poop in the potty, poop goes in the potty

[greenemama]

i'm totally at a loss as to what to do. henry (3) has been really good about peeing on the potty. lately he's refusing to do it, telling me he wants a diaper. i tell him that he can wear a cloth diaper and he's furious because he doesn't want to wear "one of those disgusting baby diapers." :hunh he hates plastic pants (who doesn't?) and is annoyed when he wakes up from a nap wearing them over his (dry) underwear. he has never worn cloth dipes, only sposies.

i refuse to waste more money on sposies. is this unreasonable of me? is it unfair to say, "pee in the potty or poop in the potty, or do it in a cloth dipe," when he's not used to cloth dipes and is completely disgusted by using them?

the poop thing is really getting old, too. if i diaper him to poop are we taking steps backward in the potty learning journey? i made a silly chart where he puts stickers on pieces of poop each time he poops in the potty (twice). he was excited and helped make the chart. he wants a "spiderman party" because we got this catalog of birthday party supplies and he's obsessed over the spiderman page. he reads the thing daily. sometimes he reads it while sitting on the potty. i told him we'd have a big party -- "after you stop pooping in your underwear and only pooping on the potty we will have a huge spiderman party with all of this stuff" i said. he keeps telling people we're having a spiderman party and i know he knows what "after you do this, we will do this," means -- this happens all day. "after we eat lunch we will play in the sandbox." he totally knows what i'm talking about but is somehow not connecting the two things. or choosing not to? :shrug he's only pooped on the potty twice in about 2 or 3 months. and he's very regular. :neutral

the other day he peed all over the dining room chair. i cleaned it up. ten minutes later he peed everywhere again. it's really really really hard for me not to go ballistic when this happens. i don't know why i get so mad about it. i need a pee and poop free comfort corner with pee and poop free children (if any at all) in it when these kinds of accidents happen.

i just don't know what he's thinking about. he doesn't tell me he needs to go -- i pick good moments to go, i try to make it fun -- he stands on a stool so he can be tall and pee "like goliath" -- we read books on poop we listen to songs about poop. maybe it's just too much poop?

help! :hissyfit

[Marzipan]

Oooooh, Mollie. I surely don't have any advice for you, but I can imagine how frustrating that is. :hug

[mamaKristin]

Um, are you sure you don't have MY son over there??? Seriously, so much of what you wrote sounds like life at our house right now. We're not totally there with peeing yet either. I'm just getting SO tired of the diapers...and soon to have 3 in diapers freaks the stuffing out of me. I think we are going to go cloth on him after we get back from our trip next week.

:popcorn

[kris10s]

(((mollie)))

look on the bright side, at least you have over the rhine to sing... though that song gets stuck in my head and stays for DAYS.

[This Busy Mom]

Ack... I recognize those lyrics in the subject line.... where did that song come from? was the link lost when we moved??

oh geez... now the song's in my head.

[greenemama]

poopsmith song. (http://www.overtherhine.com/music/mp3rarity/)

:giggle if only reality were so funny.

:hissyfit

[This Busy Mom]

My older kids love this song.

:giggle

[This Busy Mom]

if only reality were so funny.

My oldest was 5 before he got it. Sometimes a sense of humor is a necessity ;) . You can't force them to get it right.

[missythemom]

your post makes me feel better.i am in the same situation but i have a just turned three year old daughter instead. i don't think it is unfair to put him in a cloth dipe it may even provide more insentive.my daughter hates hers too because of the bulk.i try to make it very matter of fact like "i know you don't like these diapers but mommy doesn't like you pooping and peeing in your pants either" and that she can use the potty if she doesn't want to wear diapers anymore.disposable pull ups or diapers are quite useless in the world of potty training at least with my daughter she just uses them to poop and pee in.i don't know what else to do either but i'm right there with you. :hug good luck.

[Lady TS]

That song totally made me :spit :spit :laughtears . I had never heard that before......

and THANKS a LOT for making it stick in my head, lol! And I don't think I'll be letting my kids listen to that song, it might give them some new ideas!

Seriously, though, I was in your shoes about a year and a half ago and will be again in a few months I bet, unless things go differently with ds2.
I was :mad and :hissyfit with ds1 when he would have accidents. I'm ashamed to admit that, but it's a fact. And really, who wants to clean up poop and pee all day long when you know they're capable of using the toilet?

I think some of it was that I was ready for him to grow up and get past the diaper stage already. I had a small baby(ds2) and that just made ds1 seem so much bigger and *not* a baby, but he truly wasn't ready. He knew all the things to do, he just wasn't ready to do them, for whatever reason. Don't know whether that makes sense or not...

I do know that one day it just 'clicked' and then he no longer had daytime accidents(only rarely--like if he waited too long). It was like literally someone flipped a switch and he was like, "ok, I'm ready to do this!". I don't think it was anything I did at all, it was just the right time.

I wouldn't go to disposables of any sort if I was in your position. I'd do cloth because that's what you have available. And since he doesn't like being wet, that will encourage him to go in the potty. Why make it feel good to go in his pants(disposables) if you want him to move on to underwear and using the potty?

FWIW, At home, when ds got more 'trustable' as far as peeing in the potty and not in his pants, I would let him wear those Gerber training pants(we had the only cloth ones and also ones with a vinyl cover) and told him he could sit on the floor in the house(we have linoleum and wood flooring in most rooms) or on this old vinyl chair in the living room or a kitchen chair. In other words, no upholstered furniture to be sitting on and wetting/pooing on. I would give him fleece blankets and stuff that I could easily put in the washer to clean if he had an accident, but he was not to be on the couches.

And I finally backed off and decided to wait until he was ready. Didn't pester him about pottying, because it just wasn't working and it was stressing me out way more than it was worth.

That's my $.05 ;)

[jujubnme]

I agree with putting him in the cloth diapers until he's really ready to try again. It's not uncommon for kids to take emotional steps back for a little while from taking responsibility to potty all by himself. It really is a big responsibility, if you think about it. And having a younger sibling in diapers doesn't help. However, I would take seriously the stigma that the cloth diapers carry in your ds's mind as "baby diapers" or something that's shameful to wear. I would be careful to communicate that the cloth diapers are not "baby" diapers; you're just not using disposables in your house any more. That's what children who aren't going to use the potty wear. If he's still really embarrassed to wear the diapers (especially if they're really obvious for others to notice), I think I might consider another diapering option that is more oriented to preschoolers. I don't think shame is a healthy motivator for going in the potty, and don't think that giving him a less embarrassing option would be counterproductive. I do believe that ultimately all children eventually want to potty in the toilet and move out of diapers. It just varies when they're really ready. (Some children may have some greater physical/emotional barriers to overcome, and eventually need a different intervention... but from what I read, I don't see that as Henry's case.)

And mine is only worth 2 cents. ;)

[greenemama]

thanks tonya, andrea, everyone.

i think that i've made it kind of a baby thing to wear the diapers over the underwear. :bag not really intentionally, i just said that he had a choice: underwear and going on the potty, or wearing a cloth diaper "like jude wears" because sposies are only going to be worn for sleeping at night. i didn't really think about jude's diapers being "disgusting" to him, or even babyish. :banghead on top of that i just feel so angry when i have to clean up poop and pee off of the floor. i really need to deal with my anger in general, but it just seems like the accidents, or intentional peeing/pooping, in his pants is the icing on the cake of my day lately. :blush