My child poops in his pants
I have a 2.5yo toddler, who - while very adept at going Number 1 at the potty (since he was 2years, 3 months old, same age as his two older siblings) - is not fond of going Number 2 at the potty. Even his teachers have commented, praising his quick progress at peeing at the potty, but wondering whether he is successfully pooping at home in the potty? He doesn't at school.
On a few occasions, I have cleaned up a crusty brown butt (ew!). But, the other day, when he dropped poo three separate times in his fireman underwear, I thought: c'mon, boy! What is it? Are you uneasy with Number 2 on the potty, sitting instead of standing? Do you hate the sensation? Are you too busy playing to stop, sit, poop, wash hands then go back to playing?
I am curious with other parents' experiences with poop in pants as well as approaches to ensuring butts free of crusty, smooshed poo!
My daughter did this same thing - only after 2 months of successful pooing in the potty. For her, it was a control issue. She can control her poops. the more stressed about it I got, the less she stopped peeing the potty too. At the advice of our pediatrician, we went back to diapers and acted like it was no big deal. Trust me, I didn't want to AT ALL but ultimately I've become cool with diapers again. Now she's showing signs that she wants to go poop in the potty and when we're ready again I'm putting the diapers away forever. But I'm going to wait until she's really, *really* ready.
Posted by: h | May 29, 2012 at 10:33 AM
same thing for my daughter. but i didn't have the sense that it was about control, so much as it was just hard for her to make that shift. changing routine around pooping is harder than changing routine around peeing for everyone, isn't it? if i need to pee on a hike - no problem. if i need to poop? different story. i think kids are not so different. they've been pooping in the predictable comfort of a diaper forever (maybe standing up, maybe always in a private spot), now they're supposed to bare their bums and sit over water (splash was distressing to my girl), probably with an audience. also, the need to pee builds gradually and a kid can check in and notice the feeling many times before finally going. the need to poop can be sudden. my daughter never did anything easily without warning at that age. :)
seems like nearly a year that my daughter wore undies and stayed dry all day - then as soon as we put on the bedtime diaper, she'd poop. that was nice for cleanup, but still frustrating. guess i don't have advice, it just took time for us.
Posted by: jojo | May 29, 2012 at 10:53 AM
my kid hates the cleanup. and won't acknowledge that he cleanup is worse when not using a toilet! i think it's just his 'thing' right now, it will pass on its own. he admits to feeling it comes up on himn quickly, so it's a rush and distruption of an activity. but sometimes, we can see him working on it and he will say 'no' he doesn't have to go! BTW he's 7... this is some regression. i have found the more 'deal' we make of it, the worse it gets... so we have to let it go for now.
Posted by: spottie | May 29, 2012 at 11:01 AM
Your toddler is still very young. Peeing on the potty is a much easier skill to master. Can you monitor the time of day he tends to poop, and maybe have him put on a pull up during those times? I know my daughter was like clockwork with pooping which made the training easier. Then you just have to deal with cleaning up the random ones that occur during the day. But just to put things in perspective, my nieces were not really ever trained by their parents (don't ask...) and still used diapers to poop up until age 4, but they are now healthy teens heading for college and they use the potty every time! ;)
Posted by: Debby | May 29, 2012 at 11:38 AM
Have him sit after meals and make it pleasant...look at a book or something and get in the habit. We had a sticker board in my child's room and whenever he sat on the potty he got to pick a sticker for the board (I had lots of fun ones) when he went on the potty he also got a Hershey's kiss for a treat. After a while it was habit.
Posted by: anon | May 29, 2012 at 12:18 PM
As a preschool teacher, I second the recommendation to back off and allow him to progress at his own pace. 2.7 years old is the *average* age, not the normal age, which means there are plenty of typically developing children who will master the toilet much younger and much older. Try not to compare him to his siblings or friends, each kid will get there in his or her own time. There can be a lot of anxiety around "pooping over space", which is often worsened when they pick up on the external pressures to "get with the program". Let him wear pull ups, remind him casually and regularly, reward success by sharing in his joy and pride in his accomplishments, and brush aside set backs as a normal part of how we learn. And yes, linking trips to the bathroom with meal times is a good move too, although bms can take longer to get through the system and will not necessarily be ready yet. It's still good to help them make the connection that what goes in. must come out. Also, it can help to take notes for a couple of weeks on when he has accidents (what time of day, what's he doing at the time), what he's been eating and where he goes (a lot of kids "hide" when they poop and often in the same spot each time). If you gather a pattern, you can use that to help him along. A potty in his hiding spot or an extra long story in the bathroom at a certain time of day may be all it takes to get him over the hump.
