Hi ladies, I need your help! 3 weeks ago we potty trained our daughter who is almost 2 1/2. It has been a breeze pee-wise! She took to it right away and has had almost no accidents. BUT, no poop! 3 weeks later, she stills poops her underwear. How do I get her to even try? I have offered candy and new Tinkerbell (her FAV!) underwear and nothing. She tells me she has to poop and then we sit her on the potty and she freaks out. Screams, says she can't, and gets off. Later, she will poop her underwear and we show her where it goes and make her sit. But she just won't do it on the potty. She won't even push on the potty. What do I do? My oldest never had a problem with poop, so I am at a loss.
Put her back in a diaper. 2.5 is very young these days to be completely trained. If she likes to pee on the potty then let her but tell her when she has to poop let you know so you can get a diaper on her. Tons of kids do this for a few months until they transition to the potty. It's a pain, but so is teenagehood! LOL!
My daughter went trough this also. ( In fact she was going in her panties every day) However, she was pretty regular so I knew around the time she needed to go. I decided to put her training potty in front of the TV with one of her favorite videos on (at that time it was Barney). I told her she had to sit on the potty or I was turning Barney off. Well it worked!! She pooped while sitting there:) We only had to do this twice and she started going in the bathroom after that. I think initially she was scared and by watching Barney she was relaxed and nature took it's course and she wasn't scared anymore. Good luck.
She may not be ready. Is she aware enough to have her ask you for a diaper to poop? It may seem like a step back but it might save you a lot of clean ups if she just isn't ready quite yet.
mine got mad at me the first time I made him poop in the potty some kids are just scared of that and she should outgrow this its been 3 weeks mom relax. mine tells me after the fact my oldest did that too.
Are you using a potty chair or the toilet. Some children don't like the sound or the water splashing in a real toilet. Also, I would never bribe a child with candy. It can cause serious eating habits later down the road. The pretty panties are fine. You just need to watch her and you can tell when she is going to poop and grab her and run her to the bathroom,. After a few times and she realizes you are not going to let her poop in her panties she will quit. Sorry can't be of much help as my girls were easy to potty train. But they had their own special potty chair.
We had a similar issue with our daughter. The weirdest thing cured her of it. She goes to a home daycare and one of the little boys (he's almost 5) talked her through it! From what I was told, the sitter put her on the potty and walked into the other room for a minute. When she came back he was telling her it was okay to be scared but it was good thing and made her a big girl. She never had an accident, but it did take another week or two for her not to whimper whenever she went.
We did have trouble getting her to go at home however. We made a chart and each time she pooped at home she got a sticker on her chart and big M&M's. After 5 poops we took her to a train themed diner that she loves.
Good luck! She'll it sooner than later!
Her body may not be mature enough yet to poop on demand. The body is ready first for urine training and most kids don't poop train for several more weeks or perhaps months later.
Please don't push her. If you insist that she do what her body is not able to do you're setting up a negative atmosphere which will continue to cause difficulties even after she's ready to do it.
One way to tell when she's ready is to watch her face. You can tell when she's aware she has to poop by the way she looks. You can rush her to the toilet when you see that she's about to poop. Please don't be in a rush to get her trained. Wait until her body is mature enough to do it.
She may have said she needed to poop because she wanted to please you. Unless she pooped within 5-10 minutes after she got off the toilet, I suggest she didn't have to poop at the time.
If you think she is ready then make sitting on the toilet fun. Provide books and toys for her to play with. They will help distract her from the pressure or insistence that she poop now. She's more likely to poop if she's relaxed.
Pay attention to the time she usually poops and set her on the toilet. Don't insist that she poops. Stay with her, play with her, sing silly games. If she hasn't pooped in 10 minutes or so, take her off. She'll get used to sitting.
She may be afraid of the poop disappearing down the toilet. Some kids think that the poop is a part of them and it scares them to see it flushed away. This may be part of the problem. Talk with her about the poop, why we put it out of our body and where it goes. OR not. Only flush the toilet when she's not in the room.
Don't despair. She'll get it and get it faster if it's not such a big deal.
Hi M.,
We had the same issue with my son. He would pee fine in the potty but to get him to poop was another story. You would think that we were hurting him he would get so scared and frustrated with it. We ended up making a poster with pictures of Disney World and a road. Along with a cut out of Lightning McQueen and everytime he went poop in the potty we let him move the car closer to Disney. He know that when he finally got Lightning to Disney we would take him there.
You could probably do something similar with Tinkerbell flying to Disney.
It might help to look for your daughter in these great "readiness" checklists. I wonder whether your daughter is truly ready for success yet: http://www.parentingscience.com/toilet-training-readiness...
Most littles don't really succeed at training until at least 2.5, some kids much older than that. Poop training is a separate and later step for most kids. If you back off and let your daughter take it at her own speed, she'll probably get there faster.
Keep the encouragement up by reading potty books, watching potty videos, having potty plays with her favorite toys playing leading roles. It will all come together when she's ready. In fact, when kids have all their ducks in a row, physically and emotionally, they tend to be as eager to succeed as when they were learning to walk and talk.
My daughter will be 4 yr, next Monday. she didn't become fully potty trained until 6 months ago. It took bribery to get her to poop in the potty. But she also has constipation issues, so she is on Miralax daily. So we knew the pooping part would be difficult.
My Mom who visits frequently took to bribery. This may bite us in the butt later. She would offer her 4 quarters for her piggy bank, & a surprise. The surprise- is usually a $$ tree item. (now i have all of these little toys all over the house-- UGH!!!)
It has worked. Pro- is she doesn't expect anything from me. But she expects stuff from my mom & occ. my MIL. Now my mom is calling them "I love you gifts"- not for pooping in the potty.
My friends have joked with me about a couple of scenarios that may occur in the future. 1. Mom I pooped in the potty - give my $20. 2. She will go to her boyfriend- I need a "I love you gift" buy me a new BMW M5, diamond earrings etc. I see her being high maintenance!!!.
Well, I can say my daughter would scream and freak out on the big tin toilets at the park or any untidy public restroom. You could see her little eyes taking a quick survey of the place and she would say nope! One day at the park, I grabbed ahold of her and sat her on the toilet and talked to her in a calm voice and talked her through it and she used the restroom and we got out of there. After that she was fine. I was afraid of traumatizing her, but I was also afraid she would hurt herself trying to hold it.
