Poo help!

[LuckyGreenLion]

Hiya, hoping someone can give me some advice!

My (almost 3 y.o) DS is wee toilet trained..he is dry in the day and night and happily takes himself to the potty/toilet.

Where we are struggling is his poos. He refuses to do a poo on the potty or toilet and will only go in his nappy. I have tried everything I can think of to support him. We have read books, sung songs, I have tried a treat for after and he just doesn’t do it. I have also tried taking the nappies away but he got himself so constipated that this doesn’t seem like a fair option for him.

Has anyone got any tricks or tips? Thank you!

I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear this but some children do take a lot longer with poos. My eldest got it straight away and my youngest didn’t crack pops until he was 4.5! It just took him so long, he kept saying he couldn’t feel it coming until he pooped in his pants. Then one day it just stopped and I swear it was more like a physical development thing because we tried sooo many other strategies to teach him. All the best!

Mine needed privacy for poos pretty early on, so we made a little area that she felt hidden from view and that seemed to really help

If your DC will have them, I got the Ella's kitchen prune pouches, my DC had those for breakfaast and lots of fluids then it soften his poop so that it was less "work" for him to push out (sorry!!) so he could poop on the potty- it's more of a seated position and I think it took time for his muscles to figure out how to go.

I put a nappy in the potty so it felt a bit more normal.

It was a loooong process for dc2 number 2s (reliably dry for ages before we got the poop situation sorted) I don't remember having to go through this rigamarole with dc1 but we are finally there.

Sorry for the tmi in the post, I'm really tired and can't think of a more polite way to talk about 💩 right now

Have him sit on the potty or toilet with a nappy on.

Then once that is routine cut a hole in the nappy.

Then slowly make it bigger, at that point you can just keep using the waistband of the pullup over and over untill he's ready to get rid of it.

Try the Poo Goes to Pooland story. You can get it for free online. It really worked for DS

We had lots of poo issues either my son, including same, so I feel your frustration. It was horrendous.

in the end, time, prune etc pouches and mild laxatives, bribery with treats, and an element of supportive encouraging firmness got him there.
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Hi @LuckyGreenLion, the ERIC charity have lots of useful advice on this: https://eric.org.uk/children-who-will-only-poo-in-a-nappy-and-other-toilet-avoiders/
We are going through the same with our daughter who is three and two months. We recently enlisted the help of a private toilet training consultant who assured us that the no pressure route is best at this age. Despite it being very, very hard to remain patient and not panic.

The old way of dealing with this is to let them have a nappy on when they ask for it but insist that they sit on the potty, with the nappy on, to do the poo.

Then over a few weeks you put the nappy on more loosely until in the end you just lay the nappy on the potty for them to poo on. The final step is not having a happy at all. It takes a few weeks but gets them using the potty on their terms.

Do agree that a bit of a private area might be helpful too

Have a read of the ERIC website and there’s a FB group called Movicol Mummies.

Updating here with a couple of things we’ve had some success with.
A family toilet seat. So we now have one with a built in, fold down child’s seat that means we don’t need to use a separate child’s seat like we had been doing so far. Our daughter felt that was now too babyish for her and wanted to sit on the ‘adult’ toilet seat, but couldn’t relax enough to go to the toilet because she had to hold on with her hands! The one we found is great, because it is almost exactly like the toilet seats they had at Legoland when we visited a few months ago, so we’ve called it the Legoland toilet seat and she is happy to use this.
A blowing toy. We’d tried blowing bubbles but the novelty wore off quickly. Apparently blowing is helpful to anyone trying to go to the toilet as it helps relax the muscles (slightly annoying noise but we were way past caring about that); only she gets to use it and only when sitting on the toilet. At all other times it’s shut in the bathroom cupboard.
Worth mentioning that we are not yet out of the woods but progress has been huge. We started potty training in November 2025 and it’s taken until now to get to this point. Happy to discuss privately with anyone who wishes to!