Posted by: ema | May 29, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Agreeing with the chill out/back off/let him progress at his own pace. And ema's observation about hiding.
Also the "two steps forward one (or three) steps back is very, very common and can go on for awhile. My daughter showed deep interest in potty training at about 19 months--she remained locked in the middle stage for almost another year and half. Once she was finally really ready, it became a complete non-issue
He'll poop when he's ready.
Posted by: zumpie | May 29, 2012 at 02:14 PM
Agree with the others to back off. All three of mine were different:
Kid 1: complete control issue. She poop trained first at age 3, but would pee on purpose to control situations for a long time after. It was infuriating, but the more upset I got, the more she did it.
Kid 2: Trained herself - pee and poop at 2 1/2. I didn't have to do anything. She decided to wear underwear, and that was that. She'd sooner die than have an accident.
Kid 3: He pee trained early (age 2), but poop took a LONG time. I got sick of it after a while, and we just went back to diapers for 6 months or so before trying again. He was fully pee trained and partially poop trained by age 3 and 3 months. But he will STILL have accidents sometimes if we are not at home or school (i.e.: his familiar places) and he is distracted. He will be five very soon.
There are so many factors -fear, control, etc. Let them go when they are ready - I promise they'll all be potty trained eventually.
Posted by: Anotheranon | May 29, 2012 at 02:46 PM
The other thing I would add to some very good advice above is assess the potty situation physically: our daughter made the most progress when we gave her a potty seat that made the ring smaller for her smaller bottom, had handles so she could hold on, and when we added a footstool for her feet. While it's easy to release urine while your feet are dangling, it is a little harder to do that with poop because of the idea of pushing the poop out. Having a place to put your feet & your hands makes that a little easier mechanically.
We also had some great poop/potty books that we picked up at consignment stores & she definitely found those that resonated for her. Unfortunately, at first that also meant I spent a lot of time sitting in the bathroom with her until she could relax enough to get the poop out.
Posted by: SusanOR | May 29, 2012 at 04:00 PM
Agreeing about the books----I had a REALLY cute little kids' potty training board book. One time I found my daughter trying to feed them a bottle through the pages! Because she liked it, she wanted to be like them.
Also agree about potty control issues - my daughter was about 4 or 5 (and is short), so we kept her "baby potty" (she was now fine with the big potty) as a bathroom step stool. One day, she used the baby potty (much to my husband's unpleasant discovery).
I asked her why she had done it. She smriked and replied that she "had wanted to be sneaky". Whatever.
Posted by: zumpie | May 29, 2012 at 05:09 PM
Has he ever pooped in the potty before? I had to catch my son in the act and rush him to the potty so he could "finish" and feel the sensation of going on the potty... it worked. We made a huge deal about it, danced and called everyone we knew. He loved the attention and continued from that day on.
Posted by: erin | May 29, 2012 at 08:48 PM
My sons daycare teacher suggested switching to boxers instead of briefs and the whole poop thing stopped...she had noticed he never had accidents when he was not wearing underwear.
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Posted by: air max 90 pas cher | May 29, 2012 at 11:06 PM
My middle child hated pooping on the toilet. (Mostly stemming from 2 incidents in as many days, at 2 different homes--let's just say overflowing toilets was his specialty.)
After a really long time of dealing with this, for whatever reason we discovered that if he sat on the toilet facing the tank (the opposite way most people would sit on the toilet), he had no problem pooping. Weird, but true.
He is 7 now, and it's been awhile since I've watched him poop. While I'm pretty sure he sits on the toilet normally, I am almost positive he now takes off all of his clothes when he has to poop. (Which most run in the family, cause my brother did that 'til he was, like 12.)
