Oh yes. I remember those days. My daughter, who is now 5, did the exact same thing. She would always wait until I had her in a pull-up at bedtime and then call for me 5 minutes after being tucked in. It was like clockwork! All I can say is she stopped that on her own. I don’t remember how long it took, but she did finally just start pooping on the potty.

Ugh, that STINKS. (Shitty pun intended. Whoops there I go again!)

I haven’t reached Potty Training Age yet (and I fear the day) but I did have a nephew who was similar to Riley. His parents tried EVERYTHING and eventually it spread to the extended family: “You can’t sleep at our house if you don’t use the potty,” we’d say.

“Don’t care,” was his consistent reply.

So they waited it out. At four, he was completely, suddenly trained.

No helpful advice, but wanted you to know you’re so not the only one. And those diapers are AWFUL – I feel you there.

I’m joining the wait it out crowd….just keep reminding yourself that he will not be wearing a diaper to bed at 10 years old. :)

I have been reading your blog for a while now, and love it! Our son is 4 and he went through the exact same thing last year right after he turned 3. So frustrating. I don’t remember any specific formula for success, just one day he did poo on the toilet and (like I knew he would!) realized it wasn’t so bad. We used to sit in there per request and read to him, cajole, threaten, bribe…the whole 9 yards. On a funny note, a friend told us a method that had worked for someone she knew, and that is to tell your child that his/her poo is lonely when in a diaper/undies and wants to go to the “poo party” in the toilet with all the other poos. Hard to tell with a straight face, but cool if it works! :-)
Good luck! Enjoy the weather, we are just North of you and not really loving it except for it’s aesthetic value.

It looks like Wisconsin out there! :)

Wow – we have the opposite problem. My almost-3-year-old will poop in the potty, but won’t pee. I’ll never understand it. My MIL told me the potty training schedule for boys is hereditary. My FIL was late, my husband was late, so my son will too. Great.

That video is so cute, I love how dog is just passed out in her bed.

We have about the same amount of snow here, but to us that is just a dusting. We lost power for 2 days over the weekend due to an ice storm. Eric has had no school all week because they have no power. We were actually lucky only losing power for 2 days.

As far as potty training goes, we were in the EXACT same boat as you are. Eric wasn’t poop potty trained until he was 4, he just did not want to do it. He would pee just fine but he would poop in his pants! We ended up putting him in cheapo diapers again hoping that he would realize how much they sucked and stop crapping himself. Not sure how long he stayed in those but it wasn’t long at all, soon after that he pooped in the potty and that was it. I felt weird because all of our friends with kids his age had no problems using the potty, I felt like Eric was the only 3 year old still pooping in his pants.

Riley will be fine, it will happen, like Eric I’m sure he is just taking his time.

No advice on the potty issue, other than to say I have a hard enough time getting my 27 year old boyfriend to aim correctly and not leave sprinkles on the seat for me to sit in later. If I’m having this much trouble with a grown man I can’t imagine what you’re going through with Riley!

Also, that video is priceless. I love how Dylan just totally falls out at the end. Reminds me of my friends and me when we’ve had a bit much to drink but can’t stop laughing at whatever absurdity is hilarious after a case of beer.

We went through that with my oldest (now 7) and are going through new potty issues with the three year old…what worked with the 7yo was just ignoring it until one day (he was nearly four, *deep sigh*) he announced that he didn’t like using pull-ups and…that was it. Just like that.

The 3yo is not there. In fact, if he’s in underwear, he forgets he’s not in his pull-up. With all that entails. He does just fine if we let him run around butt naked all day long, although that means he’s butt… naked… which is not for the weak of heart. Virtually no accidents, however, and he’ll run to the potty for a poop instead of just squeezing it out where he’s standing. But no matter how well he does with the potty as Naked Toddler Extraordinaire, all that gain is lost when he’s in underwear. I’m really quite frustrated. I’m not quite sure how to go forward from here. I’m hoping that one day he has the same epiphany as his older brother…one day in the extremely near future.

Why shouldn’t you show him that you are ‘irritated or disappointed’?
I let my wife have her way with training our first. She went with the ‘kindler, gentler’ approach and ‘he will learn when he’s ready’. Like I had mentioned before, after he turned three and pissed on my floor I let him know in no uncertain terms that he shouldn’t do it again. He never did again. That is until he started wetting his bed when he was six. That’s a funny story I’ll tell if your kids ever start doing that.

