off his trousers and the yucky pants himself (albeit with a hand so the poo didn't fall on the floor!), then put the poo in the loo and the pants in the nappy bucket (just clean them like reusable nappies - see Clean Cloth Nappies website or FB group). Then he must wipe his own bottom, then fetch his own clean pants, etc.

If was doing something fun, we'd pause things while he went to the potty (eg not read more pages of the book, or save his part of the baking of craft). But if he'd pooed his pants we'd allow those things to continue without him so he'd miss out.

We wouldn't tell him off, but we did insist he helped to fix the problem, and that significantly reduced the number of accidents.

We also learned that he defecated much more easily on the potty than the loo. A squatty potty stool in front of the loo could help, but we just let him use the potty at home if he wishes. That hugely reduced the accidents a few minutes after going to the loo!

Try Eric helpline https://eric.org.uk they helped us a lot in similar situation. A lot of the change for us was about changing the way we responded to accidents.

Thanks so much everyone! Really appreciate your thoughts/advice/solidarity.

We've tried Poo Goes Home to Pooland and she loves it but it doesn't seem to change her potty behaviour at all unfortunately.

ERIC have been great at suggestions, but so far nothing is changing...

@HowDoYouSolveAProblemLikeMyRear that's a really interesting suggestion, as we do clean her up so she's not really inconvenienced (though she whines constantly!); however, I reckon if we tried to get her to help put her pants in the wash and wipe herself we would end up with poo everywhere in no time and a rush to get back to whatever toy she was playing with no care for hygiene whatsoever...eek! Definitely something we'll think about trying, but we'd have to up our ick threshold significantly as we're 99% sure if she was given the autonomy to sort herself out she would just chuck the pooey pants across the utility floor, not wash her hands and go back to playing with her baby sister! Obvs we would need to steer her, but I can just foresee the tantrums now - argh. She's a proper threenager atm and has zero patience.

We've been in touch with a private potty training consultant in the hope that she might be able to help us out...fingers crossed.

Getting very stressed out about the change in school policy around all this though - it's not like we haven't been trying for over a year before she starts school!

Hi, I realise this is an old post but I’m in the same situation with me DD and would love to hear how am you are getting on and whether your DD has improved?

I did poo land. It worked.