Posted by: Tink | May 30, 2012 at 07:30 AM
my son is 3.5 yrs old and has been potty training for about 6 months, our problem was that he was successful (90%) at home but then would not go at daycare/school. He would have 4 days of accidents (potty and poop) at school, then over the weekend would get back to being dry and pooping in the toilet at home...then would be back at school having pee accidents and refusing to poop on the potty. We tried everything, including getting him the exact same potty that we had at home. At the same time we were getting reports of more tantrums and behavior issues from his caregiver. We finally just pulled him from the daycare and kept him home with us and grandparents for almost 2 weeks while slowly transitioning to a new school. He still wears pullups at night and for naps and has only had 2 poop accidents since coming home (one in a pullup and one in underwear). Our fingers are crossed for the new school situation, I don't really know what was causing the problem for him at the old daycare but I am hoping that the daily success that he has had at home for the last 2 weeks carries through for him at the new school.
Posted by: noel | May 30, 2012 at 08:39 AM
The "Elmo Potty Time" video is beautifully done and sweet, and subtley addresses all the confusing mix on control issues, establishing independence, wanting mommy and daddy, but still wanting to be a big kid.
Hang in there. My daughter was #1 trained for months and months before she would go #2 on the toilet at home. But she never had accidents at day care. I thought I would be cleaning up poop forever. But, like many things about raising children, the phase passed almost overnight.
What is the phrase? "The days are long, but the years are short."
Posted by: SJ | May 30, 2012 at 01:18 PM
My toddler had the same problem. The thing that worked best was naked from the waist down at home. She would gladly poop in undies and pants, but being naked made her more aware. Also, she always waits until the comfort of home before pooping, so we just get home and pants off.
Posted by: anony | May 30, 2012 at 05:43 PM
My daughter potty trained herself young, at 18 months. But in stressful situations, she will relapse, even now, at age 5.
And the poop thing, woa! She would hide her accidents - in couch cushions, toy bins, pantry, you name it. She would also get towels to try to clean it up, and then she would fold them -- and put them back in the cupboard!! She was making valient baby efforts to take responsibility for her accidents.
But, oh the horror, of reaching for a hand towel at 6am to dry your face - of walking into a room and spending 10 minutes trying to sniff out the hiding spot, with guests on their way!
My son is 2 and 8 months. He has only pooped in the potty twice and doesn't seem interested in working at it. I am grateful for the diapers, because I always know where the poop will be!!
Posted by: lea | June 01, 2012 at 04:57 AM
In response to Noel's comment, please do the research! Basic potty training readiness checklists and other info related to potty training has made it very clear that you shouldn't expect potty training to keep up when starting a new school. BTW, any chance you had the child at an in home care program in Hillsboro? I'm in a mom's group out in the 'burbs and one of the moms has a small preschool program. She recently had a child with a similar issue yanked out of the program with no notice and no pay - now her family can't afford food or housing, can no longer afford to take a vacation this year and have to give up their car.
Posted by: Samantha | June 01, 2012 at 03:24 PM
@Samantha, I'm a bit mystified as to how one kid being yanked from a home child care program could cause such complete financial upheaval. Full time daycare in centers tops out at $1200 for infants at places known to be more expensive. Even a not fully potty trained toddler would be somewhere around $800 - $900 per month on the upper end.
In home is generally cheaper, so I can't imagine a toddler generating more than $600 - $700 per month for full time. Now granted, the loss of this income would be a hardship....but not quite enough to cause the brink of homeless starvation, car repossession you depict. And if $600 per month changes things that much, I can't imaigne how vacationing was ever a possiblity
Now this is not to say that I think suddenly yanking the kid is right, but generally, parents pay in advance for care, anyway. And if even if not, I'll assume anyone more than 30 days iu arrears is cut from the program.
Also, child care, by nature has a lot of client turn over. I'm just curious how one child caused such upheaval.
Posted by: zumpie | June 01, 2012 at 04:53 PM
I don't know her all that well, I spoke with her a couple of days after this happened and she was pretty upset - more so because one of the parents flipped out on her and it was nasty. She only has a few kids in her program and has kept it that way for a number of reasons. She hasn't had anyone bail like this before I guess and is in a panic.
Posted by: Samantha | June 01, 2012 at 06:02 PM
@Samantha, are you really calling me out for removing my son from a situation that I thought was not working for him? why would I leave him in a situation that could have been emotionally damaging to him?
please get your facts straight.
