View Full Version : Will only poo in nappy
Hi, I'm a new member and have seen a couple of posts on this topic, but can't find any follow-ups detailing what worked. Anyway, here's the problem:
Aidan is now 3 1/2 and has been toilet trained (for wees) for almost 12 months. However, he will only poo in a nappy after asking to have one put on him.
He has always had a bit of an issue with number 2s. Since about the age of 18 months he has been fully aware of when he needs to go, but has always required absolute privacy. He used to go and hide behind his bedroom door and would force it closed if anyone tried to come in. He then started hiding in his wardrobe to drop one in his nappy!! It took us a while to get him to perform this ritual in the toilet room instead of the wardrobe and we thought that final success was only days away - unfortunately, that was about 12 months ago !!
His bowel movements aren't very regular - he generally goes every 2 or 3 days, but there are no signs of constipation. His diet is full of fibre with heaps of fruit and wholegrain and his stools are normal. Until recently, he has only ever gone at home, which suggests that he holds on until things get desperate.
I've tried sitting with him and singing songs, reading books etc. but he just seems to sit there tensed up. I've also let him to watch me, but I don't know if this did more harm than good. He says he is worried about the plop noise and so we've tried getting him to sit on the toilet with his nappy on as a first step. The problem is he will only go with the door closed and as soon as you close the door he steps down off the toilet. I've tried stuffing toilet paper into the toilet to stop the noise, but no success here either. I've thought about just throwing the nappies out, leaving him with no option, but my wife can't bring herself to do it - he might hang on for weeks !!!
Sorry about the long post, but we need help. I'd love to hear from anyone who has had a similar problem and conquered it.
Thanks
Darren
My nephew was exactly the same - he insisted on a night nappy and then just before getting dressed in the morning would poo in it. My sister decided to leave it for a while as all the talking about it was making it a bigger and bigger issue. After a couple of months they explained that big school boys didn't wear nappies etc and that when he was 4 he would be close to being ready for school. He latched onto this idea of turning 4 and wasn't stressed as it wasn't immediate. He would just say - I won't wear a nappy when I am four. On the night of his 4th birthday he turned to his Dad and said "no nappy Daddy - I am four now" and that was that. He still has some issues about absolute privacy etc, but at least it now happens on a toilet.
Hope this is of some help!
Hi Darren,
I can't help you with your problem (that's ok - plenty of people here will be coming to your aid in a flash) but I just wanted to say welcome to Bubhub and it is SO good to see more dads joining recently.
Good luck! :)
(ps. I'd be inclined to ditch the nappies but I'm sure someone will tell me why that is a really bad idea :o)
Hi Darren,
We had the same problem with Nathan. He wouldn't tell us if he needed to do a poo in the toilet, while peeing was no problem (he likes to make bubbles TMI :o sorry!). It was almost like he thought he'd get into trouble although we always told him it was ok and maybe we'd get there next time.
We bought him a potty, but he out grew it before he'd actually done more than a pee in it. We got a cushioned seat to put into the regular toilet seat and put a stool in front of the toilet so he could put his feet on it and give him something to make him feel safer.
I also stopped putting nappies on him during the day (I actually started doing this last summer, but it was too cold over winter, and I had a new baby so I did get a bit slack), we had only one accident on the floor (and another recently, but he picked it up in toilet paper and put it in the toilet himself, then came and told me). But it's just a case of encouraging him saying 'That's ok, we'll get to the toilet next time.' He also likes to flush. It's a bit of a novelty for him. He just seemed to click and has been great for the last month. He now only has a nappy on when he goes to bed at night, he doesn't have one for his day time sleep.
I guess it's funny what they're afraid of. Maybe try putting training pants on him. If he asks for a nappy don't put it on, tell him that big boys don't need nappies (though this was easier for us as we had a new baby for Nathan to realise he is the bigger brother and he gets to do more excititng things). Keep taking him in with you, make fun of the noises, laugh at them. Try and get your wife to do the same, if he sees Mummy and Daddy doing it then he may realise that it's ok to do, it's nothing to be worried about.
I hope some of this helps, or even makes sense :o
Good luck.
Thanks Theresa, Aidan's already been saying "I'll do it when I'm 4" and none of us have put that idea in his head. I figured he was just delaying it and didn't think he would actually follow through (... so to speak). Maybe I can try negotiating another deadline.
Thanks Sarie, I like your idea that my wife also err, puts on a show for Aidan ... can't wait to see her reaction to that one.... but it makes sense.
