Desperate PT question

littlestjerry

Ok, so, DS turned 3 in September. We began potty training in mid-August because his school made us basically. He got peeing on the potty very quickly, and I can't remember the last time he had a pee accident. He pooped on the potty once maybe 2 months ago. He was rewarded with high fives, chocolate, and a new toy. He has not done it again. 

He "hides" either in his playroom or under the couch in the basement or in our closet to poop. He does not care that there is shit in his underwear. He tells us that babies poop in their pants, but still does it, all while asserting that he is a big boy. We have offered everything under the sun as a reward for pooping on the potty. The toy he got when he pooped the one time sits on a shelf in his playroom, and he knows he can play with it again if he poops on the potty again. 

I don't know what to do. His pedi said to encourage him to "hide" in the bathroom at the very least, but if we try to get him to poop anywhere but where he wants to hide, he clams up and won't poop for like a day. Then his belly hurts because he's plugged himself up.

The only progress I see him making is that he will at least entertain the idea of pooping on the potty by sitting on it sometimes while talking about pooping on the potty, but he never actually poops.

Is this normal? What do I do? Will this kid ever poop on the potty? It's been almost 4 months of PT, and I'm sick of cleaning poop out of his underwear. 

And one more time for good measure: poop. 

RondackHiker

Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Four months of poop? Holy hell.

Do you know when he's hiding to poop? Could be be hiding to have privacy and when he's in the bathroom he's got your attention?

Would he poop on a toilet in the playroom?

How often does he poop? Could he be constipated/in pain?

littlestjerry

Yes, he will sometimes even say, "I have to hide." It's definitely about privacy in part because if we try to interact with him during it, he'll say "No, go away!" We have tried leaving him alone on the toilet, though, with no success. 

I guess we could try to put the little potty in his hiding spots? 

He poops usually once a day unless we scare him into holding it by pushing the potty too much.

He seriously gives zero fucks that he has poop in his underwear. Sometimes, I think he's amused by it. 

carrotcake06

My oldest did the exact same thing. He was pee trained for probably close to 6 months but pooped in his underwear 1-3x a day. Same age, too, right around 3yo. It was sooooo frustrating and I completely understand.

I didn't do rewards. I just reminded him that poop goes in the potty. Each time he pooped his pants I would take him to the bathroom, dump his poop in the toilet, have him flush, and repeat to me over and over again that poop goes in the potty. I would put him in the tub and wash him off.

I read a few things about it and even though I knew getting angry wasn't the way to go, it was hard. Bc poop in underwear. Every day.

I wish I had a magic strategy that worked but for us it was just time. One day, out of the blue, he just stopped. He started telling us when he had to poop and hasn't had an accident since. With him it was always about control. And a bit of readiness. But mostly control. So we waited him out. Sorry I don't have anything more earth shatteringly helpful for you.

jamjoyful

DD1 did this exact thing! It was about 6 months before we got her to poop on the potty. There was no reward that would encourage her.

The only thing that really helped was that another little girl at daycare would poop on the potty. It was a small, in-home daycare so the provider would take those two to potty breaks together to encourage each other. Once she started doing that with them it was only about 2 weeks before she would consistently poop in the potty.

Whenever we saw her go to her "pooping spots" we would grab her and run to the potty. She thought us running frantically was funny and the laughing helped her relax to go on the toilet. I really think seeing someone else her age go made the difference though.

acesup

I really feel your pain on this one. DD pee trained very quickly but adamantly refused to poop in the potty. She would just poop her pants and not care. She would talk about how poop is supposed to go in the potty and she is going to do it and all the things she will get when she poops on the potty. We read everybody poops. Then she just started holding it bc she didn't want to poop her pants and didn't want to poop on the potty. She held it for 9 days. I had her at the doctor twice, she was bloated and uncomfortable.

Finally, I have her a pull-up bc I didn't want her to make herself sick. She took the biggest poop ever. There were times where she would hold her pee as well because she was afraid if she sat on the potty to pee her poop would come out. She held her pee over like 15 hours. Finally gave her a pull-up to poop and she ended up peeing in it and it took two pull-ups before she got all the poop and pee out.

She would literally scream and cry and shake if I tried to make her poop on the potty. She was terrified. She didn't even know why, she just was.