(from your post) "Basic potty training readiness checklists and other info related to potty training has made it very clear that you shouldn't expect potty training to keep up when starting a new school".
The situation I removed him from was not a new school to him when he started potty training. we moved him to a new environment when he started to display (concerning) behaviors in care that he did not display at home, since moving him the behaviors have stopped. I don't know what was happening in the old school, but he was not thriving there.
Would you leave your child in care if there was even the slightest chance that he/she was being damaged emotionally? I am sorry about your friend in Hillsboro but I hardly think that you have all the facts about that situation.
I responded to this post because I was so thankful to see that our family was not the only ones going through this poop issue and to give my perspective in case anyone else was having the same problem, (a kiddo who refused to go in care but was ok at home) sometimes a change in environment makes a huge difference.
Posted by: noel | June 02, 2012 at 07:45 PM
Why is someone cutting and pasting stuff from other people's posts and translating it into other languages? It seems to be happening on every topic! The one above came from Zumpie's post. Strange.
Posted by: Debby | June 02, 2012 at 08:14 PM
@Debby, I dind't even realize that! Guess I attract weird spammers in all languages. :-)
Posted by: zumpie | June 03, 2012 at 07:51 AM
I only realized it when I did Google translate, and your same typo (iu instead of in) came up! I also translated the other ones and I thought they were just insightful statements but now I realize they were probably just copy-translate-paste too. Not sure why someone would do that. I can understand someone translating for themselves, but...
Posted by: Debby | June 03, 2012 at 10:18 AM
sorry that you took it the wrong way, I don't think you should be blamed for someone else's shitty life and I don't really know either of you. I heard from her that she had asked the parents a couple of times if they were planning to leave, they said no but then did so anyway and she wasn't prepared. That seems mean and a little weird but I don't know. she said something about the dad blowing up at her and being nasty to her son and the other kids there, she had to tell the other parents what happened and was embarrassed. she sounds like she's in a bad place, I feel bad for her. I'm a single mom and I feel for parents that get burned financially. and seeing someone depressed like that, I thought I should speak up. the potty training things I mentioned were about starting new care OR switching care, whatever way a new environment and schedule may enter the picture. The first reason I responded to your ad, my nephew is just over three and his parents thought he had potty training over and done with, he started school, he was in day care and then went to preschool and he started pooping in his undies and wetting his bed at night. His parents flipped out about it and it sounded bad all around
Posted by: Samantha | June 03, 2012 at 09:22 PM
hi everyone - I was told that there's some chit chat here that might be about me as a caregiver. I really don't want anything personal posted here, whether it is "for" or "against" what I do to generate income. I don't appreciate the financial info being discussed, please find a way to remove it or just stop posting it.
Posted by: AG | June 04, 2012 at 06:12 PM
I also wanted to add (in response to "zumpie") that many child care providers (and teachers) are members of the "working poor." For poor families, even $100 can change things and it's surprising how many people have a hard time putting this is perspective. I've done child care out of necessity for the past three years (I have two young children of my own and no job that pays enough to afford child care- I have an advanced degree but the economy doesn't exactly support a job in my field at the moment and I have $50,000 in student loan debt that I'm sitting on). Even when I've taken care of a larger group of kids, we still had to depend on food stamps to survive and taxes for the self-employed take away about 40% of my earnings. There are a number of links online that I'd be happy to post here about the true "cost" of child care. I have no other choice for now so I'm stuck. My husband had to take on a new job two years ago due to the downturn in the economy and this came along with a $20,000 pay cut. This was also done out of necessity. You take what you can when it's available.
Posted by: AG | June 07, 2012 at 03:03 PM
another good example: I took one week off for my maternity leave when our daughter was born and then went straight back to work. I took care of a newborn and up to 6 toddlers and under 5s. We couldn't afford to pay an assistant even $100 per week for PT work (we tried for a while), so I was on my own.
Posted by: AG | June 07, 2012 at 03:06 PM
@AG, I'm well aware that child care isn't a terribly well paying job choice and did acknowledge that any loss of income is a hardship, but with two incomes you probably aren't working poor (unless, obviously, those are both cashier at Walmart positions).
You mentioned your husband took a pay cut of $20K---so he probably makes at least $30K. You mention taxes take about 40% of your income, we all pay roughly that.
