Our 2 year old son has decided he's ready to potty train, and we are encouraging this behavior wholeheartedly. The past 3 days we've let him run around bare bottomed and put him on the potty every 30 minutes while he's awake. He will pee in the potty every time, but as of yet...no poop. We've had poop accidents every day, and we can't seem to get him to associate pooping on the potty is the same as peeing in the potty. Any suggestions on how to encourage him? Help!
Search on here Poop on potty. It seemed like everyday awhile back that was the only topic on here lol.
My 17 month old will poop on the potty but not pee so we have the opposite going on. She is young, as well as your son, but we just watch for her cues for when she is going to go. When she starts to hide, run away from us, or squat we know she is about to poop so we take her to the potty. My older daughter has 2 small water frogs that live in the bathroom so she will stay in the bathroom longer to watch them. I think it has helped. But it usually is a different stage of training.
my 2.5 yr old (who's still not ptrained) would sit on the potty, make me leave the room, then a few seconds later yell "I POOPED!" so I'd go in there and he'd only peed.
So when we want him to poop, I say "Poop brown stuff." and we also encourage him to sit on the potty and "Push out a fart." Hope these help.
Pooping is often a separate stage of training. Not always, but usually it takes longer than pee training – it happens less often, so there's less chance to "practice," and the signals are different, and the effort required to poop is considerably greater.
Your son MAY have a little better chance of connecting the dots if he is pretty regular, if you can learn to recognize the precursor "signals," like facial expressions or body language, and if you can begin to associate some verbal response to his beginning to push. Perhaps something like, "Yay! Time to poop!" as you guide (or carry) him to the potty.
With my grandson, we also had "poop parties" in which all his stuffed toys would line up and take their turns pooping, with sound effects and all. He enjoyed that game, and it helped him find the patience to sit longer, as well as the courage to try, because he had an unfortunate bout or two with constipation that made him a little wary.
Beyond that, there's very little I know of that will "teach" him how to recognize the urge. But if you're willing to persist with the barebutt approach, he MIGHT get it on his own in a few more days.
If not, he's young, and will go through tremendous developmental changes in even the next few months, so he'll probably figure it out pretty soon. Be careful not to give him any negative associations with the potty or with failure. Quite a few young families I've known have allowed diapers for pooping until the child suddenly "got it!" This didn't seem to cause confusion or encourage backsliding.
Good luck to you all!
