I need toilet training help!!!

[maria120]

DS is 3.5 and is supposed to start preschool (2 mornings a week for 2 hours) in a few weeks.  He needs to be fully toilet trained in order to go.

We are on day 4 or 5 right now and he does well with telling me when he needs to go pee and will go in the toilet.  The challenges we have are that he has yet to go poop in the toilet.  The only time he will poop is if he has a diaper on (during nap or bedtime).  Also he won't go pee when I'm not with him.  I go to the gym most mornings for an hour and leave him in the day care there.  I've been putting him in a pull-up and telling him to tell the teachers if he has to go.  They also ask him, but he will go in the pull-up rather than use the bathroom.  DH took him to the gym on Sunday and had him wear his underwear and he got paged 3 times (once he peed himself, once he had to go to the bathroom and wanted his dad to take him and once for some other reason that I don't remember).

I'm getting a bit frustrated.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

[papie]

Bribes! Sophia (who is turning 3 tomorrow) gets 2 (canadian) smarties every times she poops in the toilet. She is very excited about that. She even gets them once we get home if she pooped in the toilet at daycare during the day, and she makes sure to let me know that she deserves her smarties.

Also, I would cut the pull-ups completely. Sophia still poops in her underwear regularly, but if she has a pullup, she won't even try to make it to the bathroom.

[looseseal]

We have to ask/make my son go pee. Sometimes he'll tell us, but if he's playing he won't want to leave on his own. I figure that part will come with time. We used a bribe to get him to poop. A toy he really wanted, in plain sight, but he couldn't play with it until he pooped in the potty. It took two weeks after he was pee trained. It was a very long two weeks, it seemed like he would poop in his underwear for the rest of his life. (I may be dramatic, haha.)
I think you just have to be consistent and keep at it. Four or five days isn't that long, even though it seems like it. Good luck!

[maria120]

Thanks ladies! That's encouraging to hear that the poop happened a few weeks after the pee

I have treats for him (a lollipop, Cars stickers, etc) that he really wants and I told him he can't have them until he poops in the toilet.

I agree that I should totally eliminate the pull-ups...I just don't want my workout to be interrupted...lol!

[AHappierHour]

I was in the same situation last week. DD2 would not poop in her potty. She likes candy so I told her if she went poop in her potty I would give her a sucker. She walked right over a pooped. We have been accident free for a week now

[Redpoppy]

I had to get a big prize he earned for pooping. It was a Lego space shuttle ($25) and he needed 50 points to get it. Poop was 3 points and telling us he needed to pee and going was 1 (versus is taking him in and trying).

I put it on the coffee table and he looked longingly at it. He could look at the box as much as he wanted but I reminded him what he needed to do to get it. He got it in under 2 weeks.

PS. My kid responds well to bribery...err...rewards.

[Amy]

We had months between mastering peeing and pooping. We bribed, no dice. He would go to school in underwear and not poop all day, come home and poop in underwear. One day he saw a friend with a watch, wanted one and pooped on the potty for it. I promise I could have offered that bribe a month before and it would have done nothing. He just wasn't ready I guess. It's hard - good luck.

[zarapipe]

Aug 20, 2013 8:38:45 GMT -5 papie said:

Also, I would cut the pull-ups completely. Sophia still poops in her underwear regularly, but if she has a pullup, she won't even try to make it to the bathroom.

Yep. DD pooped her in underwear a few times a week for a few  months. It sucked but she didn't like it and I think it helped her get over of her fear of pooping in the potty.

Hopefully he can get himself on a pooping schedule and only go when he is home. My dd only poops in the evenings.