Potty Training 4 year old boy, will not poop in potty. HELP!

gypsymystic · October 2013

Any suggestions? He will go pee in the potty by himself with ease but refuses to do number 2! He hides instead. Sticker chart seemed novel for a week or so, but still no poops in the potty. It's really frustrating to have to keep buying pull-ups just for BMs but DH refuses to let him wear undies and just 'soil' himself on his watch- he watches him for 6 hours a day while I am working... and can't stand the clean up. >:(

IgotTripleTheLove · October 2013

My dd is 4yrs old and she has been potty trained since she was 2! Maybe your S/O should help a lil more,i mean my dd poops once a day is not like he would be pooping all day

kami1977 · October 2013

My DS was really resistant too pooping on the toilet. He liked to run and hide also. What helped was when we saw him hiding we took him to his potty chair and gave him a blanket to hide under and the IPad. The IPad kept him entertained and on the toilet long enough to poop and the blanket gives him security, I guess. He's now at the point where he generally goes poop on his own but he still hides under the shower curtain to do so. I generally don't give him the IPad anymore because he will sit on the toilet forever. If he has to poop when we're out he can do it without hiding but he prefers to have something over his head. I think it's strange and it weirds me out but it works for him.

groovygrl · October 2013

My son is over 4 (by 2 months) and is still working on pooping on the potty though we have had him in underwear the majority of the time for almost a year (we've cleaned a lot of underwear...lol.) He does usually wear a pull up to nap just in case for pee & definitely is nowhere near overnight pee training anytime soon. (fwiw in response to some other comments, he has a twin sister who PTed at 2 1/2 on her own, within 2 weeks was 100% and trained overnight within the month with zero intervention from me, so there truly are differences between genders & between kids, even w/ the same exact parents around). MH & I were/are not on totally different pages like OP & her H, and that is definitely not helping, but OP, there are kids who resist much more than others- I guess I would ask if this kind of resistance goes along w/ his personality, b/c it definitely does for my DS, he wants to do things when he wants to and is not a big fan of being told what to do. I will tell you that neither our daycare teachers nor our pedi have expressed any major worry, since things have gotten better over time, just slowly. Daycare teachers insist that there are other boys in the class who still struggle and I know I have seen other boys in pull ups in there & another mom who told me they finally got their son into underwear this summer when he was just about turning 4.

What finally worked for us (sticker charts don't work for any behavior change w/ DS) was to take him to the store and let him pick out 2 new books that were really interesting to him (and on the longer side w/ interesting pictures to keep him occupied). They are his 'potty books' and he is only allowed to read them if he is sitting on the toilet. (of course, he really loves books/reading so if LO is not into that then you'd need to find something else that would get him). We used to try the ipad but he'd just sit in there playing indefinitely on that thing so I stopped using it for that. In addition to the potty books, we started instituting a mandatory sit & try time after bfast & after dinner. To be honest hte bfast one doesnt always happen b/c of getting out the door in the morning but he is more of a late day pooper anyway so it hasn't been a big problem. The books helped him be less resistant to the time in the bathroom and we try not to be really forceful about it (again, does not work w/ his personality) or make him sit in there for any extensive amount of time, like 10 min max- he didn't 'have' to go poop, he just had to try, we did big time celebrations when he did go, and he got a candy treat, that is one of the few 'rewards' he really does like, though honestly it still doesn't drive him to major behavior changes.
Other thing we did since he has been in underwear a long time was to start making him clean it up. He has to carry the underwear to our laundry room sink, stand there on trhe stool and rinse it out (w/ my help), etc so the whole thing takes soooo long and I remind him of how long the cleanup takes and how going in the potty is so much quicker & will take him away from playing for less time (since his usual excuse is that he was 'too busy playing'.). One pedi at our practice actually said to put a bucekt of soapy water in the garage and get him some rubber gloves & do it that way but I'll admit, that seemed like a lot of work for me & I chose to do the laundry sink route.

He's coming along, accidents are much less frequent thought not nonexistent--- though, he has not had an accident in school in MONTHS so I know he has control & it is just a comfort/safety/whatever thing.

GL!

gypsymystic · October 2013

@groovygrl Thank you so much!! Our situation sounds similar. I read it to DH, as well. Thanks for not including snarky comments too. I work at a preschool so I know what level the other kids are on and it does seem to be harder with boys, my son is VERY willful. He poops like 3 times a day, usually once in the morning and 2 times at night, and not totally solid poos so it is never an easy clean up. DH only has a problem cleaning it when he's in underwear, and over the summer break I put him in underwear for a week straight, that is how we 'pee pee' trained him so quick, but the poops never seemed to phase him in the underwear and DH is kind of squeamish. lol I have heard a few times recently to make DS clean it, so we started trying that the past few days actually and making him stand in the bathroom to 'finish' or sit on the potty afterwards and clean himself. This has seemed to help a bit, actually so I am feeling more optimistic. Thanks again!!

gypsymystic · October 2013

My DS also 'holds it' at school, so I know he is capable of controlling it. We used to think he liked the reward of having a bath after pooping on himself... he really likes baths and would take them 100X a day if he could, or if we'd let him. So we stopped giving a bath right after he pooped or associating any bath-time with an accident.

groovygrl · October 2013

One other thing I forgot also is diet changes...your LO might need more fiber to make the poop more formed and you might want to consider kids probiotic daily to help w it too...perhaps more solid poops would help? We had the opposite problem so an additional change for us was making him eat fruit at the start of meals instead of the end to be sure he ate it, using probiotics, increasing his water and using miralax once a day. Maybe the bucket of water and soap in the garage or laundry room would be helpful for your h to drop the underwear into if you're willing to finish he cleanup...sort of a compromise?

gypsymystic · October 2013

I will keep that in mind, TY! I think DH could handle it if there is a bucket of soapy water. He was under the impression the garden hose would do the trick. LOL.

Potty Training 4 year old boy, will not poop in potty. HELP!

Re: Potty Training 4 year old boy, will not poop in potty. HELP!

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