Mia does the same thing, but since she has had Other Issues we have chosen to leave well enough alone and ignore it. Sooner or later she’ll have enough, right? Right?

Oh dont you just wanna bottle that laugh! Adorable. My family is in Seattle and snowed in at the moment as well. They thought they had escaped my Midwestern winters by moving West. Suckas!!! : )

We also had pooping reluctance, although my daughter was less than 1 years old, so it wasn’t so much protest as it was uninterest.

We bought several “training underwear”, which are thick cloth underpants sold at JC Penney’s, and that seemed to work better than diapers to identify the need to poop. The other thing you *may* do (I don’t really know) is not change him right away. If it’s an uncomfortable sensation for him, perhaps he’ll want to do something about it?

All in all, the poop reluctance went on for ~3 months, and there were several public episodes (I believe there is still human poop in our neighbor’s yard), but with time, she got the hang of it. So it might just take time.

Ah! I totally feel your pain! I went through this with not one, but two children. What we finally did with both was just to leave them alone. We congratulated them when they used the potty, but didn’t get upset if they used their pull ups. This of course was after months of pleading, begging and bribing to get them to poop in the potty! By dropping the subject we became more relaxed and so did my son and daughter.

One word of warning that we ran into with my daughter – we tired pretty hard with her to poop in the pot – almost a constant battle. She ended up “holding” her poop in for so long that she became constipated – not a situation that you want to end up in.

Oh! You may want to look at getting a soft, padded potty seat that fits on the regular seat. I know that I hate to sit on plastic chairs because they are uncomfortable and we all end up making the kids sit on the potty for awhile to “see if they have to go” and I’m sure his bum is sore.

Good luck and remember that he will not graduate high school in diapers – heck he won’t even graduate kindergarten in them, even though it feels that way.

The video is great. That fucking laugh. Gotta love it!

Oh -we never made a big deal of it or did rewards or anything, by the way. We just sort of sat back and let her figure it out.

The only thing I can suggest is what my parents did with me. Apparently I was the same way, and finally my mother sat me on the toilet and made me stay there until I finally pooped. Apparently there was much wailing, whining, and crying, but eventually I did it, and after I had done it once I never had a problem with it again. But perhaps you’ve already tried this? Or Riley is more stubborn than I am and will just hold it in until the constipation is killing him?

Riley sounds exactly like my nephew, only a year younger. Yes, at 4 years old, my extremely bright, intelligent, stubborn little shit of a nephew was STILL not using the potty. Much like Riley, M would ask for a nap or to go to bed, just so he could have a Pull-Up. He was so damned stubborn, he actually went a full 24-hours without going to the washroom until D panicked that he would do harm to his body and put him in a Pull-Up (at which point he filled two).

They also tried the charts and stickers and prizes and praise and no-more-McDonald’s and examples and talks, all to no avail. Like everyone else has already mentioned, they finally had to wait him out.

At least you’ll have a year on them, though. ;) Good luck!

P.S. Dylan laughing so hard at the end he can’t even stay upright is priceless.

my son did the same thing! he ended up kind of being affraid to poop. He’d hold it for days. I started to get really worried…called the Dr. and everything. He finally let one umm..”slip” in the tub. That freaked him out so bad he never did it again and went in the potty. Kids are weird. I’m going through it again with my daughter who is now 2. She refuses to wear panties to the point of a knock down, drag out fit every time I bring them out. I’m at a loss with her!

We went thru the same thing when our son was 3. We reminded, begged, pleaded, bribed, threatened…you name it, we tried it. Then I told Hubby we needed to just drop it. Sam knew what to do and knew when he had to go. Three days after we shut our mouths and quit pestering him about it, he started going on his own.

I don’t know if it’s our fault or what, but he STILL has issues and he’s almost 6.5. I talked to a friend who was a school nurse and she said it is SO common; it’s a control issue for kids. We finally have just had to bite our tongues because it’s nothing but frustrating for us and who knows what lasting damage we may be doing to him.

Oh do I feel your pain.

My daughter, 3, born in Aug 05. is very similar.

It’s sooo frustrating because she will wear underwear, and pee in the potty no prob and also rarely if ever has accidents. But if she has to poop (and she’s not super regular about it) she will go get a pull up, change into it, go into her room for “privacy” then announce that she is done and could we please change her. soooo frustrating!!!

