The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Making My Child Poop in the Goddamn Toilet
ElJeffe
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
So my son is three years old. He is an intelligent and capable being with excellent motor skills. He refuses to poop in the toilet.
Now, it doesn't seem that he's unable to do so, because on several occasions he has done so. And he pees in there all the time; he rarely pees in his pants anymore, even if we're out and about, even if he has to hold it for a bit because we're in the car. He is a goddamn peeing-in-the-toilet black-belt.
But pooping is apparently a no-go. And we've tried everything we can think of. We have tried rewarding him for going in the toilet, with treats, with toys. We have tried the "don't you wanna be a big boy?" thing. We have tried negative reinforcement for going in his pants. (Basically, the current routine is that when he goes in the toilet, he gets a special monster truck we got him for precisely this purpose. He gets to keep it as long as he goes in the toilet. When he goes in his pants, we take it away again.)
We have tried going with him, we have tried counting with him, reading to him, giving him a book and just letting him chill, asking him to try just to "toot" (ie, fart) on the toilet in hopes that something will come out. Mostly, he just doesn't want to try.
It's possible that he just doesn't recognize the signs, but I don't think this is the case. Because when he has to poop, he will find a comfy location, stand there, and push until he's done. He's not trying to make it to the toilet and failing, he's trying to go before we notice and make him go into the bathroom to finish up.
We've also tried making him sit in it for a bit before we change him, but even though he hates the feeling (he demands to be changed immediately), he still won't go in the toilet. We've tried giving him underwear, which he likes, but not enough to not crap in them, so we've gone back to pull-ups because scraping poop out of underwear sucks. (Towards the end we started just throwing them away, because seriously, fuck that. That didn't encourage him to go in the toilet, either.)
We've tried everything, and nothing has worked for longer than a couple times in a row. He'll go once or twice, just to establish that he can, then return to going in his pants.
Is there anything left to try? Will it just magically happen on its own? Help! This is yucky!
Now, it doesn't seem that he's unable to do so, because on several occasions he has done so. And he pees in there all the time; he rarely pees in his pants anymore, even if we're out and about, even if he has to hold it for a bit because we're in the car. He is a goddamn peeing-in-the-toilet black-belt.
But pooping is apparently a no-go. And we've tried everything we can think of. We have tried rewarding him for going in the toilet, with treats, with toys. We have tried the "don't you wanna be a big boy?" thing. We have tried negative reinforcement for going in his pants. (Basically, the current routine is that when he goes in the toilet, he gets a special monster truck we got him for precisely this purpose. He gets to keep it as long as he goes in the toilet. When he goes in his pants, we take it away again.)
We have tried going with him, we have tried counting with him, reading to him, giving him a book and just letting him chill, asking him to try just to "toot" (ie, fart) on the toilet in hopes that something will come out. Mostly, he just doesn't want to try.
It's possible that he just doesn't recognize the signs, but I don't think this is the case. Because when he has to poop, he will find a comfy location, stand there, and push until he's done. He's not trying to make it to the toilet and failing, he's trying to go before we notice and make him go into the bathroom to finish up.
We've also tried making him sit in it for a bit before we change him, but even though he hates the feeling (he demands to be changed immediately), he still won't go in the toilet. We've tried giving him underwear, which he likes, but not enough to not crap in them, so we've gone back to pull-ups because scraping poop out of underwear sucks. (Towards the end we started just throwing them away, because seriously, fuck that. That didn't encourage him to go in the toilet, either.)
We've tried everything, and nothing has worked for longer than a couple times in a row. He'll go once or twice, just to establish that he can, then return to going in his pants.
Is there anything left to try? Will it just magically happen on its own? Help! This is yucky!
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
ElJeffe on
0
Posts
Its a bit out there, but I heard that having a kid pose with their poop in the toilet and then taking a picture of it is really encouraging, it makes them proud of it.
I'm not sure how well taking away a toy as punishment would work. I know he is three, but I presume he has lots of toys. I went the "get a special treat" route and gave him a snack of some sorts.
When you or your wife go poop, do you bring him? Try having the other parent get rewarded for pooping too.