Finally, we told her she could have pull ups to poop until she felt ready but that she was not allowed to pee in them. We ended up doing that for almost a year. It worked for us- bc it kept her from holding everything in and causing more problems. She would wear underwear and always pee on he potty but when she needed to do poop she would ask for a pull-up, go poop, and then get changed back to underwear. Every few days I would ask her if she wanted to try on the potty. Sometimes she would sit. A few times she actually went but it didn't stick. Finally one day she said "I need to go poop on the potty". And she did. We had to talk her through it for the first couple days, sit with her and tell her "it's ok, just push a little, breathe" lol but that was it. Never asked for a pull-up again. After a week when I was sure that was it I was so damn happy I bought her a power wheels barbie convertible. LMAO.

TL;DR- I have no advice. PT sucks. Poop is the worst. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do! Hang in there!!

Oh and to add- she was a few months shy of 3 when pee trained and a little over 3.5 when poop trained.

JNerd

I'm really encouraged by this. DS will pee on the potty just fine, but refuses to poop. I've pretty much given up on PT because of it, but might try again after the holidays.

thebanich

DD did this (she always hid under the table). It took about 6-7 months of rewards,consistency and I think maturation on her part to stop. It was so frustrating.

I hope that he stops soon and realizes that poop on the potty is 10000000x better than in pants.

Mags748

The poop thing is normal and what I have learned from both of my kids is there is no reward in the world that can persuade them to poop on the toilet before they are ready. DD just turned 3 and we are going through the same thing. She is still having some pee accidents though so she is on pull ups when we can't be focused on toilet in her hourly. She did poop in the toilet 2 times this weekend but has pooped in the pull up since.

DS took longer to poop in the toilet as well. He had constipation issues from holding poop long before potty training, so I didn't push it with him during training and he eventually got comfortable with it. He would ask for a diaper/pull-up to poop and we let him until then.

Are you opposed to telling him he can ask for a pull-up to poop?

BookitBoo

We actually just started working on potty training hardcore. I got this suggestion from a mom friend and it helped us out.

He's been peeing on the potty for a while, but we haven't pushed the potty training because if we tried to make him poop on the potty he would shake and cry. He pooped willingly on the potty twice -- both times because he was naked. We tried m&m's for potty treats and that did not work.

We took him to the store and let him pick out big boy undies, and a toy (preferably something with lots of figurines in one big box. We got a set of Octonaut characters, but our friend used individually wrapped matchbox cars). We keep the toy box in the bathroom and explain that when he poops in the potty he can have one of the toys. He's allowed to hold the box and look at the toys while he sits to potty; we count them and he names the characters and we ask him which toy he wants next. We talk about poop a lot -- he kinda seemed confused between pee and poop and gas so we had to explain that poop is brown and comes out of your bottom.

We only just started this on thanksgiving day (best thanksgiving ever, with a naked baby running around the kitchen and talking about poop all day.) He's had two (pee) accidents since but it's mostly because we put him in a pull up for church yesterday and because he was excited to go to daycare today and didn't want to take the time to pee.

He's turning 3 this month, so I know how frustrating the hiding and reusing to poop thing is. Good luck!

LucilleAustero

My DD turned 3 August 30, so, same age. She was completely pee trained in February and she is just pooping on the potty consistently for the last two months. I think this is fairly common.

littlestjerry

Ok, thanks everyone. I guess I'll just keep on keeping on and hope that he isn't pooping his pants when he heads off to college. 

Eta: He isn't really interested in pooping in the pull-up. Like, he will, but only if we haven't taken it off yet from overnight. 

Also, on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most stubborn, he's probably about a 25. 

Soxgirl07

Apparently, my brother had this issue. I think it took almost a year. My mom made a deal with him that he would pee on the potty and he got a daily diaper for poop. She doesn't really remember how the deal came about, just that they were both frustrated and that ended up being the solution. He told her when he needed it and when it needed to be changed.

Finally, months later, he told her he wasn't scared anymore and just started magically pooping on the potty. Obviously she didn't show this to him, but she was like, "wtf?! I didn't even realize he was scared."

For my kid, we had this issue for a couple weeks. I started letting him watch videos on my phone while trying to poop. I don't usually let him anywhere near the phone. That worked while all the previous rewards did not.

Good luck. PT was/is seriously the hardest thing I did as a parent.

ridesbuttons

On the bright side, there is wine. And this won't last forever.