You also should see significant tax benefits from working from home at your own business. I'll assume you participate in USDA, since it helps with expenses. If you've taken a 25 year repayment on your student loan, your payment is $347 - considerably less than I pay on credit cards I had to sometimes use while we were down to one income.
On your income: 6 kids is about $3K per month in your income or $36K per year. By my calculations, you and your husband probably earn around $65K - $70K. Which is certainly not rich, but also not "working poor"---and even little higher than the median household income for the area.
While I can understand things are rough, again the loss of around $500 per month (or $300 after taxes) might cancel out your vacation plans (and again, how you were planning if your situation is as dire as you indicate, makes no sense) or dictate osme belt tightening, but not the brink of homeless starvation and need to return your car.
You might want to look at where your money drains are or if your mortgage is simply too high. Or if you have a LOT more bills than you indicate.
And remember, kids come and kids go in daycare---it's the nautre of the business.
Posted by: zumpie | June 07, 2012 at 08:01 PM
I'll add this and then sign off for good. If I take care of 6 kids, the limit for one person by Oregon law, I have to count my own children - and I have 2. So I can only really care for 4 and there are ways to work with this by taking on more PT or occasional/temp care (which I've done). If you do have a high turnover rate (which I don't), your monthly income fluctuates. I spend about 50 hours a week working as a child care provider and I do it all on my own. I don't want to turn this into a rant, but I really don't care for your comments assuming how much money it may take to impact someone's day to day living - I reviewed your math and your estimate re our combined annual income is off (minus) more than 30k. Tell a single mom that you don't understand how $600-700 a month makes a difference. Some people depend on very little money because they have to. I haven't had a vacation in 3 years - it's hard to take one when you've recently filed for bankruptcy, no longer have credit cards because of the bankruptcy and can't keep money in savings because there's really nothing left to put there. My husband and I are taking this vacation because if we don't, we'll go nuts. Driving a rental car into the SW to stay with your in-laws isn't my idea of a vacation, but we're at the point where we have to take time off, we're burnt out and our marriage is suffering. And yes, when you can't make car payments your car can be repossessed - this happened to us during my business hours recently and was something our son saw and relayed to his grandparents (my parents - I lied to them and said it was something he'd made up). I know we just barely scrape over the poverty level mark from what was identified as "poverty level" when I finished our taxes (and when I was working with the USDA program for reimbursement). I am aware of high turnover rates in child care, but when you're shit on it's hard to keep your chin up. Thanks for the financial tips though.
Posted by: AG | June 07, 2012 at 09:29 PM
Hey, at every turn I acknowledged that times are tough. I earn considerably less than I did pre-reccession and have only held my current position for 8 months (after having had a job for 6 months over a three year time period), but again, things don't add up:
You mentioned "try telling a single mother $600 or $700 a month isn't a hardship". 1) I acknowledged that it's absolutely a hardship, but if the loss of that makes you borderline homeless, you need to look at your situation. 2) You aren't a single mom---you're a two income family.
You claim (according to your taxes), that you're barely above poverty level. If that's the case, then your tax rate should be much lower or, with deductions, pretty much nil. If you do pay quarterly taxes, I'd (believe it or not) suggest you stop---because with your husband paying taxes, you surely won't owe anything at the end of the year.
Speaking of the poverty rate, it's $22K for a family of 4 (which I will be the first to say sucks completely). Even if your husband only earns minimum wage, he makes $15K of that - if your in home care for 4 kids only generates $7K per year, you should do something like work opposite schedules ----because $7K per year for 50 hours per week makes zero sense (and indicates you make about $3 per hour, which I believe is the below the going rate for ONE child in child care).
But be well...and sadly, you have a LOT of company nowadays.
Posted by: zumpie | June 08, 2012 at 06:34 AM
yay - our kid care/preschool is no more. thanks for all of the awesome feedback!
Posted by: AG | June 29, 2012 at 09:59 AM
@AG, honestly I'm very sorry to hear that! And surprised, you had only lost one kid. What are your plans now?
Posted by: zumpie | June 29, 2012 at 01:05 PM
@Noel, how's the potty training going? Did the new school get it taken care of? The old daycare sounds like a real mess, good luck!
Posted by: Justine | July 13, 2012 at 05:20 PM