Clearly, perfectly capable of taking her crap in the toilet but no. flat. out. refuses. no matter what we do. Stubborn that girl is.

If you come up with a solution that works, other than waiting (which I’m trying to do patiently) let me know!

I haven’t read the previous comments – so I’m sorry if this has already been said – but I think it’s a headgame at this point (duh) and you should give him as little emotion as possible… for a while… and *hopefully* whatever fears he has about doing “it” will subside, and you can start again in a really positive reinforced way. I do think any negativity will perpetuate the negativity…. although I can sympathize on how difficult it would be to keep the negativity inside. I don’t think that what he is doing is a rebellious action – I truly think he is scared, for whatever reason… which is really quite common. Unfortunately, I also think that only time and patience will work w/this situation. Sucks, I know.

We are FINALLY getting to the tail end of potty training I think (my son was 3 in Sept.) He didn’t have the EXACT problem you’re dealing with, with him he would do whatever he needed to do if you happened to get him to the potty on time, otherwise he’d just go in his Pull up. FUnny thing though, he’s been completely night trained for almost a year! So I knew he was physically ready and could hold it.

What I finally did was put his little potty right next to the big potty and took him every 30 min and sat down next to him on the toilet like I was going too.

Also, I put him in underpants ALL THE TIME. I threw away all the pull ups and the first day he ASKED for a diaper, and I refused. This went on for about two (MESSY) weeks and finally, he just stopped and only has a couple of accidents a week now.

I don’t call my son potty trained though because he RARELY initiates a potty trip, I usually take him to the potty every two hours or so, but he’s almost always dry in between visits.

Potty training has been SO AWFUL for us. ANd I have a 6 month old son now, I don’t even want to THINK about going through this again!

Oh, this probably makes me an awful parent, using food as reward, but when our son poops on the potty, he gets a cupcake. He tries EVERY DAY. He can’t always do it, but now he wants to try. This was the big problem for us. I know once he does it several times everything will be fine, but he just wouldn’t even attempt.

Also, he hates being wiped after a diaper change, so we tried to impress upon him that there’s much less wiping because pooping on the potty is cleaner than having poo smeared everywhere by the diaper.

He’s done it three or so times now, and he’s starting to become impressed by the size and shape of his poops, so we’ve got that going for us. “Hey, let’s use the potty so we can see what a big poop you make!” Parenting is so dignifying, isn’t it?

My friend’s little boy was at this stage and she just started making him clean himself up. I don’t know if she had him in underpants all the time or what. He started using the potty for pooping shortly thereafter.

Oh, and my dad lives in Seattle, and keeps emailing me about snow, and I was all, “whatever” but these pictures have convinced me to take him seriously!

This may be gross, but when we got to this stage with my daughter I had an epiphany. I took the child (at arm’s length) and put her and her poop filled panties in the bathtub and made her remove her soiled clothes herself. It worked like a charm. She never pooped in her pants again. The best part is you can hose him off when he’s done.

We went through this with my daughter. We had to finally give up and let him take control. It was hard as hell to do this, but once we let up – he did it on his own. He was 4.

I think potty training was more difficult than anything else we have done as parents. He would flat out refuse to do it. No matter what we did, he would not use the potty.

It was so frustrating. We tried everything. People always said we should make him do it. We tried that and he became so constipated that he needed a doctor’s intervention to help him out.

He will eventually get it! I thought that day would never come, but it finally did and it is marvelous.

Well not that I know anything at all but if you left him in his messy diaper all night long rather than change him right away, would that have any sort of effect? I know it would really reek and you’d have a huge mess to change later, but doesn’t he get uncomfortable enough with it to realize he’d rather poop somewhere other than in his sleepers??

On another note, love the endless entertainment value of the peekaboo game… how long can they do that nonstop?

Also love how dog seems rather nonfazed (is that even a word?) about it all.

::Sigh::
If you figure it out, let me know. Peanut will only pee/poop with other people. As in, rarely with me. She will do both with H. Today BFF was over and she asked to go potty with her. Clearly I’m the worst person in the world to advise you on this one, since my kid will go with anyone. but. me.
::throws hands in air in utter defeat::

I’m right there with ya on the “won’t poop on the potty” thing. She pees without an issue and she’s had that part under control for a very long time now. My daughter and Riley are only a few weeks apart, she turned 3 on 8/24.

