toilet training issues

My son potty trained in less than a day shortly before he turned 3. He
just decided he was ready one day and he's been doing great for two
months now. However, he was just "potty" trained. We have been
unable to get him to poop in the toilet. We've tried having him go
naked and it worked great the first time we tried it. Since then,
it's not worked at all. We watch for signs that he's going to go
and put him on the toilet, but he says he can't and he won't even
try. We've tried having him sit for 15-20 minutes on the toilet and
nothing happens. We broke down and offered candy incentives, and he
doesn't really care. Part of the problem I think is that he's
always been an every other day pooper, and when it's a "poop
day", he poops little bits all day long, not one or two big
movements. That makes it hard to anticipate and leads to multiple
messes. Since he's completely dry, it seems silly to go back to
diapers or pull-ups, but that's what we're doing since cleaning the
messes is so much easier. We've tried to keep it low key and handle
the messes matter-of-factly without getting upset, but that's getting
harder as we get tired of cleaning up all day long. Any ideas on how
we can gently encourage him to poop in the toilet without making it
into a power struggle or do we just wait it out with pull-ups?

Boliath...

Is he pooping in the potty? If so, I'd leave him to do that until he
decided he's ready to do it in the toilet.

annie...

We haven't used a potty. From the start, he wanted to use the big
toilet. His accidents are all in his underwear.

Banty...

How old is he now?

annie...

3 years and 1 month

Boys often train at about 3 1/2 to even four years old, and being trained as far
as poop happens later than training as far as urinating. It sounds like you put
him out of diapers when he was only half ready. And it also sounds like it's

annie...

My other boys figured out both at the same time, so doing it separately
is new to me. He was the one that told us he didn't want to wear
diapers anymore. It's actually been a bit of a struggle to get him
to wear pull-ups, but he's starting to realize that if cleanup goes
faster, he can get back to playing faster.

enough of an issue already that he may be trying to avoid defecation rather than
maintaning his normal schedule. And that can proceed to real problems.

annie...

We haven't made much of an issue out of it. He actually is still on
his normal schedule. He's always been an every other day or every 3
days pooper and it's always been an all day event. It just didn't
bother me as much to change 5 or 6 poopy diapers a day.

So, unless he's really much older, I'd just put him back into diapers and be
done with it until he's really ready. Don't bribe him, don't scold or beg him,
just back up a step. Make sure he knows it's not that he's "failed" or anything
like that.

annie...

We haven't done any of those things. After 3 months though, we're
just getting tired of it and it's getting hard not let out some of
the frustration. That's why we went back to pullups - so we would
not start making it into an issue.

Banty...

Except that he didnt' really potty train. You just got excited when he peed in
the potty. And you thought he was from the same cookie cutter his brothers are
from.

Banty...

Maybe he doesn't know. Or is too absorbed in play to want to go, then finds the
urge is gone.

Banty...

Try that. But also try laying off.

Particularly - I don't know about you, but I'm human and not from Mars, and *I*
sure never could poop at any particular time just because it would be the most
convenient. So stop putting him on the pot and expecting a performance.

annie...

I don't expect him to go exactly when I say or when it's convenient
for me. I am just getting frustrated with events like last night. We
were playing and he got quiet all of a sudden. I asked if he needed to
go to the bathroom. He said yes. When we got there, he had already
pooped in his underwear. He sat on the toilet, peed, and then said he
was done. I cleaned him up, washed out the underwear, and we went back
to playing our game. Twenty minutes later - repeat. Ten minutes
later - repeat. He had a similar series earlier in the day. So,
I'm not trying to get him to poop on command. It would just be nice
if once he started, he could completely finish the job. If he can poop
again so soon, I would assume that he could have pooped it all out ten
minutes earlier if he would have just tried.

Welches...

He sounds like #2, it took her a couple of months to poo in the potty. She's
always not gone every day-as a baby it was once a week! Now it's about once
every 2-3 days.
The main reason was that she liked to poo standing up bending over
something. She would tell me she wanted to go, and I'd ask her "potty or
nappy" and at first she always chose the nappy. Eventually I made some sort
of offer for her-I can't remember what it was, something like going to the
swings if she tried. Once she'd done it once she was reasonably happy to try
every time.
She (until recently) couldn't poo in the toilet, she had to be on a potty.
Although she prefers the toilet to wee now, she still will choose the potty
for poo.
She also used (for about 6 months) have a few false alarms before she would
actually go. She'd say "need a poo" run to the potty, sit down, jump up
almost immediately up, say "no I don't" then go back to playing. This could
happen 3-10 times over sometimes as much as a couple of hours before she
would actually go. I'd make sure she wasn't too far away from the potty and
let her get on with it herself.
I don't think I really did anything other than let her do it her way.
I wouldn't assume though that he could get it all out in one go if he'd
tried. that'll only get you frustrated and him more worried, which won't
help either of you.
Debbie

Jen...

The problem with pushing too hard is that it can sometimes cause
haemorrhoids -- Just something I thought of that you might want to watch
out for.