Refusing to Poop on the Potty

She will do it when she is ready, and not a moment sooner. Try easing off the pressure and you may be surprised how quickly she does it on her own. I know how frustrating it can be, though! Hang in there!

Tell your cousin her daughter will not be walking across the stage at her hs graduation with a diaper on! It will come. Some kids just take longer to get it. I probably wouldn't make a big deal out of it. The more pressure she feels, the less likely she will be able to do it.

Just put a diaper on her when it's her 'time'.
Try puttin' her on the pot briefly, but if she won't do it, on with the diaper.
I know it's frustrating, both my boys were late poopin' on the pot. In hindsight, I wished I'd have just followed their lead rather than gettin' all pissed off and frustrated and stressed.

Since eventually they will ALL poop on the potty, EVERYONE does!

We just got through this phase with our 3-year-old who had mastered peeing on the potty since she was 2 1/2 but for the life of her would absolutely resist pooping on the potty, though for one week she was doing it successfully and then something (still don't know what) freaked her out from trying again. We tried sticker rewards, toy rewards ... (we refused to do candy, though). She would wait until naptime or bedtime to poop in her pull-ups, so daycare took her pull-ups away at naptime. She still pooped in her underwear there, but only after trying to hold it all day. In talking with her pediatrician at her 3-year well visit, the doc said that our daughter just needed the right kind of motivation--that it was definitely her way of exerting control.

In the end, I think it was a combination of things that finally got us over the hump. Like a pp mentioned, I decided she needed to face the natural consequences of having an accident. If she pooped her pants, she had to help me clean it up and put her things in the washing machine. We also bought a couple books about going to the potty, including "Everyone Poops." It's still one of her favorites, and got us talking about where poop comes from and why we all poop. Then we set up a longer-term reward system to earn, one-by-one, a set of Wonder Pets beanie babies. She had to poop three times for each Wonder Pet, and got a sticker for each poop along the way to mark her progress. Boy, does she love Wonder Pets, and this started to provide some motivation. We even had the Wonder Pets sing their theme song to her whenever she tried to poop on the potty. Yet still, sometimes we'd hear her at naptime, singing the Wonder Pets song and then announcing that she was poopy. So I put her little potty in her room for naptime and bedtime, and she began to call for help when she needed to poop at those times. And gradually she started to initiate going to the poop to potty.

But I think the final thing (and this is our little unique discovery that worked for her) was that her dad found a book about how to make balloon animals on sale at Borders and then began giving her balloon animals for each poop she made on the potty. And suddenly, one day, that girl decided to do it. Five times in one day!! And then the same thing the next day! And the next! She has not had a poop accident in nearly two months. We don't have to give her a reward for every poop she makes now, but we still make a big deal when she does it. I'm due any day now with baby #2, so we're bracing ourselves in case she regresses with the new baby here. If so, we'll just bring back the rewards and hopefully we'll get back on track.

So in the end, I think it's a combination of your child being ready and really motivated to do it. As well as being patient. I admit I got pretty angry with my daughter at times, but knowing how stubborn she is, this didn't help the situation at all. I think she liked getting that reaction out of me. But the natural consequences (cleaning up after an accident) was a way to help me feel like she could begin to understand my frustration with her accidents and I wouldn't need to lose my temper.

Good luck, hang in there, and she WILL get it eventually!

My daughter went through this phase. And that is just what it is, a phase. I knew my daughter knew what she was doing because she had been going on the potty every day for 3-4 months and then all of a sudden, just wouldn't do it anymore. We were way past the point of going back to diapers, so we just had to deal with the accidents. I agree with Theresa though. I really wish I had just let it be and not made such a big deal about it. I was so angry because I knew she was doing it on purpose and being lazy about it (because she had been doing it successfully for months), but all of the yelling, punishment, cleaning herself up, etc. didn't change a thing. She did it when she was darn good and ready. She was exerting her control over the situation because she knew that NOTHING I did could make her poop on that pot.

I think the advice I would give, especially given the child's age, would be to keep her in underwear and just let her have the control. If she poops in her underwear, I would stand her in the tub and hand her a bunch of wipes and tell her (very matter of factly, no guilt, anger or yelling) that she needs to clean herself and her clothes up if she is going to go in her underwear. Maybe calmly tell her all of the things she could be doing right now if she weren't cleaning up her poop (such as playing with Barbies, coloring, watching her favorite movie, etc) so that she knows that she is missing out by having accidents. Just from experience, it won't help to get angry. Certainly try to continue the positive reinforcements or rewards, but she's just gonna have to do it when she's ready. I wish there was a better answer, but I regret how I handled the situation and don't intend to repeat that process with my son, who is 2 now. Best of luck to your cousin. It's so frustrating, but she'll get it!

I have a similar problem with one of my twin boys, same age. I know it's a control thing. He'll be sitting there playing and I know that he's starting to poop and tell him that if he poops in the potty he'll get x reward but he refuses. It's like he knows that I want him to poop in the potty so he's doing the opposite of what I want him to do. It went the same with pee until I put him back in pull-ups and told him to let me know when he's a big boy and wants to pee in the potty. Within a week he was peeing in the potty by himself. Now I'm trying to figure out how to convey the same message with poop without putting him back in diapers. So, just wanted to let you know that it's a common problem! Oh, and for preschool can she find any type of side-snapping cloth trainers maybe so it's easy for the teachers to clean up? That way the pressure will be off which I'm sure would help the situation.

I agree that pulls ups are a bad idea. I would have her run around at home without underware if possible. Do not put her back in diapers either.To me diapers and pull ups are the same thing. When my son wanted to poop he wanted a diaper and I told him no go in the potty. He stated he did not want to and I said,if you go I will buy you a pillow pet. That is all that it took. My son was totally trained in two months.