# Potty-Trained 3-year-old pooping (a little) in pants...



## redpajama (Jan 22, 2007)

My son potty-trained around 22-23 months. He has been very solidly (by that I just mean not having accidents) trained for about 14 months now (he's 37 months). For the last 6-9 months, he doesn't tell us when he needs to go potty (assuming we're at home)--he just goes. If he poops, he calls us afterwards to come wipe him.

About a month ago, he brought me his pants/underwear and said he had pooped in them and needed clean ones. There was just a tiny bit of poop in them, and then he finished pooping on the potty. I assumed he just guessed wrong about a fart







and didn't think anything of it.

A few days later, it happened again. I thought it was weird, but didn't think much of it. Just cleaned him up and got him clean pants.

Now it's happening pretty much every time he poops. He goes a tiny bit in his underwear--enough to leave a little "streak" in his underwear, but enough that he definitely needs clean underwear (we usually don't need to change his pants. I've asked him why he keeps pooping in his pants, and he says (very matter-of-factly), "Because I'm not potty trained."

My first thought was that perhaps he was wanting a little more attention--his 2.5-year-old cousin is potty-training and getting a lot of attention for it right now, and my 16-month-old daughter pees on the potty a few times a week, and we always make a sort of "big deal" out of it when she does it. But I am really doubting this theory, because he doesn't make a big deal out of it when it happens--and he's not having any peeing accidents. He typically goes and puts the dirty underwear in the diaper pail, finishes pooping on the potty, calls me to wipe him as usual, and then he'll go grab a clean pair of underwear from his room. So he's not maximizing the attention-getting potential of the situation at all, which makes me think he's not doing it for attention.

Any ideas? His poop, for what it's worth, seems normal to me--not particularly loose or anything like that. I've asked him if his tummy hurts, or if he thought he was just going to pass gas when it happened...he just tells me he's "not potty trained."


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## Crazy Basil (May 22, 2006)

Our DS went through a very similar phase. He just turned 4, but was a bit less than 3-1/2 at the time. Like yours he'd been using the potty regularly with very few accidents for a good while and then suddenly started pooping in his pants again.

It was so frustrating for us, DP in particular. We looked at diet, anything that might be going on at preschool, if we'd changed anything at home... everything, and couldn't find anything that really seemed to be causing it.

We tried all sorts of things, had some less than stellar moments where we got frustrated and upset, tried praising for times he did make it to the potty, tried making no issue whatsoever about it, etc. In the end I don't know if anything we did made a difference or if it was just a phase. It seems like a lot of kids go through something similar at about that age.

In any event, we had lots of conversations about paying attention to "that feeling in your tummy" when you need to poop and making sure you stop what you're doing and go to the bathroom instead of continuing to play. We actually had that conversation every morning for at least a month. We started doing regular, frequent potty break bathroom reminders again at home, rather than letting him go by himself. We had him help clean up any mess as much as he could, ie rinsing out his underpants. We gave high fives/extra hugs/etc for times he made it to the potty. And, while I don't feel great about this, when it was really bad we agreed on a deal with him that if he pooped in his pants he didn't get bedtime stories that night.

After a while, it did get better. When he made it a whole week with no accidents we made sure to praise him, without making too huge a deal about it. By now it's been a couple months with no regular accidents, a few here and there, but not every. single. time. like it was before.

Like I said, there seem to be similar threads that pop up about about the same issue at about the same age, so I have a hunch it's a somewhat normal phase. Good luck! I know it's frustrating. Just when you think you're in the clear, you get hit with poopy pants again!


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## abi&ben'smom (Oct 28, 2007)

Sounds like he's trying to hold it for too long. Is he doing something really fun that he doesn't want to interrupt?


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## Periwinkle (Feb 27, 2003)

Sounds totally normal. (I posted on your other thread - you can forget what I wrote, lol) I'd just think he's more into things right now that need his focus and is forgetting to poo as quickly as he should. And the friend who's potty training might be helping that like you said. Why not have fun and pull out all the stops - go get the M&Ms or star stickers or whatever and let him have one when he poops (completely) on the potty again. Could be a fun way to get him over this normal backsliding/hump.


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## redpajama (Jan 22, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Periwinkle* 
Sounds totally normal. (I posted on your other thread - you can forget what I wrote, lol) I'd just think he's more into things right now that need his focus and is forgetting to poo as quickly as he should. And the friend who's potty training might be helping that like you said. Why not have fun and pull out all the stops - go get the M&Ms or star stickers or whatever and let him have one when he poops (completely) on the potty again. Could be a fun way to get him over this normal backsliding/hump.

Oh--I just responded to you on the *other* thread, so you can forget what *I* wrote there! =)


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## redpajama (Jan 22, 2007)

Thanks for the suggestions--maybe he is just getting distracted/waiting too long to go. I reminded him this morning that if he needed to poop, he could stop what he's doing and go poop, and then come back to it. And he said, "Yeah, because it hurts when I poop in my pants." (He got a little bit of a "diaper rash" from having a little residual poop between his butt cheeks, before he told me about it, and my husband explained--as only my chemist-husband can--how the poop having contact with his skin causes that painful rash). So perhaps he'll be over it. We'll see.

Thanks again for all the responses.


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## laoxinat (Sep 17, 2007)

Well, at least he's honest







ITA- it sounds like he's engaged in an activity and just doesn't want to stop. DD did this (with peeing) forever..... It'll 'pass'


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