Stubbornly refuses to poo in toilet/potty

[earlyriser]

My ds (2.5) has been out of nappies for 3 months now and is very reliably dry, hates to have the tiniest dribble in his pants/trousers and will change them if he does.

He pretty much potty trained himself (i was ready to wait til next summer ). However, when he needs a poo he will take off his trousers and pants, go and get a pull up, put it on, shoo everyone else out of the room, then do a poo!

He refused point blank to try to use the toilet or potty. So far i've just let him, with gentle encouragement to use the toilet. He is however, very stubborn. I've not resorted to bribery yet.

Anyone any ideas? he is still in nappies at night time. Thanks

Well, I don't think my approach would get an endorsement from any children's experts, but this is what I did with my 2.3 YO.

After repeated failures to get her to poo on the potty or toilet, I put the nappies away, let her eat as many dried apricots and prunes as she wanted (she loves both) and encouraged her to drink loads of water.

It wasn't long before she really had to go and with much encouragement (and bribery) she finally gave in and went on the toilet. We then sent her 'little brown fish' for a swim out to sea and kind of didn't look back.

I din;t know what she was scared of, but once she'd done it once, she got over it.

I did once do the 'oh we have run out of nappies you'll have to use the potty' trick and to be fair, he tried on and off all day. Then up at my mums he said 'need a nappy' and went off to the cupboard and got his own. He knew fine granny never 'runs out' of things!

I think part of the problem is he poos standing up, and so finds it difficult to do sitting down, although it is mean to be easier.

His bowels are quite loose though.

Forgot to say, he once had a nappy on he disn't like, so took it off then went runnin round the house holding his bottom so the poo wpuldn't come out shouting for another nappy. Unfortunately DH was in charge and so got him another.

Forgot to say, he once had a nappy on he didn't like, so took it off then went running round the house holding his bottom so the poo wouldn't come out, shouting for another nappy. Unfortunately DH was in charge and so got him another.

second time, less errors!

ds1 would not use the toilet to poo for 8 months. Sadly not so tidy as your ds - all poos (3+/day) in pants.
When he had his moment of "actually I can do this" he was clearly delighted.
So were we.
To our sorrow ds2 is doing exactly the same thing.

my little boy of 2 1/2 done really well potty training, not wearing nappies at night time and going for wee's all day long all by himself on potty and toilet, the problem i have is that becase he has watched his brother and dad standing up to wee, so that is what he does, and does'nt sit down to poo. He just stands there as tough he's going to wee and poo's, which always ends up in his pants round his ankles, this frightens him, but if i get there in time and put him on potty or toilet he cries at that too,

My dd (3.8) does this too. She waits til her nighttime nappy is on, we do stories say good night then 5 mind later it's 'i've done a poo'. If she does need one when weraing pants she just does it in them. We did manage to get her to do a couple in the potty a few months ago & 2 on the toilet but now back to square 1.
I am currently making a sticker chart to see if it will help. Bribery was used to get wees on potty/ toilet (still some accidents when she is 'too busy' though. 1 wee= 1 programme on cbeebies.
Anyone had any luck with a sticker chart?

I'm in the same boat. DS is 3.10 and has been dry during the day for ages (doing stand-up wees).
He will have a go at sitting on the toilet, but says that it 'just won't come out'. He then puts on a pull-up goes to the bathroom and does his poo.
I am at a loss as to how I can persuade him and have tried everything, including the HV ideas. I have even thought of going tough and getting rid of the nappies altogether (i.e. at night too), but I don't think that's a good idea as he still has a small wee in the pull-up in the night.
I think he wants to be able to do it, but, for some reason, just can't.

Me too - my DD has used the potty and the toilet successfully a few times but is now boycotting both, but is also getting very constipated and upset by the whole process! I'll be watching this thread for any useful ideas.

I'm in the middle of this with my 2.7 month old and i'm really struggling. He's been dry for ages but he refuses to poo anywhere he asks for a nappy then wants it off to sit on the toilet and then wants the nappy back on again this can go on for a whole day until he eventually poos usually in the nappy or on the floor. He's so aggitated and its so stressful. He's holding on so long that he has started having smearing in his pants. His personality totally changes when he needs a poo and i find i'm finding it really hard to stay patient when i take him to the toilet 20 times and he doesn't actually go.

We can't go out of the house on days when he is like this and he won't eat a thing. To top it all off i am returning to work full time in a month and the preschool he is due to attend have agreed to take him a month early but he really need sto be out of nappies and besides i don't feel i could let anyone else go through this. My MIL will have him one day a week and has already expressed her concern. I feel like crying, i hate watching him get so stressed. Dd is 4 and has been potty trained since she was 2, she had some problems with pooing to but just seemed to resolve them quite quickly on her own. Do you think its worth a visit to the GP, has laxatives or fibrogel helped anyone?

My DS had the same issue as the OP. He toilet trained at 3 (so a bit older) but only as far as wees went. For poos he insisted on a nappy. I battled, coaxed, bribed, everything to try to get him to do it on potty or toilet but he insisted on a nappy. I would put it on him, he'd poo almost immediately, we'd flush it, wash hands and carry on. In the end I decided just to leave him be - he is very un-bribable and I decided that actually it suited us both well. He never had accidents, it was all over with as quickly as if he was actually going to the toilet, never did it when he was at nursery or we were out and about so he was doing everything bar actually doing it in toilet - very much like OP says. I figured he'd do it in his own time and he is also prone to constipation so I was worried if I withheld nappies he'd get horribly bunged up (think I may actually have tried withholding with that result).

Anyway, upshot was that he finally went in toilet at 3.10. I kept up gentle persuasion in the interim but didn't nag. One day my MIL was here, DS was asking for a nappy and she said oh I don't know where they are, why not just do it on the loo. And he did, and has done ever since!

my d.s (3.3)has been dry since april last year and we have had similar problem but great success in the last few days. he would only poo standing with nappy on and usually in the corner of the room, after telling me to go away or not talk to him. tried no nappies but he wouldnt go for days or poo in pants so gave up. a few months ago i picked up an old thread on this topic and did the following. i changed him only in the bathroom standing up for a few days or a week, then we agreed that when he wanted a poo to tell me and he could have his nappy on and go into the bathroom to poo, (i got big nappies and put them on as loose as pos to get used to a different sensation). we bought a soft toilet seat and spent a couple of weeks sitting on it and blowing bubbles, with his nappy on, messy but he loved it. i got him to do practice pushes 5 each time with no expectations. in the last few weeks he did a couple of poos sitting on the loo with his nappy on and got lots of praise 'we r so proud of you' etc
finally on sat i had the idea of putting the nappy under the seat and we had the magic poo appear, a few accidents but today he went to the toilet said he wanted to do a poo and did, (still in the nappy taped to the seat). we r not quite there yet but never could imagine him doinng a poo sitting down never mind with no nappy on! now got to start on d.s (2.2)! can't wait. hope this helps or encourages some of you.