Potty: Part 2

First things first: We have not had poop in a diaper for, I don't know, three or so weeks. Maybe more. We are SUCCEEDING, in general, at pooping in the potty. I suppose it might seem weird to you, non-parents and parents of children younger than potty-training age, that I continue to use the word “we” when I talk about Asher using the potty, but it would be untrue to say anything otherwise because Dave and I are the ones who deserve about 90 percent of the credit. Yes, technically the poop comes out of Asher, but that's about the only thing he finds himself responsible for at this point, and it is MADDENING.

Asher continues to be completely uninterested in doing anything for himself. He is perfectly happy to be spoon-fed; he is not at all motivated to put on his own clothes or shoes; he has been known to fall to pieces when one of his beloved trains derails off a bridge on the train table. Some of this is due to his perfectionistic nature. (Which: THANK YOU, commenters who also have similar children, as I had no idea other kids were like this and YOU SERIOUSLY MADE MY ENTIRE 2010 BY TELLING ME THEY EXIST.) That means that when he holds his own spoon, he worries that some macaroni might fall on the floor. That means that when he tries to put on his shirt, he might get his head stuck. That means that when his trains fall off the track... oh, honestly, I have no idea why he flips the freak out when the trains fall off the track. I imagine most kids just put them back on and continue playing, but not Asher! This is INSULTING and EMBARRASSING to Asher. He throws himself onto the floor and cries about it and insists that he needs help and sometimes I can convince myself to assist but other times I can get just as stubborn as he is and then we have situation where he insists he can't do it himself and I insist he can and IT NEVER ENDS WELL. (You: Surprise.) Anyway, short story is that this is a kid who doesn't like to correct himself when something goes wrong – he wants it to go RIGHT and he wants it to go right the VERY FIRST TIME.

So the pooping in the potty thing wouldn't be a big deal if when he decided he needed to poop, he would walk calmly over to the potty, pull down his pants, and sit on it. He refuses to do this, because he has to decide for himself when he is ready to want to do something independently. So he refuses to walk over to the potty, refuses to attempt to pull down his pants, refuses to sit unless I lift him by the armpits and place him on it myself. And! This wouldn't be a very big deal, actually, if he pooped when he said he needed to poop. I would gladly continue to pull down his pants for him and arrange his naked butt over the opening of the potty if I only had to do it a few times a day.

BUT THIS IS NOT OUR SITUATION. Instead, about 84,000 times a day, I watch him run in circles. I listen to him yell about how he needs to poop on the potty. About 34,000 of those times, by the time I get him to stop running in circles and yelling, and ask him calmly if he needs to poop in the potty, he says no, and continues doing what he's doing for about three more minutes, which is when he commences running around in circles again and doing this half-whining, half-shouting about the freaking potty. So I drag him back over to it, AGAIN, and pull down his pants, AGAIN, and put him on the thing (I promise you, we are just not at a place where I can bribe or encourage him to do this himself, it is not worth the Epic Tantrum it causes) which is when he starts moaning about how SAD he is about it. “You are sad about it!” he moans. Over and over. “You are SAAAAAAD about it!” And I say, “Why are you sad?” and he says, “You don't WANT to poop in the potty!” and I say, well, do you NEED to poop in the potty? And he says no, and then depending on how angry/frustrated/INSANE I have become, I either make him sit there for a while longer, or I give up and pull his pants up for him (again: no attempts made to have him do this himself, as the last time I tried, there was an Epic Tantrum that got him sent to his room, where he screamed for so long he gave himself a NOSEBLEED, which gave me EXTRA LAUNDRY, so NO, just... NO) and then we repeat the process until roughly 7:30pm, which is when he gets FRANTICALLY urgent and finally produces a turd the size of his thigh within .03 seconds of sitting down. 

And then he's so PLEASED with himself! He gets candy, and can call my mom and tell her about it, and he's so EXCITED about the poop and WHY CAN'T HE SEEM TO REMEMBER HOW EXCITING THE POOP IS?

But, OMG, you guys. This all-day routine with the potty WEARS ME OUT. The constant false alarms... I mean, what do I do? I am following Maureen's suggestion to TRUST Asher and let HIM tell me when he needs to go (because I think he is capable of that, as there has been no poop in the diaper for more than three weeks) but I don't know whether he is just confused about when he needs to go? Or if he COULD go, and is holding himself back? I don't know. And then he produces that... that... LOAF of poop, and I think, well, at least we're clear for a while because how could he POSSIBLY need to poop for the next WEEK after evacuating that from his system, but there we are at 9:30 the next morning, running circles and getting SAAAAD about it again.

