Potty training for poop

[Anonymous]

My child has been wearing underwear for the past three weeks and is doing pretty well with potty training (a couple accidents here and there but generally staying dry and being good about initiating potty trips as well as going when promoted). However after a couple successful pops in the potty the first week she’s gotten heard on a schedule where she ONLY will poop at bedtime after I’ve put her in a diaper or in the morning in the diaper before she comes to let me know she’s up. Two questions:

1. Do I need to care? The extra diapers/wipes required for this are mildly annoying but not exactly bank breaking and it’s not super messy or disruptive to her experience at daycare or causing constipation or anything.

2. If I do need to care, thoughts on how best to break the habit?

[Anonymous]

Age?

[Anonymous]

Both my children were like this. They would only poop when they had a diaper. My son would wait until bedtime and poop when he got in bed. My daughter would ask for a diaper and go hide somewhere to poop.
My son stopped doing this at age 3 and my daughter at age 4.

[Anonymous]

No need for concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Age?

2 (young end)

[Anonymous]

I would work to solve the issue now. We let this go with DS and he would need to poop at school and be miserable. He would just sob and say he needed to go home. It was only a four hour a day program but we’d have to go get him. Same thing would happen at home even though we told him he could have a diaper. It went on for nearly a year until he was 3.5 and the pediatrician and gastrointestinal specialist told us it needed to stop.

Your child is waiting to poop in the diaper because she’s alone and standing up. We had to take away all night diapers for awhile and just gently coax him to use the little potty in his bedroom alone. We thought maybe there was something scary about the bathroom. We left him alone and kept things calm. He started pooping on the little potty and earned a huge reward that we bought but didn’t open until he was pooping on the potty.

Then we could go back to night pull-ups.

This could turn into a full blown phobia, OP, and it’s unhealthy to hold poop until bed. It can stretch out the large intestine permanently.

Find her “currency” and alleviate her fears. But please don’t do what we did which was wait.

[Anonymous]

This is super super common OP. And no, most kids don’t develop some long lasting phobia- though some do and I’m sure their moms will post here.

Don’t make a big deal about pooping or needing to poop. Let it go. Every time there is poop in the diaper, take child into bathroom with the poopy diaper and flush the poop (if you can) down the toilet. Remind them poop goes in the potty and that’s that. They will get it eventually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would work to solve the issue now. We let this go with DS and he would need to poop at school and be miserable. He would just sob and say he needed to go home. It was only a four hour a day program but we’d have to go get him. Same thing would happen at home even though we told him he could have a diaper. It went on for nearly a year until he was 3.5 and the pediatrician and gastrointestinal specialist told us it needed to stop.

Your child is waiting to poop in the diaper because she’s alone and standing up. We had to take away all night diapers for awhile and just gently coax him to use the little potty in his bedroom alone. We thought maybe there was something scary about the bathroom. We left him alone and kept things calm. He started pooping on the little potty and earned a huge reward that we bought but didn’t open until he was pooping on the potty.

Then we could go back to night pull-ups.

This could turn into a full blown phobia, OP, and it’s unhealthy to hold poop until bed. It can stretch out the large intestine permanently.

Find her “currency” and alleviate her fears. But please don’t do what we did which was wait.

+1. We were told to give DS a diaper when ever he needed to poop but he needed to poop in the bathroom. That stopped the withholding until night (which was His issue too). We didn’t make a big deal about it. Eventually he started pooping in the toilet since he was pooping in the bathroom already whenever he needed to go,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both my children were like this. They would only poop when they had a diaper. My son would wait until bedtime and poop when he got in bed. My daughter would ask for a diaper and go hide somewhere to poop.
My son stopped doing this at age 3 and my daughter at age 4.

Wow. I can’t deal with this until four!!

[Anonymous]

OP back. Thanks for the feedback, all! It sounds like it’s a pretty normal stage of potty training, anyway. I’ll keep gently working on poop goes in the potty, I think.

[Anonymous]

My DD does this too (potty trained for pee in daytime at 2yo, now 2.5). Unpopular on this forum, but I don't care. I don't mind changing a diaper in the morning. If we notice her grunting or squatting during the daytime we move her to the potty and give rewards for successful poops, but I don't realy push it. She does not seem constipated, even if she's "timing it" (poop is daily/every other day and always soft).

[Anonymous]

My daughter is 2.5 and I trained her a little before 2. She got pee down but poop had problems like this for months. One night she had a complete up the back blowout that required a full bath at 10:00 at night and she never did it after that.

[Anonymous]

I'm working on this with my young 3 year old. What's weird is he used to poop in the potty but when he got fully pee trained he just stopped. I'm being patient. I also put a small potty in his room and told him he can use it whenever he wants. That worked once during nap.

[Anonymous]

Our son trained young, 22 months, and his nanny pulled up his legs and held him over the potty the first time he pooped and was afraid. Huge praise. The second time I did it and there were some tears but he did it with me holding him. The third time he sat down and pooped on his own. We also talked a lot about how it’s easier to “open the door and push out poo-poo” when you’re sitting and talked about how good it feels.

I really would let the poop in the potty fear continue. Nip it in the bud. Your child will be happier and cleaner!

[Anonymous]

OP, especially because you have a daughter, pooping in the diaper is disgusting. I would try to push it if I were you. Praise her when she does, give her toys, rewards, etc. I hear (especially on DCUM) of so many older kids having issues. If I were you, I would work on it now while she is still somewhat young and less complicated (than a 4 year old).