My dd went through a phase of refusing to use the toilet for poos and for her it was a shame thing, so I started to talk really positively about poo and how great it was. My dd was under two, but at sam's age you could even talk about digestive systems and the process of making poo. Then I ignored all accidents for a few days...no mentioning or even wrinkling of noses. Then I started to show dd her poo and talk about how normal it is...this was a bingo moment for us, as she stopped running off to hide and started telling us when a poo was coming. That meant I could get her onto the potty in time.
Kids are very possessive about their poo...they need to feel it is safe to share it with others iTMS?
We're fortunate enough that with Sam and his holding on until he can't any more, we are getting very solid, very formed bowel motions. No need to scrub undies here! The night he had corn and grated carrot in his dinner - I didn't dare put him in anything other than a pull up!
Arcadia, I think you've got some great ideas there. I'm honestly quite tempted to really go with the visual approach and show him next time I go... Will be tricky to avoid the potential trauma generated by me having AF this week, so perhaps next week! Might definitely be time to start getting excited about poo, no matter where it is.
It's comforting to know that Sam's not alone in this, so thank you all for sharing! Day care said the same thing, that they've had other kids do the same and they do eventually come through it. But the holding on so he couldn't wee thing really scared me yesterday.
My DS refused to Poo on the toilet for a very different reason and I never thought he would ever be like other kids and go. However some of our approaches may help.
We talked about poo in a way so as to normalise it for him, we didnt mention poo or needing to go to the toilet for pooing, we merely read books about poo.
Poo Zoo, Where is the Poop? and Everybody Poo's were in our regular reading collection. This way he was able to get used to the idea of pooing and poo being normal without feeling any pressure.
Does your DS understand reward charts? We were put onto a behavior modification regime where we would sit DS on the toilet no mention of poo, just sitting for up to 5 minutes at a time. Yes it is a bit of a struggle sometimes but the end result was worth it. He got a sticker for sitting and/or weeing and then if a poo happened then another sticker and a huge fuss made for the poo. He did get sick of the chart and eventually we just made a collage of stickers with the same sticker principle in mind. We sat on the toilet religiously, after breakfast lunch and dinner as this is the usual time most kids will feel the urge to go and then intermittently throughout the day. Never mentioning poo just that we would sit on the toilet for a spell. Eventually he would poo on the toilet. Also make sure that you have your potty and/or toilet set up in such a way as to help good pooing practice so knees slightly bend allowing for the bowels to relax with his feet being well supported underneath him.
I wish you the very best of luck and hopefully he will poop again on his own without too many more hurdles for you.
We had the same problem too - the pps have had some great suggestions! But I will say it does happen, just takes longer. DS now has all the poos in the toilet at home, but we have yet to conquer this at someone else's place. This is our final hurdle. It's taken a couple of months of undie cleaning though. I basically said "yucky" to poo, and we talked about how it didn't feel nice.
I have heard that the poo drop in the toilet can be scary, I was about to buy a potty to try pooing on that - you could have him choose one, or choose a special seat for the toilet. I've also heard people talk about the poo wanting to go in the toilet to have a party with the other poos (yes, lol). DS quite liked that concept. The sticker chart worked wonders for us though. We went and bought a piece of card and some stickers - he chose it all (duck stickers). I hung it in the toilet and he wanted a duck. I said "they're for when you do a poo in the toilet". Then DH brought some chocolate home (like the little round ones in a stick - does that make sense? So he gets like one square at a time) for when he does poo in the toilet. So he got very excited about ducks and chocolate. The ducks are gone now, but the chocolate remains until it's all gone. I am putting some in the nappy bag for when we go to other people's houses though!
So I'm not above bribery. Or do we call it rewards, lol.
And your world becomes about the toilet - but try not to pass that on to your DS, they do tend to become obsessed too!
He's got some special matchbox/hotwheels cars waiting for him. He's obsessed with motorbikes and planes, and he knows that he gets the motorbike first when he does a poo in the potty or the toilet. I'm certainly not above bribing with chocolate, now that he's finally decided he likes it. But we've had to put the toys out of sight because he just got so stressed and upset by it.
My current approach is to be really open about when I need to poo. Door open and I talk to him about how they can be tricky to get out sometimes and can feel like they're stuck... He even gets to see my poo in the toilet... He knows when he needs to go, and just simply refuses to try. Refuses to sit and wait and see what happens. So every single day is either no poo at all, or a poo in undies, and me trying hard not to worry about whether he's making himself constipated or not.
Each day this week, there's been no poo when we're at home. He has pooped in his pants a total of three times across his two days at day care. And today, he waited until I'd gone to the GP and then went in his pants for daddy. I just feel like we're getting nowhere, and starting to worry about why he won't poo when I'm around. I have no idea if we need help on this one, or even where we would go to get help. For now... I guess we use pull ups if we can see something is brewing when we need to go out. I've had to throw out one pair of undies this week - they hadn't been rinsed at day care, and it was either lots of puking or they go in the bin. Funny how it's switched - I never had problems changing his nappies, but now I just can't deal with poo in undies! Probably a really good thing that we never did the cloth nappy thing.
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