I think the basic idea might have been that she basically kept herself and her daughter contained in an open room for a period of days and it worked through a reward/nowhere else to go system. I don't remember more specifics than that, but you might be able to find something similar. Only thing is, her daughter was at least a year younger, and I'm not sure how it would work on an older kid who understands full well what he's doing. Can he vocalize why he's doing it?
And my next question: Is he otherwise regular? Does he have a particular position he always stands in? The sitting position may give him problems for some reason, and that reason could be discomfort. It may sound strange, but have you tried offering to let him stand over the training potty in the bathroom?
If letting him stand (in a more appropriate place like the bathroom, and without his pants on) actually helps, you may want to take him to see a pediatrician and find out if something is wrong.
Knowing me the way I do, I bet that a lot of it was just the fact that I wanted to do things my way, on my terms, and to my three year old mind, that did not include the toilet.
You have to watch out with that. While its ephemeral nature makes it ideal as a reward, food gains a lot of positive associations that can raise the probability of overindulgence and obesity later in life. It's caused a lot of problems with my brother.
I'd try this. Granted, he's only 3yrs old, but I bet he'll learn very quickly if he has to clean himself.
On the other hand, my sister had the same problem with her son, after a couple months of frustration she just gave up for a bit and kept him in diapers for a while longer. After about a month of not being constantly badgered to use the potty, he was much more receptive to the second attempt at potty training.
It works with nearly anything.
To use a similar example, the entire period through my teenage years I hated the idea of drying dishes after washing them. it seemed so pointless! Why waste that time? Let them sit on the sink and then go back to them 2-3 hours later when they're air-dried and put them straight away.
The second I had my own place, I realised the satisfaction of completing the job then and there, knowing you have no more tasks to do and can relax for the day.
The other one had the rather amusing solution of stripping naked and sticking his fingers in his ears when taking a dump in the toilet. So he was still going himself, there was just a big ceremony to getting it done without feeling tainted.
Other then convincing him to ask for a diaper when needed the only fix I can think of is throwing some toilet paper in the bowl first to reduce the splash. But he might have his mind made up at this point. Anyway, don't worry about it. Soon vanity and the desire to fit in will form in his developing mind and he will want to use the toilet just like everyone else.
It may be at this point that there is just a lot of stress/attention/emotion around pooping in the toilet. Giving him a month or so with no pressure, no punishments, no rewards might help you get back to a better place to start from.
One last thing, he may not be as aware of the fact that he is about to poop as you think. It may be unconscious that he goes and stands in a corner. He may become aware of it if he thinks about it and that is why he does better a couple times in a row. Have you tried just asking him every hour if he needs to use the potty? We had to do that with my little sister. She would get so into playing she wouldn't notice, just asking her to think about it on a regular basis really helped.
I'd look into any difference in the toilet/process itself that may lead to a fear of his. If he is standing using a stool to pee he can see the toilet and it's very different from sitting and being scared that something will grab you while your tinder bits are exposed.
Also stick to pooping at home and avoid the public toilet that have the auto-flush I've known kids who were deathly afraid of the auto-flush. In his case if an auto flush scared him at some point and flushed while he was still sitting then it may roll over to a fear of sitting on all toilets even at home.
the censor on the auto flush is behind you on toilets when you sit and little kids are really short and so sometimes their head is in line with the censor and when they fidget or simply lean a bit they move out of the censors path and it flushes with them still on it. Not a pleasant thing for a little kid already on edge. The solution is to go with them if this is a problem and place your hand directly over the censor and not move it until they are done, off, and pulling their pants up.
First, whenever anyone else in the house used the restroom, we told him in no uncertain terms exactly why were going in there, and asked him if he'd like to go poopy as well. Next, we made a heroic effort to catch him in the act, or slightly before the act, admonishing him and not becoming angry or upset, but letting him know it wasn't ok. We tried, and you might as well, changing his diet until hes more comfortable with the potty. Give him tons of fiber so he doesn't have to push hard to get things taken care of: this makes a task which he obviously doesn't enjoy substantially easier, and has the added benefit (for his training, not for your sanity) of encouraging more frequent BMs, and more regularity, so you will know when to expect him to be ready to go. During our final push (no pun intended) for potty training, the little bugger ate basically nothing but beans, oatmeal, whole wheat sandwiches, brown rice, fruit (except bananas), and broccoli for several days straight, and after a day of that, we could expect some activity within an hour or 2 after every meal. Good if you want to catch him and point him to the potty (and have more opportunities to get the point across), bad if you don't catch him and have to wash 3+ pairs of underwear a day instead of 1.
