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Potty training

Is your child ready for potty training at nursery? Here's the place for all your toilet training questions.

3 year old LB CONSTANTLY soiling 😩

1 reply

SharpTealQuail · 22/01/2026 17:26

For backstory, I started potty training my LB at 2 and a half. He took to wees straight away and after a week off, he grasped it really well bar the accident here and there. Pooping has been an absolute nightmare since we started.

We potty trained fully clothed, but after a few weeks, after multiple poop accidents a day and throwing away 30+ pairs of pants, I left him bottomless for an afternoon - and lone behold, he pooped on the potty for the first time. I couldn’t believe it.

Every time he is bottomless at home, he will go to the potty/to the toilet, as soon as he has pants/trousers on, he will soil himself 3-5 times a day. Constipation is not an issue and he has really good speech, I just can’t get my head around it. I have tried a timer, tried ‘bribing’, tried taking the potty outside in the warmer weather, books, tv shows, trying a nappy just for poop - just nothing is working. It’s been nearly 8 months 😱

Everyone tells me to just be patient and it will click, but it’s so frustrating and difficult to plan days out etc without carrying bags of spare clothes around. I’m also due to have major surgery in the next month so I was really hoping we could have cracked this issue by now 😔 any solidity or positive stories with the same issue of it just clicking??

He is such an intelligent child and doesn’t seem to show any signs of embarrassment, although I appreciate it is a lot to expect of him. Me and my husband try to stay calm when it happens. None of my friends or family members seem to have had this issue for so long, whereas my childminder just says to hang in there but that is so easy to say 😩

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
JaffavsCookie · 22/01/2026 21:34

My youngest trained himself for wees before 2.5 years but by 3 had yet to have a poo anywhere except his pants and it was very frustrating.
By chance the HV called round about a bf workshop I was running, and whilst she was there I asked if she had any suggestions ( she didn’t really only the usual things like praise success- we didn’t have any, etc)
While we were talking DS4 was furious, hitting my leg and being really grumpy. In retrospect he didn’t like being discussed but anyway it was literally like magic, every single poo thereafter was on the potty!
Anyway not much help really but solidarity, they can be funny little things.

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