My son will only poop on the floor! Seriously, I have not read of anyone else experiencing this. My son is only 25 months and he initiated peeing in his potty chair. He pees in there no problem. Number 2 is another story as it with many parents and kids. However, he has training pants, diapers, pull ups, underwear (Thomas the Tank, his fave), and boxer briefs like his dad, but he refuses to wear any of them while awake. We even had epic battles for a few nights just to diaper him and would resort to putting it on him after he fell asleep! Since he refuses to poop on his chair and is nude from waist down...he just goes where ever.
He knows he is supposed to poop in the potty. The first time he pooped was on it, but he was a little constipated so things were sticky and messy; we had to put him in the shower right away kind of messy. We didn't make a big deal out of it. The next time, he came running to me toilet paper and poop in hand, and led me to the bathroom where he himself threw it in the toilet and flushed. Turns out, he had pooped in his bedroom, so I thought it was just because he didn't make it in time. Nope, he now just poops wherever he is when urge strikes. I have tried the Toddler 411 approach,,,acknowledge he is pooping and take him into bathroom to flush and say "this is where we poop". I have tried a book he loves with little boy doing both and getting undies as a reward, he squeals and laughs - loves the book, but still it's on the floor.
He usually knows when he has to go, he'll grab at his behind or on day he was slightly constipated, he would say "uh oh". Obviously, he knows where to go. I have tried to put him on toilet when he shows signs, but he resists and can't force it. This, with his refusal to wear anything on his bottom all day,... I am stymied. If he were afraid or ashamed, he would poop only in diaper or in a hidden spot. Instead, it's like he doesn't trust he'll pull pants or diaper down in time, so he just won't wear anything. Please tell me some one out here has lived through this?
Hi Mamas.
So many interesting and varied responses. Let me try to answer the one question that most probably have and then update you.
Why is my son running around naked from the waist down? it started as an innocent reaction to a minor diaper rash; he usually gets naked buttt time to air everything out. However, one day he he just ran into the bathroom and sat on his potty chair. A couple well-intentioned moms I talked to at work suggested I keep the pants off a little bit more while at home and in three days he was refusing to wear even a diaper. We could only get one on him by holding him down with him kicking, screaming, and crying. I would get so angry then upset that I had to take a time out lol. Putting pants on resulted in another battle. I did not want to destroy what progress and/or him begin to associate potty time with these negative experiences. I know there is eye -rolling here at me cause I'm supposed to be the adult, but it was really better to just let it go.
We have decided after observing a little bit more that constipation may be playing a part; he is confused between signals he gets constipated and when he is not constipated he does not get same urge. It seems to be confusing him. Oh, and he is back in diapers UNTIL he has daily BM. I then let him go naked time for a couple hours then back in diapers. He still has occasional BM accident on floor, but we play up taking his doo doo to toilet, he flushes, we say goodbye to it and he gets a hi five. I try to put it in his potty first to reinforce where he should go.
@Betty. Thanks for suggestion on squatting; we do think is is mainly something physiological going on. However, I can't quite visualize what you mean? Do you mean stool with the regular toilet?
Beyond that, we've just decided he is not developed enough to control the bm though he has the pee pee thing down. Yesterday at his nanas his diaper was a little too wet, so he pullled it off...we didn't have a potty chair so he took the bowl he had been playing and squatted over it not missing at all :-)
Next step: try squatting technique. I have to PM Betty for more info
consult with pediatrician to make sure there is physical problem and see what she recommends for next step
finding some good videos so he sees the digestive process and sees it's okay to go on potty
Hopefully this works because yes it does feel more like house training a puppy. I even bought little plastic buckets and seeing i he would squat over those. Uh uh no luck. At any rate, just thank goodness he is wearing his diaper again without fighting us.
Thanks again for all the helpful suggestions!
It sounds like it is physically easier for him to poop while squatting instead of sitting. I would get a stool that is tall enough for him to put his feet on while he is sitting on the toilet, which also raises his feet to put him into squatting position.