Any more thoughts?
Ahh, all normal behaviour. Some kid's are just precious about their poo's!
My DS, nearly 5 still does one in a nappy. Albeit we are on the last box of nappies, so we will see how he goes when there are none, huge tantie I suspect and I'll probably give in to the healthy bowel ideal again.
Anyway each child does things at different times. I personally wanted DS to have a healthy bowel and not get constipated by refusing to go to the toilet, because with constipation comes a very sick, miserable child.
Most of my friends don't poo at work, they wait until they come home where they are comfortable and no one tells them they must poo at work!
Everything takes time, but they wont be wearing nappies when they're 18, so you just have to wait...
[QUOTE=Maghan]Most of my friends don't poo at work, they wait until they come home where they are comfortable and no one tells them they must poo at work! [QUOTE]
How true is that!
Nathan holds on when we go out. He will only pee in a public toilet if Daddy does it with him.
Just keep encouraging him. I think we're lucky that Nat is nearly there and he's 2.5 years old. But like I said he was the same till one day it just clicked. Now he announces where 's going and what he's doing, he also asks if we want to watch it get flushed :o . But then he also says 'I farted nah nah nah nah nah' Something he got from his father, not me ;)
My neice was 3.5 years before she got the hang of it.
So I think they all do it in their own time. Hang in there!
Hi
Our DD1 would also wait until her night nappy (every night). We bribed, we talked about being a big girl, we talked about how its easier to go on the loo - nothing worked.
She eventually decided that she would wear knickers to bed like a big girl and that was it - she HAD to go on the loo and it wasn't a big deal. We would put her in a nappy before we went to bed because we were concerned about bed wetting.
I think that you just have to wait until he makes the decision.
Cheers
It finally happened this morning so I thought I'd better post a follow up. He is just about 3 1/2 to the day and decided that he was going to poo on the toilet this morning.
I don't know whether it's as a result of anything we've been doing over the last few weeks or whether he decided it was just time, but here's some of the things that have been different over the last couple of weeks:
1. He was still asking for a nappy each time he needed to go, which we gave him without even a suggestion that he try the toilet first.
2. Instead of fussing over him using the toilet instead of a nappy, we've encouraged him to sit on the toilet with his nappy on, getting him used to the seated position.
3. After he finished in the nappy, we'd empty it into the toilet and get him involved in the flushing process.
4. We've been trying him in undies overnight for the last 4 weeks. It was a 50% success rate for the first couple of weeks, 5 out of 7 last week and 6 out of 7 this week. He's really proud of himself each time he gets up after a dry night and I think this is possibly the biggest contributor to him thinking that now is the right time to be pooing on the loo.
5. He has showed increased interest in the pooing habits of all living things. Frequent questions like "What does XXXX poo look like?" or "How do XXXXX do poos?".
So as I said, I don't know how much we influenced him but hopefully this info will be useful to the rest of you Bub Hub members.
Cheers,
Darren
YAY Darren! Nice work. :)
Sounds fab Darren!!
O's mom.
Yay Darren!!! Good work, I knew it would click for him eventually!!
Keep it up!
Saire
illawarramumof2boys
28-11-2005, 18:47
hi darren
believe me or not but my son does exactly the same thing. he is 3 1/2 and does all wees in the toilet but not poos. he hides somewhere usually under the table and does it in a nappy. i'm going to try some of your ideas , i'll let you know if i'm succesful as some of your ideas i haven't tried and i'm getting desperate. fingers crossed, and congrats to you and your son.
illawarramumof2boys
20-12-2005, 20:46
hi everyone
i'm so happy my little man is now totally toilet trained and yes it's on the big toilet as we call it. one of your ideas worked darren the one about showing interest in pooing habits of people/animals etc. after alot of questions and then observation watching our own dogs and cats go as well as mum and dad :o we have success. it took only two days and there have been no accidents since.
advice to anyone out there trying to toilet train your little one, this does work, and to think i was ready to give up.
a special thanks to darren.:)
That's great to hear. Glad I could help :)
I need to post a follow-up to my follow-up. Unfortunately after a couple of successful events in the toilet, things haven't been all that great. Aidan now does probably 3 poos in his undies for every one that he does in the toilet. This is something that he never did in 12 months of wearing undies (he would always ask to have a nappy put on him so that he could do a poo).