I can not, to save my life, get her to poop on the potty. She will go in her panties, pull up, whatever. If we try to get her to sit on the potty, major freak out occurs. If we bribe her, she doesn’t want whatever it is. I’ve caught her getting ready to go and run her to the potty – she’ll suck that puppy back up so fast just in refusal of the potty and then hold it for another day or so. She’ll go DAYS without pooping. She has actually gone a couple times (didn’t realize it was gonna happen, I think) and has been rewarded – didn’t help. I’ve made her clean up the mess (as best she can) and that hasn’t helped.

At this point, I just keep telling myself that she’ll eventually get past this. I tell her that if she needs to go, I’ll get a pull up so she at least doesn’t ruin more panties.

So, no help, but we can commiserate together!

Oh, and she even missed a killer opportunity for a preschool this year because of this.

Oh, the potty training drama. Nothing drove me bat-sh*t crazier than the battles over pooping in the potty. It’s also when I felt like the worst mom ever.

My son was the same as yours — only pooping in his Pull-Up — and after a while I just let it go and figured it was saving both of us a lot of stress. I know it’s cold comfort at this point, but not being fully potty trained at 3.5 is really common, especially in boys. Hang in there, pick your battles, and all that other hollow-sounding mom advice. :)

FYI, my son is now 6.5 and STILL wears a diaper at night. Sigh. He’ll get there soon, and so will Riley.

Just to make it clear, my son’s not pooping in his diaper at 6.5! (didn’t mean to scare you.) Riley will get it in the next six months I bet. Best of luck !

A few ideas:

1. comfy little potty seat, with handles, if you don’t already have one. Just in case he’s afraid of falling in.

2. bribery. Promise an immediate trip to Target to get a coveted toy. If he does it, throw him in the car and go, no matter what the hour. Celebrate with candy, cake, whatever it takes.(this worked for us after great resistance).

3. Buy a doll that poops and let him feed it and put it on the potty. I think there’s one called Baby Alive or something.

4. Get the book “Everyone Poops.”

5. Miralax. Good idea if you think that he may have had a painful poop experience that’s stuck in his brain and made him afraid to go again. It’s harmless and tasteless, mixes with juice. You can’t OD a kid on it, it passes right through. Get him going on that for a few days and eventually he’ll forget what it was like to have painful poops. Then try again.

We would sit the boy on the potty when we thought a poop was “on its way.” (like after mealtime, or in your case bedtime)

We would sit with him with a STACK of books. And just read and read and read and read.

Until he pooped.

And then he got a temp tattoo. Every time he freakin pooped. Needless to say, the kid was covered in tattoos.

It worked. He was out of diapers within a week.

Then we had to break the tattoo habit, but thats another story….

My son will never be toilet trained, it feels like. He has major sensory issues and we are just not there yet, I fear. But one thing we do is that once he has his bath and gets changed into his pajamas and we say prayers and sing to him, he is staying in his room until morning. We don’t go in, he doesn’t come out, until morning. I think it might be worth it to try and explain the schedule to Riley and then stick to it. If he goes moments after you put him in his diaper, it sounds like he knows what he’s doing. I would offer the potty every night, let him know that this is his chance, and then let him know he can have another chance to go in the morning. It sucks, I know, I actually miss my son all night but what can you do? We have to make it clear to him that nighttime is for sleeping and this is the only way we have found to do it. Good luck, I hate hate hate thinking about poop and I can’t believe how much I do! That and sleep is all I think about anymore.

It feels so surreal looking at your pictures of snow. I live in Australia and it is supposedly supposed to get up to 37 Degrees Celsius today.

Its good that you are muddling along tho. I miss snow!

Hi! I don’t comment very often, but I thought I would now. I don’t have kids and I’ve never potty trained anyone. BUT, I was wondering if it might help to change the color of the water in the toilet. Like I know you can buy those toilet cleaner balls that turn water blue or green and maybe the novelty would help? Or use food coloring and dye the water purple. I don’t know, but I’d try something weird like that cause I’m nutty.

Also, when I was a kid I was scared of the noisy flush. I know there are training toilets you can buy, that don’t flush obviously, and that would be gross to clean. But maybe if he practices on a toilet that doesn’t have water he’d be less nervous to poo on a toilet with water?

Good luck!

