3 Yr Old Who Pees in the Potty but Goes Poopy in His Underwear

Sounds like you are on the right track. Since he is only three, you are doing good. One trick that finally worked for a friend that had a 4 year old that was doing the same thing was to put him in the empty tub after he went in his pullup and made him wipe himself--that solved the problem really quickly after dealing with it for many months. Good luck!

We've used Chuck E Cheese's as a reward for pooping on the potty. You have to set an expectation, such as no poop accidents for a week, or something like that, and he gets to go to CEC. "Big boys get to go play games at Chuck E Cheese" and other reminders might help. And then, of course, you have to take him there as promised! As a result, we've had very few poop accidents with our 4 kids. Best of luck!

My 3rd child did the same thing. Someone told me to spend a few days at home and don't put pants on him at all. At first he would freak out when he was starting to poop and we had to rush him to the bathroom. So I kept the potty seat near him, each day I put the potty seat further away from him and closer to the bathroom. It worked. Having time and patience helped and also not letting him see that it upset me took the 'power struggle' element out of it.

Good luck!

Take note of when he poops. My 3 yr old poops 30-60 minutes after each meal. I let him run around without anything on his bottom after meals until after he poops.

We always say "bye bye, poopie" in a loud silly voice as he's flushing - he loves that.

Also, he doesn't like pooping "on Diego" - in his character underwear.

Also, when he does poop in the potty I always say something like: "What a good boy! I'm so proud of you! I'm going to tell your Daddy what a good boy you are when he gets home. He'll be so happy!".....impressing his dad and being like his dad seems to be a big deal to him. Dad's pretty good about making a big deal out of it, too.

He isn't potty trained until he doesn't poop in his pants. He is half way done but not totally. Until he wants to do it, there isn't much you can do other then avoid a power struggle. I say keep the pullups on him all the time for now and let him take his time. It will save your sanity and stress and keep from messes constantly happening. Set him on the potty at the times you know he may or may have to poop, DO NOT ASK him if he has to go, set him on the potty and ask him to please try. If he goes celebrate! If he doesn't just thank him for trying.

He may understand the urge for peeing coming about but not pooping yet so he may just not be ready.

Really focus on him being a big boy, reward chart for every time he does poop in the potty and take away the underwear until he is fully there.

Many hate pullups however I honestly think we prematurely stick them in underwear then feel overwhelmed by messes and the stress when they have accidents. That actually will backfire as when it becomes stressful then it starts a power struggle, because you cannot make him poop on the potty. I trained both of mine with pullups and both when they went to underwear finally it was done 100%! I didn't deal with poop or pee on the floor or the stress of cleaning out underwear. When my kids were really ready it was all over with and such a huge relief.

Just step back, put him back in pullups tell him when he is ready to be a big boy and poop in the potty he can have his underwear back. If he is over three or three and a half, take away big boy toys and big boy priviledges and explain that until he proves himself as a big boy then he probably shouldn't have them. Tell him he can earn it back. If he is under three, give it time, boys take longer.

We had the same problem for 8 months - we're actually just coming out of it now, and DS is 3 yrs 2 mos old.

I can tell you that we tried absolutely everything, and nothing worked until we gave him full control of the situation. We had already put him back in pull ups because I just got sick of cleaning up the messes, but I still was reminding him to go pee every day, and asking him if he needed to go all the time. Everything I read about this problem says to stop doing that, so we did. Instead of asking him if he needed to go poo, or making him sit on the toilet for a while and try going poo, I would just say - once or twice a day - tell me if you want to go poo in the toilet, and I'll help you. Two weeks later (or less) he was pooping exclusively in the toilet.

In our case, I knew it was a power struggle, because DS is very smart, and had on occasion pooped in the toilet (so I knew he knew how). When he did have accidents during those couple of weeks, we continued to say things like "If you want to be a big boy like your brother, then you need to go poo in the toilet" or similar.

Good luck! I know what a pain it is...

I learned this trick from my sis-in-law and it worked like a charm. It is a little investment for your sanity!

I took my 3 yr old son to the store with his own money and he got to pick out his own undies (glow-in-the-dark spiderman!) and pay for them himself. He was SO excited! But before hand, I told him that if he pooped in them, they would be thrown away, and HE had to throw them away. He had to throw away two pair and was very upset he was losing his special undies. Each time I re-explained to him the need to poop in the toilet. He has not had a poop accident now for a very long time! And he is very proud of his own special undies!

* I personally feel that pull ups do not work. Well...they DO work, in the fact that they are absorbent. But that's the problem. The kids get too comfortable with them and don't try as hard.