Poop training and sleep training advice?

[TxCat]

DD1 turned 3 yesterday. We did 3-day potty training end of April and have essentially been day-trained since then with very few accidents. However, that's for pee only. DD has only pooped on the potty twice in that whole time - she usually just waits to go during nap or nighttime when she wears pull-ups. With the exception of pooping, DD1 usually has dry pull-ups at nap time now and usually only slightly wet or mildly wet pull-ups in the mornings (they used to be soaked).

Here are my questions:

1) how in the world do I get DD1 to poop in the potty?

2) can I start trying to sleep train her? And if so, just take pull-ups away cold turkey (not nap first and then nighttime)? I'm afraid if I do naps first and leave her in pull-ups at night, she'll just save pooping for nighttime.

Potty training has to be my least favorite aspect of parenting.

[ArizonaGirl]

:hug:

I feel ya, DS is almost 5 and we still deal with accidents and I still have to remind him to go or we get re-enactments of the great flood.

As for your other question, maybe try to encourage a change of time for pooping, have her try to sit on the potty in the morning and before bed and relax to try to encourage pooping.

Whatever you do, DON'T battle with poop training, because you DON'T want her witholding her poop, that is not a battle you want to fight, (take my word for it).

good luck and :hug:

[♥ms.pacman♥]

how in the world do I get DD1 to poop in the potty?


and this, is the 64 million dollar question. :) LOL.

If you search my threads, you will see i dealt with this SAME issue with DS (also newly 3 at the time). He would pee, no problems, but poo was another story. I washed waay too many poopy underwear in those days (thank goodness for my Mini SHower from my cloth diaper days!! that saved me, seriously).

We tried taking away his trains every time he made an accident, awarding him with (highly coveted) trains if pooped on the potty..books..i don't know if any of it worked. i think they just have to come to terms with it mentally. No idea how to convince a 3yo though :)

All i can say is he eventually did it (3y3mo?) and now he NEVER has accidents so there is light at the end of the tunnel. i get how frustrating it is though. there's no logic to it at all..why do they not poop but only pee..the world may never know. but then, i must say, the
nonsense of it all, i guess that's just the tip of the iceberg of the illogicalness (is that a word?) that is the 3-year-old mind... :)

[westwoodmom04]

Are you sure she is ready? If she still poops at night or during naps during the normal course, she may not be ready to lose the diaper/pull-up during those time periods. If not and she seems able to control the time that she goes pee or poo (i.e. hold it to a more convenient time) then she is ready. Pull-ups are just a crutch and neither of my kids were potty trained until we ditched them. I would just put her in training pants during the next long weekend (with no plans for really leaving the house), explain that she was a big girl who will now use the potty for everything and be patient if she has an accident or two. This worked with both my kids who were going nowhere with the pull up, go when you want to approach. There is an excellent Elmo video about using the potty that you can show her to get her ready and excited, if she hasn't seen it already. I did keep my kids in diapers in night time (but not naps) for a few months after they were dry during the day. I actually don't recall any wet diapers, and I just stopped doing it cold turkey, they didn't even notice.

[KrystalS]

Please let me know when you figure it out! DS just turned 3 this week. We also did the 3 day potty training in June and he did really great. He had occasional accidents for a few weeks, by July he was completely pee trained, even for naps and nighttime. In the beginning I really tried to push pooping on the potty and he just wasn't having it, was constipated for several days I finally gave up. He now asks for a pull up and we have been doing this for almost 3 months. He did "accidentally" poop on the potty once and was so proud of himself, but it hasn't happened since. DH thinks it's weird and really wants me to give up pull ups completely but I'm not cleaning poopy underwear every day! And I know DS just isn't quite there yet. I figure it will come eventually. He only goes at home and he doesn't go to preschool or anything yet so it's not a huge issue.

[Philly Mom]

Well we are still a couple months away from potty training and while I am sure I could pee train DD now, she poops while she sleeps. So take this with a grain of salt, but my mom said that both my brothers pee trained 6 months before they pooped train. She did nothing for them to poop train other than provide opportunities to sit on the toilet. She said at around 3.5 they just decided they were ready to poop on the potty.

[TxCat]

Are you sure she is ready? If she still poops at night or during naps during the normal course, she may not be ready to lose the diaper/pull-up during those time periods. If not and she seems able to control the time that she goes pee or poo (i.e. hold it to a more convenient time) then she is ready. Pull-ups are just a crutch and neither of my kids were potty trained until we ditched them. I would just put her in training pants during the next long weekend (with no plans for really leaving the house), explain that she was a big girl who will now use the potty for everything and be patient if she has an accident or two. This worked with both my kids who were going nowhere with the pull up, go when you want to approach. There is an excellent Elmo video about using the potty that you can show her to get her ready and excited, if she hasn't seen it already. I did keep my kids in diapers in night time (but not naps) for a few months after they were dry during the day. I actually don't recall any wet diapers, and I just stopped doing it cold turkey, they didn't even notice.

