Three Year Old Not Fully Potty Trained

Very few three year olds are completely potty trained with no accidents ever happening -particularly boys! Being afraid to poop in the toilet is classic and very normal.

daycares want this....but for boys, full training sometimes doesn't even begin until after 3. Relax...

Nope. Most 3 yr old little boys I know are still struggling in that area.

Uh oh! Call the potty police!
Sheesh!
No, you are not alone. Not even a little bit. Give yourself and your boy a break. :)
My DD didn't train fully until 3.5 and she is very bright (I know-aren't they all?)
I don't even think I will attempt to train my son till he turns 3 (was so much easier to not push it w/ my DD).
If he's doing great at home I would have to imagine 'getting it' at school is right around the corner. School is very busy. Do they take them on a schedule or do they have to ask to go? Seems like that would impact it...
Relax-he will get it when he's ready!

Mine was just over 3.5 years old and he started to really get it. Weird thing was it was during Christmas time. It all clicked and he night trained a month later. It was over and done. He did more work than I did but I did find awesome reward prizes that got his attention. :)

I'm with you - with a girl. We are having a lot of accidents but I know she knows all the steps. Hang in there.

My son was 3.5yrs old and then all of a sudden he just got it. Like almost overnight. He still had accidents at night for years, but that's a whole other story - heavy sleeper, growing bladder etc. I honestly thought it was never going to happen! I started working with him before age 2. I always said that if there was one parenting duty that I could pay someone else for it would be the potty training........
But then my daughter came along and basically trained herself by 2.5 so I guess it evened things out :)

This was my response to another "afraid to poop in the potty" question:

I think that boys can think that poop (as opposed to pee--which is visible for them--not so 'mysterious') is "part of them" and need to know what it is, how it comes out, etc. Let him take a look at his--a-hem--working parts.
The book Once Upon a Potty (boy version) is really good too.

Also, make sure he pants/shorts that he can REALLY easily pull on & off--no hard snaps, buttons, zippers, etc.

And let him try backwards on the toilet--I think they can feel more secure resting arms on the tank.

Good luck!

Ummmm, my son is going to tun 3 on oct. 31 and we just started again this week! He could care less! He has YET to poop in the potty. SIGH, I feel your pain, but what can you do?

Our daughter walked unassisted at 6 months. Could speak in full sentences by the time she was 1 year old, but was not fully potty trained until 3.5 years old. Wasn't for the lack of me trying.. she was just not ready.

I think seeing all of the little potties lined up in day care and the children all going over there and going potty on their own.. began to click for her. Once she was ready, it only took a few days and she was totally trained.

Nope...we went through the same thing. My son was 3 in May and he wanted nothing to do with it! He couldn't start preschool anywhere until he was trained. I basically just forced the issue. We started with using a timer and making him go at 30 minute intervals. Once I knew he knew what it felt like when he needed to go, we really started with the rewards. It actually didn't take all that long for him (maybe a month and a half or so?). I went ahead an put him in school when he stopped having accidents at home and he had accidents both days the first week (he only goes part time), but after that did pretty well. He has had one or two other accidents in the past month or so, but has the hang of it for sure. He is just very strong willed, so if he decides for some reason that he no longer wants to use the potty, well, he doesn't.

It's a lot of stress and I completely understand where you're coming from. If you know for a fact that he can do it at home, then you need to really talk to him about the fact that there are pottys at school and that he needs to tell a grown up that he needs to go. My son just didn't know his teachers very well and would just cry for me when he needed to go potty and end up having an accident. Once he settled in, he was fine. Every once in awhile, he will have an accident on the playground or something because he isn't in the classroom with the potty right there and he gets too busy to tell anyone, but he is defintely getting better.

Talk to his teachers and see if they can start taking him at regular intervals (after snack, lunch, before and after outside play, before nap, etc) and see if he has any more success. They can't force him, but there must be a reason he won't go at school. Try talking to him about it to see if he is uncomfortable about something there. I think my son just wanted me there every time. He would have accidents for my hubby too because he just wanted me. He finally got over it when I talked to him about the fact that he could go potty for other people too and that I didn't need to be there. Sorry you're having a tough time. It is very frustrating. I hope at least a little of this was helpful. Good luck!

Dont feel bad. I have been trying to potty train my daughter since she was 22 months, only because she was showing signs of interest. We have had alot of set backs in the past year such as a move, having a new baby, and daddy being deployed. she is now almost 3.5 and still will not go potty unless we take her in there and put her on the potty. she won't tell us she has to go nor will she tell us if she pottied in her pants. we are very consistant with her, she could just care less. My husband and I have a feeling our 8 month old son will be potty trained before her. LOL

NO WAY! You definitly aren't the only one! Don't stress about this. Its totally normally. My son was fully trained just 2 weeks before turning three and his twin sister STILL isn't trained. (They just turned 3 two weeks ago). I'm not pressuring her or myself to get this done - it only stresses everyone out. Your child will train when he is ready, not when you're ready. Big bummer I know! I wish my daughter would hurry up and train too! It'll happen eventually! Best wishes!

Oh gosh, I'm trying to think of any 3-year-olds I've met who are potty trained all the way! For school, maybe, but accidents, getting distracted, regressing at home, not pooping, sleeping issues are all daily topics of conversation with toddler parents as far as I know. In my son's class of like 12 2-year-olds, 4 didn't move up to the 3 year class this fall because they weren't well enough trained, and at least 2 more I know of I wouldn't call "fully" potty trained. And I don't know the rest well enough to tell you what's happening at home ;-) Plus the *average* age for boys is like 33 months.

As for advice, if he's not having accidents at home, I think this is at least partially on the teacher. At this age it's not like you can do much when he gets home hours later. But I'm not a great one to ask since we have the opposite problem...

My daughter is 3.5 and I started training her at 2 years old. She still has some accidents at daycare, but not many. She isn't night time potty trained at all though. This is my fault because she does sleep with me and I am afraid of having her wet my bed at night. I need to get her back in her own bed somehow to get her trained for night time. That will be a whole seperate post, LOL. I really wouldn't worry about it. Kids will do it when they are ready, nothing we as parents can really force. The way I ended up really getting her daytime trained was on a weekend. She had a pull up on and pooped in it. I told her "that's it" and I made her go bare bottom the whole day and she had no choice but to go on the potty. I also did a potty prize basket. Bought little trinkets and wrapped them in paper. Every time she would go and really go she would get to pick a wrapped prize. I did this for about 2 weeks and stopped. It really helped a lot.

Boys almost always take longer than girls. My son was potty-potty trained shorly after he turned three, but was not "poop" potty trained until maybe 3 years and 8 or 9 months. You should definitely not feel ashamed! And if anybody is making you feel that way than poo on them! :)