Well, I know with Reeve (also stubborn as a damned mule. I blame his mother’s side…), we were as scattershot in our approach as y’all have been. Finally, we just got sick of it, said “fuck it, he’ll do it when he’s ready.” And lo and behold, he did, not long after. My theory is that when we stopped pushing him, going to the potty became something he took more “ownership” of (basically, he started thinking it was HIS idea to do it). Shortly after making that breakthrough, he also announced to us one night about eight or nine months ago that he was DONE wearing nighttime Pull-ups. And he’s had no accidents that were of his own making in that regard (though I do still grab him about midnight and take him into the bathroom for a still-mostly-asleep pee session).

The only thing that worked with my third son was to have him carry his dirty diaper to the toilet and dump its contents. The very next day he preferred to just sit on the potty than to have to go through the extra steps. He is the only one of mine that Ive had trouble with but this has seemed to cure it.

wait…did you say DEMONSTRATING?? Am I seriously going to have to demonstrate the art of pooping to my son? Because if so, I’m totally leaving that one to the other penis having person in the house.

Damn that laugh is infectious…impossible to watch that video without giggling – and is that DOG snoozing in the background? Too funny!

I’m gonna say forget the pull up, let him poop in his underwear, and make him clean it up himself. Sheets, underwear, his own bottom, everything. Then hem and haw the whole time saying things like “Ah man, that stinks. When I have accidents I have to clean it up too. Don’t forget to wipe!”

It’ll be annoying for 2 or 3 nights, and then he’ll magically poop in the toilet.

I tend not to give advice about potty training, because I kinda sucked at it. But, Riley sounds EXACTLY like my daughter. She wouldn’t poop in the potty, waited for her bed time pull up, and said it was just because she “didn’t like it.” We just waited her out. I changed her poopy ass (and went back and forth betwen tsk-tsking and that’s okaying and even a little IF YOU LIKE TO POOP IN YOUR EFFING DIAPER, THEN YOU CAN SIT IN YOUR POOPY EFFING DIAPER ALL EFFING DAY-ing) and when she was about 3 1/2 I gave up. I just quit asking her to do it. It was probably less than a month after I gave up that she decided that yep, I’v won this battle and then she started pooping on the toilet.

What I’m saying is, hang in there. It really worked for us to just GIVE UP and accept the fact that the kid is going to be going to college with a pack of pull-ups. If Riley is anything like my daughter, he isn’t going to poop in the potty until he knows he’s got you beat. So, just let him beat you. :)

Sorry, no advice here. Just wanted to let you know that we are going through the EXACT same thing with our son, who will turn three a week from Saturday. He is a champ when it comes to peeing and wearing underwear all day, but somehow he manages to hold his poops until he is in a diaper for either nap or nighttime, usually nap. We, too, beg and plead with him to please at least TRY and take a dump before we put a diaper on him, but he just isn’t interested.

Apparently this isn’t uncommon. It’s a real pain in the ass (isn’t it awful to wipe feces from your son’s testicles as you discuss the WEATHER with him?). I’m thinking that maybe we will have to take away the diapers altogether and go through some messy sheets and toss some underwear in the trash, leaving him no choice but to take a dump on the pot like a REAL man.

Do keep us posted. Have you tried giving him a cigarette and a magazine? ;)

I’m still in the just deal with the shit diaper after he goes to bed camp and wait it out. He’ll go eventually. I just wouldn’t stop telling him to try before bed if that is when he mostly goes.

Or you could give him a laxative and….well that’s not such a hot idea.

prune juice or an enema and then sit him on the loo until he goes.

As usual I can relate to EXACTLY what you describe. My son turned 3 in August and can pee no problem in the toilet 24/7 but just keeps on pooping in his underwear. GOOD TIMES! Daycare isn’t willing to use stickers, chocolate or any other reward and quitting my job until he figures it out isn’t an option. Good god, I hope it’s soon!

Um, maybe have JB take him out in the woods for a bonding father-son ‘poofest’? Maybe when he realizes that it nicer when he’s not poo-ing ON himself, he’d dig it?

Ok, I have no kids. Just a thought.

I remember my oldest was 3 years and 6 months (almost to the day)….we tried EVERYTHING….but when he reached that age, it happened….and I don’t know what the difference was….so take heart….also,that video was great….love the laughing Dylan….and how the video ends with the head clunk….hes at the age he needs to be bubblewrapped.