Ultimately I'm not even %100 sure that any of that made a big difference. If anything, the social aspect was probably the most important. Kids develop so quickly, and maybe with all our efforts we sped him along a few months on the road to potty training, or maybe not. I'm pretty sure that he would have made the switch on his own at some point, wanting independence from diaper changes, and the faster transition from play-poop-play that going in the potty allows. Even now he does things to this end, like trying to wipe himself up and therefore not telling anyone he went, to our chagrin when we later find the filled potty and the crusty behind.
Thanks for the responses thus far, and I'll keep you posted.
Take his favorite teddy bear, or Optimus Prime or whatever he likes, and make up a game where you demonstrate how much fun this toy has when he goes to the toilet. Have the toy "poop" in a suitable toilet-substitute (I think you're also supposed to use some kind of a poop-substitute, knotted thread or something), then be all amazed and impressed with how brave and awesome the toy was and what a magnificent poop that is. The idea is to make pooping in the toilet seem like an amazing achievement. The toy might sometimes have trouble going to the toilet, and requests advice and support from the kid. I think it was also suggested that later the kid and the toy can go to the toilet together and maybe have a pooping competition or something.
FWIW I think you might have fun trying this, whether it ends up working or not.
Do not get angry with him for accidents. Do sound and act disappointed and sad when he has accidents. They are tragic! You are very sad, with droopy face and frown and slumped shoulders and ohhh nooo, that's so sad and terrible. Look what happened! An accident, this makes me sad. Toddlers don't really mind so much if you're pissed off, but if you're sad and disappointed and dejected, they react.
Do give up on going places for a while. Expect to do a lot of laundry. Do not shrug off any mistake. Do ask him to clean up messes he makes, but not as punishment... because it's his and it's grossss ewww, you're so sad about this gross mess and now he has to clean it up, isn't that gross and awful?
Putt the gross mess in the toilet, and have him flush it down, and talk about how that's where the poop goes. When he gets it right, make a big production! Have him announce it to your wife! Yay! That's where it goes! He's awesome and got it right! YOU ARE SO HAPPY! WOO!
Consistency. Don't give up, don't relapse. Don't change tactics. Even if you follow none of this advice, whatever you do decide to pick, agree on it with your wife and stick to that! For days or weeks or however long! One thing that is true even of 3yr old kids is that they're little scientists by nature. He is doing the same behavior, and you are changing yours every few days - he doesn't know what to expect, therefore he must continue to experiment until he arrives at a result that he can remember and that is consistent. You're changing his life, and he needs to be able to grasp what the change entails. If you keep switching gears, he's just going to stick with what he knows (diapers, I'm the same as I was, my butt feels gross and Dad comes to spend time with me changing it) until the new reality shifts permanently.
A thing I've noticed that works in myriad situations with my kids, even though they're 15, 13, and 11 now, is disassociating yourself from the way things are. There is a fundamental difference between:
"You should poop in the toilet!"
and
"The potty is where poop goes!"
One of those is you telling the child... it's your order. The other is simply a description of the shape of the world. It's not you or your wife who came up with this... it's just how the world is. This is where the poop is supposed to go!
Might help if you let your kiddo watch you do the same thing, especially if you're also talking about how you also have to follow THE RULE. Rules, for a toddler, can be magical things that have external power over him and you - "because I told you to" has farfarfar less weight for a young child than "because that's the rule! It's just how things are." If you're also following the rule, so much the bettter.
Of course, if you find yourself suddenly super uncomfortable over the idea of letting your toddler watch you poop, there might be some more serious issues to explore here. He's already watching you like a scientist - if you and your wife have bathroom issues with him or each other, that might be the cause of the reluctance. Have you roared at him when he barged in while you were on the john? If so, consider: your 3yr old can barely grasp where the poop goes. Do you honestly expect him to comprehend privacy issues and bathroom etiquette?
I would suggest you not do this. 10 minutes is an eternity to a 3yr old, and forcing him to do something he hates is never going to convince him to do the same thing voluntarily.