I think she's ready. She asks to go home early from things like the park because I think she needs to poop (she denies needing to but goes the minute she's in her pull- ups) and she's actually asked specifically for the pull-ups once or twice to poop. I do think the pull-ups are a bit of a crutch at this point.

She used to have constipation issues but I think that's improved with miralax but I'm definitely worried about backsliding with more potty training.

DD1 had her 3 year pedi appt yesterday and I asked her doctor about it. No great advice except that he did say the majority of 3 year olds are still in pull-ups for sleep time and even a significant percentage of 5 year olds are at nighttime as well. :eek: He also admitted that with his son they took pull-ups away for two days at 3.5 yrs old and that was finally the trigger to get him to poop in the potty. And then they gave him his pull-ups back for nighttime with no poop issues.

I think we're going to try ditching the pull-ups this weekend. And I'm going to look for that Elmo video. At least we have a new washing machine if I end up doing laundry all weekend long.

[wellyes]

Do not use pull ups. She does not need them for naps already, right? I never used pull ups with my DD. Just put her on the potty last thing at night and first thing in the morning. There were occasional accidents, but not often. Less than weekly at first, less than monthly before long.

I am using pull ups with DS now and it's a bit of a disaster. I regret introducing them.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

Do not use pull ups. She does not need them for naps already, right? I never used pull ups with my DD. Just put her on the potty last thing at night and first thing in the morning. There were occasional accidents, but not often. Less than weekly at first, less than monthly before long.

I am using pull ups with DS now and it's a bit of a disaster. I regret introducing them.

:yeahthat: We didn't use pull-ups with DS either. I;m not a pullups fan because 1) they're expensive. 2) they leak! especially at night 3) did i mention they're EXPENSIVE?? lol. They come out to be like 50 cents each, which adds up if you use everyday. The kids daycare teachers did not recommend pullups either. They put him in underwear for the day starting at 3, and put diapers at naptime...within a couple weeks he graduated to wearing underwear all day. The pooping in underwear was an issue for a while, but thankfully with our diapersprayer was manageable.

i had bought a case of pullups years ago bc they were on clearance, and figured i'd use them, but ended up selling half of them.

I know some kids can't stay dry at night (DS is dry at night usually but about 10% of the time pees at night), and for that we just use diapers bc i don't want to deal with laundry changing. MUCH cheaper. And, they don't leak!!

[BabyBearsMom]

We used pull ups with DD1 because she really liked sitting on the potty and I really got sick of taking off diapers all the time. But, when we decided it was time to potty train (really DD1 decided), we did the whole shebang all at once. We talked about going pee and poop in the potty and how you have to do it all the time. Then we took away diapers and put her in underwear full time. I had to wash the sheets a few times, but it didn't take long before she was on board. Good luck.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

We used pull ups with DD1 because she really liked sitting on the potty and I really got sick of taking off diapers all the time.
see, that's the thing-my dd has been able to take her diaper off since she was like 18months (which i wasn't too pleased by, lol). she's 2.5 and not PT'ed, but she like sto come home, take off her shoes, pants and then take off her diaper and sit on her bjorn potty. i guess the downside is that with diapers they can't put them back on themselves. but when ds was PTing he liked to take EVERYTHING off (diaper, pants, shoes) to use the potty so not sure it would have helped him anyway.

[BabyBearsMom]

see, that's the thing-my dd has been able to take her diaper off since she was like 18months (which i wasn't too pleased by, lol). she's 2.5 and not PT'ed, but she like sto come home, take off her shoes, pants and then take off her diaper and sit on her bjorn potty. i guess the downside is that with diapers they can't put them back on themselves. but when ds was PTing he liked to take EVERYTHING off (diaper, pants, shoes) to use the potty so not sure it would have helped him anyway.

I should correct myself, you're right the taking off is not bad but the putting back on is a PITA. I either had to lay her on the cold floor to rediaper her or bring her upstairs to the changing table. It was annoying. It was way easier to just pull up the pull ups.

[TxCat]

Yeah, we kept the pull-ups because it felt like such a pain to re-diaper at night and for naps if she wanted to go to the bathroom and also because we thought the underwear-style would be more consistent with PTing. We tried no pull-ups with our initial PTing but I got so tired of doing multiple sheet changes and washings each day (after nap, middle of the night, etc.) that we just decided to do pull-ups temporarily instead. Since I know now that DD can nap without wetting the pull-ups, hopefully we'll be more successful this time around.

DH is on board - we're stopping pull-ups cold turkey today and giving daily miralax to try and avoid constipation. Wish us luck!

[westwoodmom04]

Yeah, we kept the pull-ups because it felt like such a pain to re-diaper at night and for naps if she wanted to go to the bathroom and also because we thought the underwear-style would be more consistent with PTing. We tried no pull-ups with our initial PTing but I got so tired of doing multiple sheet changes and washings each day (after nap, middle of the night, etc.) that we just decided to do pull-ups temporarily instead. Since I know now that DD can nap without wetting the pull-ups, hopefully we'll be more successful this time around.

DH is on board - we're stopping pull-ups cold turkey today and giving daily miralax to try and avoid constipation. Wish us luck!

Good luck, let us know how it goes.