My son will be four in Jan. He has been "potty trained" since last Thanksgiving. For months he has been pooping his pants. Usually not a whole lot---just a smearing??? I guess you could say. I am at the end of my rope about it. I have tried everything---spanking, timeout, putting a diaper on him, taking him to the dr, rewarding him, asking him every half hour if he has to go...nothing has worked. He always does the same thing, He never cares about it---unless I mention the diaper. I keep telling him big boys go in the potty and ask him why...he lies and makes up dumb things like his two year old brother told him he couldn't go to the bathroom. I have no clue what to do---do I continue to allow it to happen, put a diaper on him, punish him... I have issues with him anyways. He is UNpunishable. NOTHING works as a punishment or reward---he simply doesn't care. And not just about the potty---all rules in general.
Have you tried cold showers to clean him up after the poop in the underwear? It's not such a punishment as it is a consequence for his choice not to use the toilet.
What about telling him you are going to throw his underwear away?
Your son sounds like a mixture of two of my nephews that are brothers. I will tell you what worked for them and hopefully things will get better one way or another. The older brother was the one that was pooping in his pants, he was 7 at the time, and was choosing to go in his pants so that he didn't have to come inside from playing. We tried all the things you mentioned, nothing worked. At the time I was keeping his two younger siblings that weren't school age yet, so the oldest would be brought home from school for me to clean up, and then he would be out of school the rest of the day. So he had a double reward going on there if he pooped in his pants with not missing play time at recess and getting out of school. He also would do this at home if he happened to need to poop while outside with his brother (the youngest was a girl but toddler age at the time, that's why I'm not saying she was out there also). Anyway, so I started changing him one day after he came home from school and he raised his bottom off the floor and grinned really big, that struck me weird but I wasn't sure how to react. I thought about it and decided he was enjoying the fact he had to be changed the same as his younger siblings, so I decided to take that fun out of the equation. The next time he was brought home with poopy underwear I handed him a box of wet wipes and walked him to the bathroom. I told him if he's old enough to decide to poop in his pants, he's old enough to clean himself up. I told him not to make a mess and shut the door. He stood there staring at me in shock while I shut the door. I watched the clock for five minutes to go by, and then I checked on him, there was poop everywhere. I told him since he was having so much trouble and making such a mess I would help him this time (I wanted it to be an example of understanding and compaction, he knew he was supposed to do it on his own). I told him that if he did this again, it would be his job to clean himself up and the bathroom afterwards. I would handle the underwear regardless, his parents had him doing that and it didn't stop him. He was so disgusted with himself, he didn't want to touch it, and he had a pile of wet wipes on the floor that were a couple of inches high. I reused most of them and gave him a firm talk about it so there wouldn't be a misunderstanding. He never did it again, a few months later his parents asked me what did I do, he hadn't repeated it ever again. I told them about what I had done with him, and they said they would have to remember that in case they needed it in the future, they didn't. That may or may not be something you can do with your 4 yr old, it really depends on his level of reasoning he is currently at. But you could keep it in mind for the future if still needed later on.
Now with my other nephew (the middle child) he was 3 at the time and same as your son, absolutely nothing worked on this child (even positive reenforcement). That is until his dad decided to try something unusual on him. For punishment he had to hold his arms up pararell to the floor (straight out to his sides) and hold them there for an amount of time he dad would decide. My nephew hated that discipline and it worked, he stopped all his notorious bad behavior. We had to remind him to get his arms up repeatedly, but it worked so well that we stopped needing to discipline him, after that a simple firm talk would do the trick for him. I hope some of that helps you. Sorry for the long read.
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my son is 6 and has potty issues help!
- mom2LandL
on Oct. 19, 2010 at 3:28 PM