The chart is good because even if he has an accident he still sees his past progress and it is a visible reminder that he has a prize coming if he plays his cards right.
It's super, super frustrating as a parent because you can feel how close you are to freedom from diapers and freedom from carrying a bunch of stuff with you everywhere you go. You have to remember that frankly you want it more than the kid does because they're perfectly content with status quo. They really need encouragement to make it in some way a positive change for them.
She'll sit in a soiled diaper and wont tell us she's pooped.
Today after a good 6 months of trying to encourage (not forcing, as she lashes out and screams when she even sees a potty) she actually peed in the potty today before her bath. One thing my daughter loves to read, so we can plop her down and read with her for a good 10-15 min
I feel your pain.. and hoping you get through this.
The other thing that seemed to help was, as spool said above, being really open with him about our personal use of the toilet. It sounds daft, but we started leaving the bathroom door open when we went, we'd constantly say to each other "Well I think i need to go poop" etc when we went. It was hillarious for a while, but it seemed to work. He started coming in with us and bringing his potty, the first poo he actually did was on his potty next to me whilst I was doing one. I do wonder whether he thought none of us actually did it or something.
I do believe a lot of stuff with kids just happens when they're ready though, and people can end up prolonging the issue by getting too worked up about it. With my step son we started trying about 2 and a half because he seemed ready, but then his goose of a father started stressing about him "not being a man" (i know....right?) and the poor kid ended up totally neurotic about it. We left it for a few months and once he'd chilled out again he just picked it straight up.
oh oh also, i noticed you said he stands up in a comfy spot. Same as my son. We ended up figuring out that part of the trouble seemed to be he wasn't used to sitting down to poop. Whenever he used to poop in his diaper he would always go and stand up, leaning slightly forward. So the transition wasn't only to pooping without the diaper, it was also learning to do it sitting down, which must feel a lot different when you're learning all these new sensations. We never did find a good solution to that unfortunately, he learned just after we realised it, but it may be worth mentioning as you might find a solution for it!
He can control where he shits.
There is nothing you can do to force a three year old to use the toilet. He has to want to and I do not think that rewards or punishments are the answer. Jeffe, don't you have an older daughter? Have you tried using her as an example? Younger kids want to mimic older siblings.
Good luck and buy extra pants.
Not because I don't sympathize, but because I have to deal with the same exact thing. Boys SUCK at potty training. My older son is 6 1/2 and STILL stains his underwear because he doesn't want to stop whatever he's doing to poop.
My 3 year old turns 4 in about a week and has never pooped on the potty, but he has started using the potty to pee the last several weeks.
There's no easy solution...just have patience, that's all you can do. If you find a magic bullet, let me know so I can use it.
Wish I had something to give other than shared frustration (even though your situation sounds worse), but I'll be watching this thread for ideas.
Sounds like a love and logic approach, which is a good approach.
We do it for them so that in sixty years, they can do it for us.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
You are not alone Jeffe...a forum specifically for potty training....
I'd just talk to him about why he can't go. He might be scared of it for some reason.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
This is how my mother potty trained my brother and I. According to her it worked like a charm, although it goes against all the current hugs & puppies non-judgemental toilet teaching wisdom.
Also this happened with my daughter. I was working a lot, and we only got some small time during the day. She started having bed wetting issues. What I figured out was that she wanted more daddy time, because I was the one who changes her sheets at night. When I told her she could come get me at night and we would go to the potty together and I'd tell her stories, she immediately stopped having issues. Sometimes it's
not about the potty at all, but it's a way for the child to get your direct 1 on 1 attention.
Reverting back to diapers or pullups gives them an easy way 'out' to mastering toiler training, since on some level the kid recognizes that if they keep messing themselves, their parents will let them go back to 'the easy way.'
The key points I take from this (this is my advice now, not my mom's) are: Block out some days where the kid will be at home all the time with either you or your wife. Do not present it as an option or give the idea that if the child holds out he will "win" and go back to diapers, but rather present it as the new and final reality.
Since your son knows when he's pooping, and dislikes the feeling of being dirty once he's done the deed, it's likely he won't like dealing with the aftermath himself (and by cleaning and diapering him, you are in fact enabling him).
that's my 2/c