My daughter is three years old. She has been trained for pee on the toilet for a long time, but she refuses to poop. She would hold it or wait until she has a diaper. Five days ago I ran out of diapers for her and I told her that we are out of diapers and now she has to poop in the toilet. She's been wearing underwear only since then. She has not had an accident yet. She has peed in the toilet every time, but she has not pooped once! This is the fifth day of this. She holds it in. I can see her doing it and I tell her to get up and go to the toilet. She will usually go to the toilet, but she won't poop. She must have intestines of iron. We have a small seat to go on the big toilet, a foot stool to make it easier. We also have a potty chair. She can use whatever one she wants and she knows how to use them all. I have been giving her mineral oil and fruits. She is very independent, but will not poop. So, I'm looking for solutions out there. Just wait it out? I don't want to give her another diaper. I also don't want her to get constipated or end up with a medical problem. At this point I would almost welcome an accident, if only she would just let the poop out!
*I was just calling our dr for info about suppositories. Then my daughter started freaking out from her bedroom where she was napping. So she had an accident. I am actually taking that as a good thing because it shows that she can do it, and poop moving will lessen or negate any potential medical problems from constipation. I emptied it into the toilet and showed it to her and flushed it and I hope that helped her to see it in the toilet bowl. We are going to keep trying, and hold off on the diapers for the moment. As long as she is at least going somewhere, we can downgrade our danger level and give it some more time! I think it is a step in the right direction. Thanks for the comments, and I'll still follow any new comments because I can use all the help I can get.
I would maybe let her have a diaper for now. You don't want to go that long without going. My son used to have constipation/holding it in problems and he ended up with a prolapsed colon that we had to go to the ER for. His ped said once three or 4 days has passed something needs to be done to get the poop out. Sorry. I am trying to train my 3 yo daughter right now too, and its not going well.
Good luck!
For whatever reason she is not ready. I would talk to her and actually give her back the diaper. I am afraid she will hurt something.
Poop training often follows pee training by weeks or months. The whole process is considerably different than peeing, and more complicated for littles physically, and sometimes emotionally. Children have very little opportunity to control their lives, so eating and potty training, which they can and do control, can quickly become the most obvious signs that a child's frustration or fear levels have been exceeded.
I hope your potty "pre-training" messages have been positive and supportive, which usually gains healthier compliance than a parent-imposed deadline. If a child responds by withholding (which can seriously complicate the issue if the child develops painful constipation or worse, encopresis), parents have only a few choices: back off the deadline, change tactics, or scale up the pressure and hope for the best.
If I were in your position, I'd choose backing off AND changing tactics. If I hadn't already introduced the book Everybody Poops to my child, I'd do that right away – it introduces a positive, humorous tone to the learning process. Backing off feels like a "fail" to lots of moms, but it doesn't tend to confuse children; rather, it gives them more time to sort out the urges and sensations and responses, and reduces their anxiety. I know you are eager to get your daughter trained, but at three years, even 2 or 4 more months allows time for tremendous physical and emotional development. It can make a significant difference in her ability to succeed without undue stress.
If for any reason you simply cannot wait for her to learn this new skill, you might try this process, which has given a number of moms I know a lower-stress means of coaxing their children to try: http://www.rogerknapp.com/medical/pottytrainingrefusals.htm.
Wishing your family success and happiness!
Give her some prune juice mixed with something. She'll go. Some fruits can plug you up so give her something else instead.
This was my daughter exactly to a T as well! She waited 6 days to poop.. your daughter will do it. She may lose herself and end up pooping in her panties in a very unfortunate place for you.. but just keep extra clothes and cleaning supplies handy. If this happens- she'll at least know that pooping with no diaper isnt scary at all- and then she'll use the toilet and never look back! Dont give her a diaper!! You are doing awesome.
I'm sorry, but I'm not feeling very charitable right now after reading your post and SWH. I think what you are doing is cruel and if I were your ped, I'd let you have it. Somehow, I don't think you'll tell your ped the real truth of what you've been putting your daughter through.
Your daughter is going to have emotional problems because of what you're doing.
The solution is to go back to diapers and let her do this on her OWN time. You need to learn about child development and stop treating her as a small adult.
This was my daughter as well. I finally just made her sit on the toilet with a potty seat for up to 20 minutes, once a day at the same time. I would sit with her and we would talk or play a game on my tablet. Eventually she would poop and all would be fine. I never punished her or made this some sort of awful thing. I even let her see me poop. She knew what needed to be done but I think because she had held it too long in the past and it would hurt coming out that she got scared. Now she's almost 5yo and has zero problems going when she needs to. GL
This happened to my son and it drove me nuts. He would hide and poop all over the house on the floor instead of going on the toilet. Finally we gave him a suppository and a book and sat him on the toilet. He finally went and has been going fine ever since.
I didn't potty train my daughter until she was 3 and she was pee trained in just a couple of days but she refused to poop on the toilet. She was like your daughter and would just hold it. She'd had constipation issues in the past and I didn't want to go down that road again. What I did was keep her in panties but when she needed to poop, she had to go pee in the toilet and then change herself into a pull up. She then helped clean herself up. It took about 5 months, but one day she waited so long to get ready to poop that she ended up pooping in the toilet while she was peeing. And that was then end of it. From then on, she was fully potty trained. And I didn't spend months dealing with frustration and constipation.
This happened with my daughter and started a more than year long nightmare of poop-holding. My youngest was starting to do the same thing so we went to the store and I let him pick out a toy that he could open and keep once he pooped on the toilet. Nothing else worked for him - sticker charts, candy, extra tv time, special mom-time - but the toy did the job. After that first time (and the ensuing celebration), he's done great! Make sure you keep it where it's visible whenever she goes in the bathroom and keep it in the package so it can't be played with.
