So fast forward 4 months to today (wow, it's been a while hasn't it?), and here we are just where we were before: I am again dealing with an even more stubborn than before toddler who poops in her panties, smiles at me and then tells me she needs a new pair. This time around I'm in my second trimester and have WAY more energy and stamina than before so I feel like I can do what will be needed to get the job done. Today alone I had to deal with 3 separate poops and managed to keep my cool. It was a world record.
I know that punnishment is not the best way to go when potty training, but I'm just about at my wits end right now. It is clear to me that she has been pooping herself on purpose because of her reaction after she does it. This has been a classic power struggle... a test of wills if you will. Daughter is trying to see how long she can get away with it, and how many strategies I will go through to try to get her to do it. Here are the methods I have tried thusfar, each met with spectacular failure:
- bribery/rewards
- physical force
- calm discussion
- yelling
- ignoring the problem altogether
- making her "clean it up"
So now here I am thinking to myself, how the hell am I being outsmarted by an almost 3 year old? My new strategy is as follows:
- no more panties or diapers until she poops in the potty. Naked only.
- no more leaving the house until she poops in the potty.
- no more nick jr. computer games until she poops in the potty.
- no more dessert until she poops in the potty.
- no more reward stickers until she poops in the potty.
- no more books at bedtime until she poops in the potty.
I know it probably seems that I'm being overly harsh, but I need several things to take away so that it is a constant reminder to her that I am not going to tolerate her not using the toilet to poop any longer. Wish us luck.
2 comments:
I, too, had a daughter that refused to poop in the potty. She would wait until she was in her room for a nap or bedtime, then poop in her pants.
And would not report it, so you opened the door in the morning to a room that stank to high heaven and might have poop all over the place if it had leaked out of the diaper.
We tried everything the books tell you to. All the positive stuff.
Sometimes, the positive stuff doesn't work.
In the end, we took all the toys/book/stuffed animals out of her room and told her she could earn them back by pooping in the toilet.
By the time she got back her 4 or 5favorite things, the new habit of going to the bathroom to poop was in place.
Hang in there. She will get this. You will not kill her and bury her in the bushes. Nor will you traumatize her for life. And someday, you'll be able to embarrass her in front of her husband by talking about how hard she was to potty train!
I was the same way with my son. I've now trained two of my four kids, the second just barely. Kid #1 would hide out to poop, and no bribe or anything else would work. I reached a breaking point and thought I really was going to kill him (pregnant with #3 at the time, so hormones were a-raging). So I went to pull-ups, just so I didn't have to clean it up any more out of undies. It took us 6 months of training until he got it down, and when we went back to undies it was so nerve-racking for me.
Just hang in there. And yeah, they say not to punish over potty training, but when they know what to do but are refusing to do it, I say punishment is an option.
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