Ask Blogging Baby: do you wake a sleeping pooper?

I don't get it, why don't you just offer an opportunity to poop BEFORE he goes to sleep?

My son is 2.5 and he quite often has to poop before he gets into bed at night. No biggie, we put him on the potty or offer the reducer on the toilet to him before he goes to sleep every single night.

Sometimes he just pees, sometimes he lets loose a big poop. Either way, it's a good habit to get into. No one sleeps very well on a full bladder or bowel.

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My 3 year old daughter also had this problem. She was going to preschool from 9-2 at the time, and was completely potty trained-except she refused to poop in the toilet. She never had an accident, just when she wanted to poop she would yell for a diaper. I would put it on her and she would poop, and then i would take it off and put her underpants back on. I used to worry about what she would do if she were at preschool when that happened.

Luckily, it never seemed to be an issue. (At least she never had to use her 'emergency' pants)

We tried coercing her (if you don't poop in the toilet you don't get x) and bribing her, and nothing seemed to work. Finally, at one point (when she was still 3) she just assented to poop on the toilet. Her daddy was telling her about being a big girl and she agreed to try it. We went crazy showering her with praise and parading her around. After that she was okay with it. (although the first couple times we still had to urge her)

I think either she just decided on her own time it was okay, or maybe seeing other children at preschool helped. Either way, it was definitely her decision. I guess my advice would be to not worry about it too much, that he will poop on the potty someday (probably before he turns 4, but who knows) and to periodically try to bribe him. Oops, forgot to mention that my daughter's first pooping was in a floor potty, not the adult toilet.

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OMG he is such a Heart Throb! Anyway-I think ya gotta give up the jeans until he trains. They are too hard to get off, even if they have snappy legs. Before bed as he winds down I would dress him in his shirt or PJ shirt and diaper. Also in the evening before he falls asleep try a little butt cream, this may help get him cleaner faster when you change him when he's asleep. Are you warming the wipes? It helped me change sleeping toddlers and keep them asleep. I had a similar problem but at naptime.

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My husband would change him - I wouldn't. I just can't stand to wake a sleeping baby but we've never had serious diaper rash issues... Good luck. I think my 4 yr old will go to college in a pull up!

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Agree about the jeans. I only ever put elastic-waist pants on a child who is still working on toilet training.

Yeah, I'd clean the bottom before bed. I'd try not to wake them. If I did, I'd stress that, "If you'd poop in the potty, I wouldn't have to wake you up to clean your butt."

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I'm really interested in your withholding problem. My son is 4 going on 5 and while the problem has lessened in the last year - we still can't get him to push the poop out unless he is secretly plied with mineral oil in his milk. He is now trained, but has to be put on the toilet with lots and lots of yelling on his part. He just doesn't want to poo. The best I can get out of him on his reasons for this is that he's worried it will hurt. He is now averaging a poo every 3 days, and yes that's down from 7-10 - but mostly thanks to the mineral oil.
Do you have a secret that you can share with me on what you did to resolve this?

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Sharon - If he's afraid it will hurt, what are his BM's like? Maybe more fluids would help? Do you have a step stool so he had somewhere to plant his feet while he is pushing? Do you ask him if it *did* hurt after he goes?

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I'm pretty confident that a hurtful BM started all this long ago. However at this point withholding is more natural to him than going, and the control that he can extert over his body is much more casual than in the first year where he would literally shake trying to keep it in (and this is when he was still in diapers!). These days because he is really on mineral oil daily, everything is soft and squishy. I think it's all mental now and trying to get him to realize that the natural responce to bowel urgency is to go, not to withhold. Thanks for the tip on the stool.

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My 3 1/2 year old just potty trained in the weeks since Christmas. He was also holding the poop but would willingly pee in the potty. He actually wanted underpants 24 hours a day, so the poop in the diaper at night was not an option. After a three day hold he begged for a diaper in the middle of the day, and I calmly and sweetly told him that I had given them all away since he was now a big boy. He cried and begged for about 30 minutes as I consoled him, and he finally consented to trying on the potty. No luck. On day six of the hold I gave him one dose of Little Tummy's because he had woken up the night before crying of a Tummy Ache and a Tooshie Ache. He had one poo accident in his underpants that day, but has since(with alot of bribes!) gone in the potty every time. The real breakthrough was that I started telling him he would get a BIG PRIZE for every poo poo in the potty. You have to find their passion. His is airplanes and he gets a $2 small airplane every time he poos on the potty. After one week he now has over 15 new airplanes and he actually will go to the potty on his own and call me after he is finished so that he can retrieve his BIG PRIZE!

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Be careful! Those prizes can backfire with some kids because then you can end up with a child who will not cooperate with toileting if they don't get their prizes.

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