Weeing in toilet but all poos in pants still!

[Haaaaaaan]

My son is 2.

3 months ago we potty trained and it went well. we used the intensive, stay at home with no trousers on and never go back to nappies approach. It wasn't a fast process (i.e. weeks to get mostly in the toilet for wees consistently and accidents pretty regular for a couple of months), but he was just under two at the time so this is normal I think.

Our problem is, he has got into a habit of doing all his poos in his pants. We can make progress a bit when we are with him all the time, but he seems to store them up and do them at nursery so there's a limit to what we can do at home!

I really don't know what to do about it, it feels like we've allowed it to become a habit but going back to nappies seems silly when his wees are ok, and short of taking a month off work to poo train I'm not sure how much we can intervene!! Nursery are good about it but they just aren't able to watch him like a hawk all day and act really fast when he starts pooing.

We've been offering stickers for toilet poos which worked sometimes, but only if he is on the toilet and needs a poo and we hold the stickers in front of him - but we don't know when he needs a poo as he isn't super regular (average one a day but might be none, might be 3, and can happen any time of day).

We were on holiday last week and made slight progress. I think it was 2 accidents, 1 half in pants and held then finished in toilet, 1 tiny forced plop in the toilet when I offered cake as a reward, 1 initiated by him when I took him to the toilet, and 1 in toilet when he verbally told us he needed a poo and held it til we found a toilet for him. Back at nursery today and it was poo in pants, no sign of needing it and no concern about it.

Any advice, reassurance, tips...?

I had this for a while with my third child. Which took me by surprise as my first two didn’t have this problem.
As with all things annoying in parenting, this was a phase and it did pass quite quickly in the grand scheme of things.
In the end we went back to pull ups. It didn’t set him backwards with the wees, he stayed totally dry and it didn’t confuse him at all. I really wasn’t keen on this as like you, I had always done the intensive potty training and no going back to nappies. My LO had started to withhold though and was getting constipated, which I didn’t want to get caught in that cycle.
so we went back to pull ups and let him poo in those. No stress for me as clean and therefore no stress for him. Every time he went in the pull up, I took him to the toilet and emptied the pull up saying ‘next time in the toilet/potty’ said it really gently. As I say he stayed dry so it didn’t feel like we were going too far backwards. Anyway after a month or so of not acknowledging the poos in nappy, reinforcing they go in the toilet and celebrating like we had won the World Cup if even a tiny poo went in the potty. Eventually he just got there. It took maybe a month or 6 weeks. Felt like a lifetime though. Good luck!

My DS was like that too, and It lasted quite a long time. Apparently he hated the plop sound, so I showed him how to put a little ball of loo roll to catch it so it didn’t plop.

He is 24 now!! Lol

Interesting! His language is getting really excellent so perhaps I will try to ask him whether there's something he dislikes. If I leave him naked and near a potty and he needs it, he will go himself in there...it's just not feasible to do this all day every day! But obviously pottys don't make the plop sound so perhaps that helps too...

God they're all so different aren't they - honestly, although I really appreciate the replies I'm not sure what I expected because there's so many old chats on this topic so I already know there's so many answers and none of them are magic bullet!!

Did your LO master the poos in the toilet/potty? We’re having a very similar issue right now, so wondering what worked for you?
my LO is good at peeing in the potty, but keeps hiding under the table/behind a door and pooing in his pants. When I see he needs to go (because he goes to hide) I try and get him to go on the potty but he refuses and poos in his pants. If we go naked from the bottom down, he goes and sits on the potty and will poo there.. but can’t have him naked the whole time!! Not sure what to do.

https://eric.org.uk/

Have a look at this website (Eric) for support either toilet training, continence issues etc.

@Alpsk1 get the book ‘Liam goes poo in the toilet’ from Amazon - got my daughter going within a day!

@Alpsk1 yes he cracked it. Basically he got an ice cream for every poo and just switched almost immediately to pooing enthusiastically at home (and opening the freezer himself to get a mini milk out...), and holding it at nursery it seemed. He now poos at nursery too in the toilet - although we have had the occasional nursery accident.

We reached the point of being more concerned about how much ice cream he was eating and trying to come up with home made yoghurt "ice cream", or buying cones so we could make them tiny. But over time he has just started to forget to claim his treats as it becomes normal.

It will sort itself out sooner or later!

Bribery worked here too literally this weekend, after around 4 months of my son either pooing in his pants or in his nappy. He would occasionally do it on the potty (once a week/fortnight). Worked out he really valued a certain type of toy car, gave him one after a poo in the potty a few days ago, reminded him the next day that he’d get another one if he did it again… and that was that! Now working out how to stop giving him cars, but I’ll take that over the nappy bags of shame from nursery 🤣