Please tell me the urination portion of the program will be much less traumatizing. We haven't even STARTED thinking about that, or he would be sitting on the damn thing TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY.

Comments

[Megan]

I don't think I've ever seen you swear on your blog before. You really must be at loose ends with this!

Sorry, that's all I got. My daughter is only 20 months old, so I'm still in the "not even looking at the toilet, except to make it flush" stage.

[Catherine]

I don't have any helpful tips either. We are trying to potty train, and not having luck. My son woke up one day and started doing it, and did great for a week, and has been backsliding since. He's about to start day care/pre-k 3 days a week, so I'm hoping being around other potty trained kids will help him turn the corner. I just want to bow down to you for not killing him every time he says "you" instead of "I". That would drive me bat-shit CRAZY. Good luck!

[Jacqueline]

I don't have any helpful advice. We paid my first son to use the potty. A quarter for pee and a dollar for poop, but only if he actually produced. Then once a week my mother-in-law took him to the dollar store to spend his money. Sure I threw out a lot of dollar store junk while he wasn't looking, but it was the thought of getting that junk that motivated him. My 2nd son is now 15 months old and we won't be close to potty training for a while. He doesn't walk or talk, and we have another baby due in May so I anticipate that I'll be washing cloth diapers for two for a while to come.

[bethany]

If he usually produces something at about 7:30 pm, I suggest you try to calmly ignore (I know, I know) all the other presumably false alarms. Seriously. Only start paying attention when it's getting close to his usual time. Our son was super easy mostly because he was incredibly regular. I knew when he was going to produce and made sure he was on the potty at that time. The other option is to start feeding him lots of prunes and stuff and then have him sit there all day :)

[Meredith]

it sounds like maybe he's a little constipated, which i've heard can happen when potty training. what i've done is get some metamucil (the pediatrician assured me it is safe) and put a good dose of powder in his juice. it's tasteless and the extra fiber would get things moving along so hopefully when he feels the urge things will come out quicker. just a thought!

[mom2werogers]

OHMAGAH sister, I've got your back! My son is the oldest and is now 7. He is a perfectionist to the nth degree and hates/will not tolerate failure. No spoon until oh 3 1/2 and then the mess would piss him off so bad he'd get down from his booster to come over and hit me because clearly? My fault. Anywho, the peeing for him was easier than the pooping and he wound up on mirilax for 2 years to soften the poop and not make it such a horrific experience. To this day, that boy makes turds the size of a grown man's lower intestine. I have no idea why he doesn't have hemrhoids.
That said, you have MANY MANY battles ahead of you. Before you get to the pee stage, you have to make him pull his pants down himself. Fits or no, nosebleeds or not. I tell you from experience - being a freaky perfectionist and raising one - both of us with anxiety issues (when is it too soon to put your kid on zoloft) you have to push him to try something and let him fail. Otherwise, he'll never know it's okay to fail. Tell him he can go try himself and you'll wait right outside the door. And of COURSE there will be much screaming and crying, but you know with a turd that size once a day will be likely and generally the same time. So he isn't serious until then, but he probably needs to toot or has the sensation of pooping and fights it.

Anywho - that's my two cents. Hang in there. I'd love to tell you it gets better, but um, it just changes. So if change is better then it gets better! :)

[Shannon]

Oh God, I know what you are talking about. I remember going through the pulling the pants up and down more times than seemed possible in a single day. The only thing I can tell you is that it gets better eventually! If you don't implement a no-pants policy at home first. :) Good luck and hang in there!

[Maggie]

As we are also potty training we have many, ah, descriptions of what I suppose you would call the, ah, End Result. But "Loaf of Poop" is the clear winner in this category. My stomach churns just typing it.

Good luck Emily. It won't last FOREVER, right?

[Carla Hinkle]

Wow, that is just about the craziest potty training story I ever heard. Mine were always swearing they DIDN'T have to go, seven ways to Sunday, until the frantic potty dance gave them away and we sped (with varying degrees of success) to the bathroom. So, I don't know ... but if it's been 3 weeks, you're obviously doing something right, so ... carry on!

[heatherw]

Admittedly, it has been a while since potty training was an issue at our house. Sounds like you are a champ, though, and probably don't need my advice....One thing that worked with my perfectionist was a sticker chart. She didn't even care if the stickers added up to a trip to the icecream store, or the toy aisle at Target or whatever. She just liked seeing the stickers accumulate. Talk about accomplishment!
My son loved taking aim at cheerios floating in the bowl, so that was incentive enough for him. Teaching a boy to pee is pretty easy (in my opinion). We used stickers on a chart for pooping with him, too. Now if only I could get him to wipe like he meant it.....

