Potty Training Help! - Green Ridge,MO

My now 4-year-old got the hang of the peeing in the potty quickly, but it took a month and a half to get her pooping in the potty. She would do it in her panties, however she would hold it until she absolutely couldn't any longer. So I observed for about a week to see if it was around the same time, etc that she needed to go and then would take her to the bathroom around that time and have her sit until she went. One time we sat there for 30 minutes. After a few days of this and then her getting to flush it down, she started doing it on her own. Good Luck! My suggestions for the diaper at night is to give her and you a time frame and if she keeps the diaper dry for say a week then you move to panties at night. I did this with all three of my girls and within a week they were all in panties throughout the night.

My son had a problem with constipation too, bleeding and everything, which interfered with his potty training. He was going fine on the potty but he would only poop in his diaper. His pediatritian advised us to wait until his constipation was under control before trying to potty train him, which turned out to be really good advice for us. The daily laxative didn't work well for him, so we changed his diet, giving him less dairy, offering prune juice and high fiber cereals. It was amazing how easy it was to take that last step in potty training once he was no longer afraid to poop. We just had to be patient and wait until he was ready. By the way, he was 3 1/2 before he was completely potty trained. When he was 2, I thought it would NEVER happen...but it did!

Relax. There is no rule that says a child must be totally potty trained by three, or four even. Sometimes, when a parent makes a big deal about something, even a negative big deal, the child then uses it to gain attention, yes, even negative attention.
It makes it doubly hard when she has a hard time with her BMs. If it hurts her to poop, then she will equate pain with the potty, so be patient, and relax.
You have a lot on your plate, with the upcoming surgery and even advances in the potty training that you make in the next two months may be negated in her recovery period, so just relax.
The time to stop using diapers at night is when she stops wetting at night.
Oh, and did I mention, just relax?

Its understandable that you are in a hurry to get your daughter out of diapers. However, its not good for your daughter to be rushed into potty training. I've gone throughthe same thing with my daughter. Don't waste your money on pullups. They are too expensive, and children usually treat them like diapers. When she is finally ready just use panties. Because your daughter has digestive problems and she is going to have surgery, there is a lot of pressure on your little girl to go in the potty. This can be very scary to a little one. I would just have patience and keep positive with her. I wouldn't stress about her bing fully potty trained for at least another year.

My daughter, who is 4 now, was pretty easy, but I also had help during the day while I was at work, (my mother was and is my sitter.) I had and still have a bucket of her favorite books beside the toilet. I started off giving her a book when it was time for her to go potty or #2. After that she loved going to the bathroom so she could read or look at the pictures. I would have to beg her to get off! To this day she still likes looking at the books. At night when I got up to go to the bathroom I would make it a habit to get her up and go potty also. We also had a plastic cover over her mattress so when she was "lazy" about getting up and she did wet, it was not a good feeling to her so that made her realize she needed to get out of bed if she had to go potty.

I'd probably just try a combination of distraction (reading/coloring on the potty when it's her normal "time" to go) and incentive. My daughter got two m&m's for pooping and that worked well. My son doesn't care for candy, but for him stickers are reward enough. Figure out something she'll get excited about it.
As far as diapers at night, I've just heard recently about moms going cold turkey, both daytime and night time and I just can't imagine that. I'm curious how old their kids are and how well it worked. My daughter was in successful in underwear before she was 2 1/2, but wore a pull up at night until she was over 3 1/2. She just could not make it at night. We tried limiting liquids, we tried taking her to the bathroom when we went to bed late at night, and it was still a combination of not waking up to go and when she did wear a pull up, it was just so full! It was hard too when we finally made it to underwear every night, she was waking at 4 or 5 am because she had to go to the bathroom, and then she rarely fell back to sleep. Lots of early mornings and lots of sleep shortages!
I know all kids are different, but I learned my lesson and I'm not worried about my son (who's in the middle of potty training now) and the nighttime thing until he either stays dry most nights or tells me he want to try underwear.

Good luck!

The laxatives are harsh on your daughter even though they are for children. Many children have "hard poo poo" (as we call it in our house). Look at her diet. She won't be getting enouigh fruits. Give her as many grapes as she can eat, you'll see a difference. Her digestive problems could be a source of your potty training difficulties. With laxatives, she'll have less control over her bowels.

Hey H. I dont know if this will help but I have a daycare and I definatelly work on the pottytraining thing along with alot of parents stories, on not wearing a diaper at night most of my parents are switching to no diapers at night when they have multiple DRY nights, and I do have a little girl that is completally potty trained day and night but wont poop in the potty, she asks for a diaper and the parent just do it her way and not pushthe issue and they did it that way for a good 6 months and then one she just stopped asking for the diaper and just the other day they came to me and said they had been diaper free for 4 days now with no accidents and she is now pooping in the potty. So in time she will do it on her own and what I found works best from other parents story is not pushing so hard, make it fun and offer and remind her frequently but if she isnt ready you wont make any progress by pushing it. I hope this helps. A.

HI! I guess the first thing that I thought while reading your questions was that many kids take a lot longer to get the whole poop thing down than the pee part. Many kids will NOT poop on the potty. Have you tried some different incentives? What worked for my first child was to make a chart with little squares on it. It was actually more like a path that curved around on a big piece of paper. Every time he went pee, he got to put a sticker on one of the squares. Poop gave him 2 stickers! After 5 squares I put a McDonald's Arch. When he got there, we would go to McDonalds. Then after maybe 8 more squares, we went to the mall to get a pretzel. That continued until he could make it to the very end and we went to Chuck E. Cheese in Normal. That was a big incentive for him.

With my daughter, she was very driven by chocolate. So, she would get an M&M every time she went potty: pee=1 M&M and poop=2 M&Ms. This really helped us, but we also weren't dealing with constipation issues. That could be a whole other realm. But, if she is on laxatives and all of that is working properly, I would think it would be ok. But, she could remember that she used to have issues with pooping and is just a little scared of it.

Good luck!

I just got done going through the same thing with my daughter. We had to go see specialists and doctors all the time because of her bowl issues. Some good advise I got was about 10 - 20 minutes after eating sit her on the potty and read a book, color, draw, or just do anything to get her mind off of actually going to the bathroom. Sit in there with her for about 20 minutes. The colon naturally starts trying to work on it's own at this time and she will end up having bowl movements. You will probably be able to notice a certain time of day that she usualy has a bowl movement so try to get her on the potty and sit there for a while. It takes a little while but she will eventually get the hang of things. My daughter just turned 3 in December and that is what we had to do for her. Has your doctor mentioned increasing her fiber intake? I agree with you about the pull ups, we tried those and she just thought of them as diapers - plus their more expensive. We just got some of those plastic underwear things that go over her actual underwear for her to wear at night. It helps reduce the mess if she has an accident but she is still in underwear and can tell when she has an accident. I think it worked better and moved faster to just cut off the diapers/pull ups all together instead of just doing it at night time. Hope some of this helps and good luck!!