I can't work out what's going on - whether there is still some fear associated with the toilet, whether something has changed with his metabolism (the poos now seem to be much more regular) or whether the undie poos are a cry for attention.
Does anyone have any ideas?
I don't know if this will help much and i'm sorry if i'm intruding but when i was a nanny i had a boy who had the same problem, although he was a little younger. All i did was let him use the 'grown up's toilet' which was actully the ensuite in his parents room! That worked a treat because it was special for him to use it and it was out of the way of other people. If you have more than one toilet in your house you could try that! Otherwise i have no idea, sorry! :)
Kids, one step forward, two back... We used up the box of nappies, he held on for two days, then finally when he had a pair of jocks on (he usually wears nothing underneath his clothes), he did a huge one in his undies. Ahhhh, now that was hard to clean up.
So I bought another little bag of nappies, just to get us through christmas and the in-laws...
Another update - he's now back to asking for a nappy each time he needs to do one. We're happy to oblige.... he's a happier boy and it's much less grief for us. At least we've been able to rule out any metabolic change. We do have two toilets in the house so I'll try the 'special toilet' approach and keep you posted.
I forgot to tell you last time we bought the Sorbent kids toilet paper, with all the cute picture. Nat was only aloud to use it if he went to the toilet, that helped a bit too.
He's now completely toilet trained. He hasn't worn a nappy at all for two weeks, no accidents. I'm so proud of him.
He'll get there though Darren, just in his own time:)
Best Wishes
Sarie
Well it's now been around 6 months since my first post on this topic and I think we can finally say HE'S GOT IT !! Just prior to his 4th birthday he got the hang of it and has been doing really well ever since. He is a changed kid - so much happier. Here's the method we employed to help Aidan along his way - I can't tell you which, or indeed if any of the following things did the trick but it may help those that are in the same boat:
1. I sat down with him, drew a picture of him and very simply illustrated how his insides work, what poo is and what happens if your body doesn't get rid of it. I thought he already knew all this but he was very interested !!
2. We prepared him about a month in advance that come pre-school holidays there would be no more nappies and he would have to poo in the toilet.
3. My wife took him out and bought half a dozen cheap junky toys (but don't the kids love 'em) and wrapped them up in front of Aidan, then placed them in a clear 'lucky dip' bowl, which was placed on top of the kitchen cupboards in plain view.
4. We took him to the shop and asked him to pick out some stickers that he would like to use.
5. My wife drew up a sticker chart and explained to him that for each poo in the toilet he would get a sticker. Once he had a full row (three stickers), he would get to choose a prize from the 'lucky dip'.
6. No further mention was made of the stickers or the lucky dip but occasionally we'd remind him that the school holiday deadline was approaching.
It seemed to take a while before he showed his interest in the lucky dip but eventually he was willing to give the toilet a go. There were a couple of stressful "I can't" sessions where we tried to remain calm and neutral and tell him that he could , we had confidence in him etc. and then finally success. We made sure not to make a big deal out of it, just told him we knew he could do it and gave him the sticker. Once the first sticker was earned the next session was still stressful but was an improvement. The next session was no big deal and then of course he got his first lucky dip.
Since then each time has been even easier and he's going much more regularly - up to twice a day when previously he would hang on for 3 or 4 days! We've noticed a definite change in him since.
Well, feel free to shoot this post down as a lot of waffle but I wanted to post it as it may help families that are struggling with toilet fearing toddlers. Good luck !!
Congratulations Darren. I had forgotten to get back here on our progress. We bought a small packet to get us through christmas and after they ran out he started pooing on the toilet. No dramas, he doesn't tell us what he's doing, lock's the door very secretively, comes out washes his hand and that's that. No accidents, no problems. Phew, what a relief I thought he was going to be poo-bound!
I'm so glad I found this, it has been a real eye opener. My 2 year old decided on his own to use a potty/ toilet for wee wees, we couldn't believe how easy it was, but he always waits for nap time when the nappy goes on and he goes to bed, 2 minutes after I leave the room he poos in his nappy.
I was feeling it was really abnormal and I couldn't understand, but now I see how Darren dealt with nappy poos for so long, and I'm happy to realise I need to back right off and stop making a big deal about it, that clearly doesn't help.
So I'll just accept it for now and drop it completely. I just needed to know it was normal.
I like the idea of taking interest in poos of other animals and people. I think I'll get a book called "whose poo is that?" because he likes the other books in that series.
You're a very patient and involved dad, darren.
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