Potty Training - Norwood,MA

I also had a hard time getting my daughter to poop in the potty when I was training her. The only thing that worked was jellybeans. When she made a poop in the potty, we gave her two jellybeans. It took one time with the jellybeans and she has been pooping on the potty ever since! (She still gets the jellybeans over a year later, but most of the time she even forgets to ask for them anymore)

This may sound wierd my son is 2 1/2 and I always let him whatch me go poop and we have never had a problem he looks at it in the toilet and flushes it for me and he usually goes in his potty within 1/2 hour after me in the morning and he asks me to wipe him and we flush it together. You might have already tried it make it a very matter of fact not a big deal. Also try sitting her on the toilet after meals your body has a natural peristalic action with meals. Good luck Jen

Hello,

We had the SAME issue with our 3 1/2 year old son. As you are not against bribery and rewards, I'll share our process! My husband and I went out and bought a whole bunch of little toys, some where sets that we seperated, like a small pirate ship and all the characters and treasures chest, etc. We explained that this was his prize box and that he could pick a prize everytime he pooped on the potty. Well, that took all of 15 minutes! He never looked back. The best was that he first chose the little pirate ship, then he wanted a pirate to sail in it...he had to wait till he pooped to get it. Then, he got that and wanted the little pirate fort that was in the prize box. By the time the prize box was empty (2-3 weeks) he was poopy (?) trained! Once the box was empty we didn't refill it, but would have if he was still having issues. It cost us all of about $15-$20 dollars. So, the castle reward she wants must seem intangible to her. Maybe you can find a little castle set, bread it all apart and add a few more trinkets...you'll have yourself a prize box. Wait until you get it all together then tell her the guidelines for earning it. You may wait until the late afternoon one day, as she has been going in the evening.

My son was also all about the control...well this gives them the control over something else and takes the spotlight off the actual pooping.

Good luck, it will be over before you know it and you'll be diaper free!

I think the best advice is definitely to get rid of the pull-ups. I have 4 children, 3 boys; 7,5,and 2; and 1 daughter; 9 weeks. With my first two sons I was a stay at home mom, they were cloth diapered and both completely potty trained by 2 yrs 3 mos. My third son on the other hand stayed at home with daddy during the day while I worked and my husband insisted on using disposables. Now at almost 3 I am just finally getting him potty trained and I truly believe it is because the diapers/pull ups never make them feel "yucky" or wet. Also, make sure her feet are able to reach the floor or a stool. Dangling legs can make it harder for her to get things going. Most importantly though no matter how frustrating it becomes keep your cool, when my son uses the potty we all break out into a rousing rendition of the "poo poo dance" and when he goes in his underwear I simply remind him of how yucky that feels and we go together and put the poo poo in the potty where it belongs. we have found that he was using potty taining as control and would have an "accident" when he was angry at us for saying no to something he wanted but when he was unable to get a rise from us it quickly stopped and we have now been two weeks accident free.

Hi K.,

From my experience, there are two areas you can't do much about with kids: toilet training and food. As ready as you may be for your daughter to be trained (and as frustrated as ou might feel), your daughter may not be. It seems to me that each child transitions at his own pace. Sometimes, a child's experience in preschool (with other kids using the toilet) becomes the incentive (that is, it's not mom telling me, it's my wanting to be like my friends/peers). I agree it is a control issue. If you think about the world from their view, e children have very little control of their lives (try to imagine how you'd feel in the same position). I'd let her have full control and see how it goes. Good luck.