My daughter is 25 months old as well and loves peeing in her potty. She loves the whole dumping it in the big potty and flushing and then giving it to momma or dadda to wash out when done. More often than not she pees half way just to sit right back down and do it again.. she has pooped in the potty as well but sometimes she stands right next to the potty and poops on the floor. Ive come to the conclusion that the position of standing for her is more comfortable and easiar to push out the poop! She is getting much better though.. And pooping in her diaper is also something she refuses to do. she takes her diaper off when a poop is in the works or sometimes holds it if unable to get her diaper off.. she has had big hard BM since she was a baby and ive also come to the conclusion of the poop being too big and hard to come out smoothly when her little butt is in a snug diaper.. sorry bout TMI but maybe this will help.
This is TMI.. but I have to agree with Betty O. Get a stool he can squat on at the potty. I use my kids stool under my feet when i gotta go and need a little bit of a positioning boost. The other thing is he may be making it a game now. My middle kiddo was horrible when learning to poo in the loo. Our housemate had them overnight during Christmas so we could stay in the city and take up on a free room at a nice hotel...we came home and he had magically got him to start going in the loo. To this day he cant tell me how he did it. My guy was not poo'ing on the floor. Thats why i am suspect to thinking you LM is now making a game with it. when he does it dont react. give him gloves and make him apart of the clean up process. even if it is him having to the trash bag or whatever you use to clean it. have him own where he poo's. He will see that cleaning it is no fun!! if anything it will nip the fun in the bum and hopefully he will see it is better to poo where he needs to. Pooping is always the harder thing to learn to do on the toilet. It can be a scary thing for them. When my first was being potty trained my mom who is a teacher(which means nothing of her creditability to anyone but e really I know) always reassured me that when B bop was ready he would just get it. He did the pooping in a pull-up bit for about 6 months, after fully potty training. so it could take time!! hang in there mama!! you ought to be excited he got it at such a young age!! that is something to cheer about!
I know this will sound weird and I'll probably get lambasted for it, but your description sounds like what a puppy owner experiences and has to deal with. So here it is. House train your son. I'm not saying to whack him with a newspaper, but when you catch him pooping in the wrong place, I think some stern "NO"s are in order and teach him to clean it up. It's good he knows where to put it (in the john), but he needs to understand both pee and poop go in the potty. High praise when he gets it done, because he'll get the gist of it and he'll need positive 'feedback'. But I would let him equally know that pooping in his room or just anywhere is not acceptible. Good luck.
what does he do when you leave the house and he has to have pants on? i mean logically...at some point you must get pants on the kid, right?
honestly to me it sounds like it's time to start putting your foot down. no you don't want to make him ashamed, or hide it, or anything like that, but he KNOWS that pooh goes in the toilet - isn't it possible he's deliberately disobeying you? i would explain to him that if we pooh/pee on the floor, then we go to time out. after cleaning up the mess, right to time out. after time out is over, explain again, "you decided to go poopoo on the floor, so you got a time out. next time you need to go poopoo, you need to sit on the toilet, ok?" there comes a time when it's not an "issue" other than the kiddo just not doing as he has been asked. and this is kind of a big one, he needs to understand it's not acceptable. i only say this because of how you say he reacts. it seems like he knows better. 2 is plenty old enough to start having consequences when he disobeys.
having said that, mine didn't pt until three, and when he did, it was all at once, there was no discrimination between pee and poop. i didn't make one, and he never did either so i just let it flow. so to speak lol.
I'm not sure why you are allowing him to run around naked but you can always put him in bibbed pants but put them on backwards so he cannot undo the pants and take them off. Then about every couple hours put him on the potty and just suggest he try to go. If he doesn't just praise him for trying and let him know he can try again in a couple hours. You may have to do this for a couple weeks but he should get the timing and incentive to use the potty. Good luck.
Is there something he likes a lot? For my son it was matchbox cars. Every time he pooped on the potty, he got one. It took a few weeks, but only cost about $25 since they are only $1 each. After a few weeks it is a habit so you can stop the cars.
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