Help with potty training 5 months in

My son is now 3y 6m , he has been potty training for 5 months and we are getting no where .

He cracked doing wees quite easily but will not take him self for a poo and he can have up to 6 poos a day sometimes.

As you can image I am absolutely drained and fed up of cleaning him out of his pooed pants 6 times a day and he also never even lets me know he has poord , he is very vocal and has no difficulty speaking and will come and use the potty and say I need a wee so I don’t understand why he can’t do the same for a poo.

So I decided to get pull ups which would be easier than cleaning up poo out of his pants but now instead he just wees and poos in them like a nappy so we are back to square one .

He is due to start nursery is September and I just don’t think he will have made any progress by then . We have tried everything we can think of even just leaving him without bottoms on .

He will be good and use the potty with pants or bare but then if we need to go out any where he will just poo himself . I’m honestly fed up and don’t know what more to do .

I also have a 5 year old daughter so I can not just sit with him all day .

I don’t know what to do any more ...

[Pasaeoco01]

Hey there, I know how frustrating this must be for you as my son also had problems with bowel movements. He simply wouldn’t go on the potty/toilet and I spent over a year washing pants.

Eventually I was persuaded to speak to the GP who suggested he was constipated which I thought was crazy as I changed him several times a day how could he be constipated?? However, the GP explained encopresis (google it). Simply he had been withholding from using potty/toilet which had caused a ‘backlog’. By having this backlog it stretches the anal canal and dulls the feeling of needing to go which explained why he was having so many accidents.

In order to treat this we did two things - the GP prescribed some laxatives to completely clear him out which admittedly was a nightmare and messy. Then we tackled the issue of using potty/toilet we bought books to read with him and started a reward bag filled with things we knew he couldn’t resist - for this to work it has to be Something that he really wants. We were careful to only allow something from the bag when he actually did go on the toilet - be patient and persistent!!!

Eventually we got there. Although we did have hiccups along the way.

I can appreciate that this may not be the issue with your son but it’s worth exploring and talking to the GP, they can examine his tummy to feel any withholding.

I spent a long tine denying a GP visit was necessary but I do wish we had gone sooner.

Hope this is of some help and hoping you’re on the right path soon.

I’m about to tackle toilet training with my youngest son so I’m dreading it!!!

[Hidden in reply to Pasaeoco01]

Hi yes thank you we have decided to take him to the doctor on Monday . We already have a reward chart and give him stickers etc when he uses the potty .

Like i say we have tried everything , so you are right about going to the GP .

Thanks 😊

[Pasaeoco01 in reply to Hidden]

I think it’s worth the GP visit, at worst there’s nothing to lose. We found our son wasn’t interested in stickers at all. What really motivated him was a bag of small toy dinosaurs (he loves them) and small individually wrapped sweets or choc. Many things say not to reward with food but it worked for us and it was easy to ‘wean’ off the bag once he’d accomplished it.

Fingers crossed the GP can offer some help. Keep us posted.

[AGKG]

Hi. I left my son without pants on in the house . And just kept asking if he needed a poo or a wee. And praised him when he went on the potty

X

[Hidden in reply to AGKG]

Thanks but obviously I have tried this already .

[Pasaeoco01]

Hey there, just wondered how it went with your GP appt? Any good tips or suggestions?x

[Cheekymunchkins]

My little girl was really tricky with toilet training, i ended up doing little drawings of stuff she wanted and she had to complete within a set time frame. I think it helped me also as accidents didn’t matter as much because I had a clear record of her progress. For instance one week I drew a big pair of sandals on a piece of paper and we coloured in sections every week or poo and she had to do one a day. The next week we did a toy car and coloured in the wheels, windows etc. good luck