My suggestions are to take a number of days in a row and let her be in the house without pants or underwear; also tell her that her body will let her know when she needs to pee or poop on the potty and that you will not be asking her anymore. Under no circumstance do you ask her if she needs to use the bathroom (biting my tongue is one of the hardest things I do on a daily basis!) even if she is dancing around the house because she has to go so bad...If she continues to only poop in her pullup at night, let it go. Put her to bed like you normally would and if/when she poops in her pullup, change it quickly without making a fuss about it. She will eventually grow out of it and learn to poop on that potty. It is most definitely, as you said, a control issue. If you stop trying to take control of it for her, she will eventually take over. It is not easy so I wish you lots of luck.

i'm having the same issue with my daughter. i really like the prize box idea, but i worry that my daughter would spend the whole day on the potty trying to win a toy. did that happen to the little boy earning pirates? I hope that mom will respond again. I'll try the prune juice too, maybe in her bedtime bottle. right now i'm just keeping a diaper on her from the morning until whenever the poop comes out and then letting her wear underpants for the rest of the day.

Ahhhh. Me TOO!! My 3 year old son pees like a champ, but getting poop in the potty seems like a game of chance. I try to guess what time of day he has to go (your daughter seems like she's got a pretty set schedule at night) and then just SIT. Get a bunch of books and sit with her at the potty and read, read, read. After a while, they forget and go. The problem is getting them to realize at other times, but we're working on that. I also heard that giving them some prune juice makes it hard for them to hold it in. I like the idea of the prize chest another mom suggested! And I agree that pull ups confuse the kids. Having a messy undie is a nightmare (but no worse than cloth diapers), but I only use pull ups if we are going on a long car ride. Good luck!

My son did they same thing....was trained to pee at 3 but did not poop in the potty until nearly 4 years old. He would wait until I put a pull up on him (for bed or a long car ride) and then do it. The thing is she may be holding onto it all day (waiting for her pull up at night) which is not good. My doctor told me it was a control issue and to let it go. He recommended we tell him it was okay to poop in the pullup and that he should get one whenever (any time of day) he needed it. Eventually he got over it. I know it is gross and you are so ready to not be changing diapers (or pullups) but from my experience the more you stress about it the harder it is and you do't want your child feeling like they are "in trouble" over this issue. I guess it can leave to more problems in 1st or 2nd grade (holding onto bowels that kind of thing) Try to find a way to let her be "in control" of when she goes and when she finally decides to go in the potty.

I had a similar problem with my oldest son. He was peeing in the potty before he was 3 but the minute he got home from daycare he needed a diaper to go poop. One day I just told him, here is your last diaper and when you use this there is no more. He understood that if he had to go it would have to be in the potty and that was that. If your daughter still wets the bed and needs a pullup at night then this might not work out as well for you. I hope this can be helpful. Good luck.

my advice is to #1, get rid of the pull-ups. It's more of a yucky surprise for her to have to deal with pooping in panties. (I know it's more difficult and yucky for you, too, but I believe children pretty much think of pull ups as diapers and it's confusing for them.) #2 is something my sister did that is all natural: mineral oil. You could look it up because I can't remember the exact amount (somthing like 1-2tsp/day), but it is colorless, odorless and tasteless. My sister said that she just would put it in her drink every day and her daughter wouldn't even know it was in there. Her daughter would hold it and hold it because she didn't like to poop on the potty, but the mineral oil just made it so when she had to go, she had to go now. (it didn't give her the runs, it just made it impossible to hold it in.) It really seemed to help and she did it for as long as they needed to get over the irrational fear and remained calm with her child in the case of accidents.

good luck no matter what you decide!

I wish I had advice, but just wanted to offer sympathy! My son was also 3 in March and took to pee training no problem (about 2 months ago).. but, he will NOT poop in the potty. Like your daughter, he tells me- "I do pee in the potty, but poop in my undies!". It is maddening, since he knows when he has to go, and does it knowing he obviously should not be going in his undies. The cleaning of it is getting old. We had a big prize reward for him (a big boy bike), for doing it.. but that has obviously backfired as now he just says "when I do poopy in the potty, I'll get a bike", but could apparently care less about it anymore. The joy of 3 year olds!

Anyways.. I'll be hoping to read more responses for ideas, and again- my sympathy!