Why Is My Two Year Old Playing with Her Poop...

Well, because she's 2 and doesnt' know any better. Try putting her in footed sleepers until she stops doing it. Welcome to "terrible two's". Good luck.

I know this is incredibly frustrating and unpleasant. You'll be happy to know it's also completely normal. Two year olds don't have the disgust reaction to feces that develops later, so they don't see anything wrong with touching it. What a great consistency, perfect for smearing! And how powerful they feel, that they can make their own clay/fingerpaint!

So how do you stop it? I guarantee you that punishment will just make it worse. Instead, here's your three point plan: Prevent access, stay calm, and fill her need to mess with art.

1. Always put the diaper on backward so she can't undo it.

2. Start always dressing her in
onesies so she can't just reach into her diaper.
3. Supervise her constantly when she's awake.

4. Before you put her in bed, add pjs over the onesie -- the kind that zip up -- but put them on backward, so she cant reach them.

Stay completely calm and loving as you clean and dress her, don't act like it's a punishment, or you'll be giving her incentive to fight with you about it. Just be matter of fact that you're helping her learn not to play with her poop. Tell her "Poop goes in the potty. We don't play with poop. We play with clay."

It's also important that you remove the need to play with poop by giving your child lots of opportunity for messy play. On a daily basis, let her play with playdoh and clay, as well as fingerpaint. She will probably want to smear the clay around, so give her a piece of paper on a cookie sheet with sides, and let her smear to her heart's content. Or give her fingerpaint to play with in the bathtub. Or let her play outside in real mud. Give her lots of positive affirmation about how good that feels: "You love to play with clay. Clay is good to play with."

This will probably break your daughter of her habit, because she is meeting the need to play this way and because she does not have access to poop as a play material.

Please do all this immediately. Feces-smearing has a way of undermining the parent-child relationship and can develop quickly into a habit that otherwise takes months to outgrow.

Good luck,
Dr. Laura

http://www.ahaparenting.com/ask-the-doctor-1/2-year-old-p...

Since she knows it gets your attention, she could be doing it for that reason.

I would recommend watching her more closely. Make sure she's in the room with you at all times. Put a gate on the kitchen doorway if you need to cook dinner.

You can also try to put her in clothes that are hard to take off: A onesie with snaps under her clothes might stop her from being able to get into her diaper.

She's only two. She is driven by her biology to explore everything. Even poop is something new to her. She's discovered it has a nice texture and smears quite easily. It's fun. And it's become forbidden. That adds another level of excitement.

She hasn't been taught that it's dirty or awful. Which I think is a good thing. Poop is natural. Now she needs to be taught the appropriate way of dealing with it. If you could find yourself able to do it, I would let her play in it for a bit while confining where it lands. Talk about the texture etc. while explaining that now that she knows what it is she's to leave it alone.

Spanking her and lecturing her doesn't teach her anything related to how to deal with poop. In fact it can make her even more intent on playing with it. She doesn't understand why you're so angry about it.

I recommend that you go into teaching mode. Be kind, be empathic. Tell her you know it's fun to play with but it's not clean to do so. Have her help you clean it up. It's a lesson that may take a bit of time for her to understand. When you're understanding of her wish to play with it you're making her a part of the solution. You're starting on the same page and you're leading her to the next page.

I would use duct or packing tape and tape her diaper on by wrapping the tape around her waist so that it's more difficult for her to get the diaper off. Prevention is easier. She'll lose interest in her poop eventually.

It doesn't smell bad to her yet, C.. It comes from her, which to her, means it's okay stuff. She is only two. Spanking and drilling into her head about what she views as a part of her body is actually not a good idea. You're teaching her that something is wrong with her. That's not what you mean to teach her, but that indeed IS what she will learn from this.

You need to supervise her until she gets old enough to really understand in her brain that this isn't something that people do. You have potty trained pretty young - this is part of potty training and it's up to you to not leave her alone, even if it is hard to always be there for her.

Meanwhile, get her some playdough and set her up to play with it. Part of the appeal to her is the tactile input she gets from touching her poop. Give her that tactile input by substituting what IS appropriate. And yes, you need to supervise this too so that she doesn't put the playdough where you don't want it...

Good luck,
Dawn

2 year old's are fond to explore things cause she is new to this world. She will grow out of it. When my oldest was 2,she would eat dirt.I would try everything to make her stop.After a while she stopped.And your daughter will too.Give her sometime.And watch her when she go's bathroom.

More importantly, why are you spanking her for doing something pretty normal? Seriously, it sounds like you need some education on child development and positive parenting.

I don't know why, but my mother told me at 18 months I took off my diaper, pooped and smeared it on the front window while she left me alone a minute. She promptly potty trained me.

I would try putting onesies on her backwards under overalls on backwards. If she wears diapers while training duct tape them around the waist, starting and ending in the back so she can't undo it, under the onesies and overalls. You want to make it as difficult as possible for her, I did both of these pre-potty training with my guy. But most importantly of all, don't leave her unattended since that's when she does it.

It's just something they do... not sure why, but they seem to all do it. All you can do is keep letting her it isn't ok & clean it up. It can be really fun to clean-up when they get it in the cracks of something... I had 2 go through this phase at the sametime, but they only did it during nap time & would get it all over their room & crib.

Oh, how I hope the 2 youngest don't go through this phase!

The problem is the mother, not the child.

I had the same issue with my son. Not 100% sure if it is related or not, but he has ADHD & sensory issues, he was worked with by Early Childhood Intervention and this was said to be common. No one had answers or suggestions other than we needed it to stop for health reasons. He did not potty train until 4 due to his delays. That was MY experience, but I thought I would share. Now, because this is just not safe and not an okay practice I actually came here to find help and someone suggested a cold shower. It worked. Now when I say cold I do not mean freezing, but cold to a toddler just enough to make it uncomfortable. He was pissed to say the least, but he never did it again.

Add: Again MY experience, duct tape did not work here he just weasled his hand into his diaper still, clothes did not work because he learned EARLY how to get those off (sensory issues prefers naked time). Not to say they are not valid options that I did not try. As well, reaction - Daddy gave him a 'fun' one and mostly did it with Daddy (when I was at the store or something). I was stone face about clean up and made him help - still did not get the gross/unhealthy factor even with talking about it. So, we dealt with it for about 2months before this solution became the answer and the final answer to this issue.