[Susan]

I think he is doing great! Three days with no accidents, that is wonderful. I also think it is great that Asher was able to put words to his feelings by saying he was sad-bless his heart. So if it were me I would look for the signs that he needs to go poop and then tell him-"Asher, it looks like you need to go poop, tell me when you need to go and we can sit on the potty and go poop." Or "When you are ready to go on the potty and get a treat for going poop let me know" Then I would praise him periodically for having a clean diaper with no poop for positive reinforcement. Having said that every kid is different so just trust yourself he is doing great!

[Amanda]

I'm wondering if he understands about gas/farting? Perhaps he's feeling the same sensation and it is confusing him?

That's all I've got!

[shayla]

my middle daughter, who is just a little older than asher, was JUST LIKE THAT. it was absolutely MADDENING!! and she did it with pee too. so we pretty much spent days in the bathroom. the GOOD news is, it doesn't last forever. once she became comfortable with it, she figured out when she really needed to go. i don't remember how long it took b/c right after she was potty trained we had another baby but it wasn't too long. all that to say, this too shall pass. (no pun intended)

[Olivia]

I have a 23 month old daughter and we are going through some of the same things- except she will rarely sit on the potty and produce anything! At 17 months she peed and pooped in the potty for a few days in a row, and since then, she may do it a couple of times a month. Now she goes throughout the day saying "poo poo's coming, poo poo's coming" or "poo poo's stuck" (oh I have a similar story to the one you shared about poor Lucy)...she usually announces this when I am on the phone. SO MANY false alarms that I can relate to how frustrating it is.

Oh well, I know we'll get there eventually. I think it is great you've gone three weeks!

[Kristin]

Potty training sucks. I love how you use words like "loaf" and "thigh" to describe the hard-won poop finale each day. We had to endure the poop dance/false alarm/giant turd of doom stage for more months than I care to remember until someone finally clued me in to Miralax. That worked well, but things really got movin' when another friend recommended Plum Smart juice with extra fiber. One cup of that every morning and all of the drama was gone. Oh, and don't be afraid to teach him to pee standing up. If he leans forward a bit, there won't be any messes and it's SO easy for little boys to use a public bathroom that way without touching the toilet (bonus!). Good luck!

[Joel]

I'm sorry, but I can't stop laughing.
Our son, now 6 didn't stop wearing diapers until well into year 4. Similar situation to you with just not caring about going on the toilet. He still spends 10-20 min on the toilet going poop. I can't really fault him for that though. Our daughter just turned 3 and has been diaper free for at least 3 months. When she needs to poop she says "I need some privacy". 10 seconds after you walk out of the bathroom you hear "I'M DONE!" Fastest poop this side of the Mississippi.

[Margy Lourie]

I have nothing on the potty issues because we still have issues with our 5 year old!! But the oerfectionist part is something that I know well. Our six year son who is our oldest had a lot of the same issues, never wanted to try something new because he was afraid to fail or that he wouldn't do it perfect. At his teacher conference, the teacher said that we should start pointing out when we make mistakes and make it look like no big deal. Also do things wrong on purpose and says whoops no big deal. Now it seems basic but it did help a little bit. Good luck with the potty training, personally I think it is one of the worst parts of being a parent.

[Amelia]

I love your blog but sometimes I've gotta say it makes me terrified for when it's kid time...but in a hilarious way. GOOD LUCK! I'm rooting for you. :)

[Lisa]

omg, I'm laughing so hard. One thing that worked for us was to let him go pantless at home. Even in January. He had a pretty good success rate while pantless. Put pants on, license to poop in said pants. Took close to a year, too. But eventually, he got the hang of it. (Now if only he would start wiping his own bottom....)

[Carrie]

My son is nearly 4 and has JUST started telling us when he has to go to the bathroom. Like you, we were 90% responsible for him not having accidents because we made him sit and try at regular intervals. In the beginning (we started potty training about a month after he turned 3) we would ask him constantly if he had to go and the answer was always "no". Then, literally 5 seconds later he would have an accident. So we stopped asking him and started telling him it was "time to try" every couple of hours, depending on when he last went to the bathroom. So maybe you could set the kitchen timer and tell him when the timer goes off it's time to try to go to the bathroom! Maybe with his perfectionist personality he will like the predictability of it? and you won't be pulling his pants down every 5 minutes :-) I think with boys, it just takes them longer to really understand their body and be able to process when they really have to go.

P.s. Love your blog!!!

[Hairy Farmer Family]

You had me at 'finally produces a turd the size of his thigh'!

My son once excreted a simply enormous turd, much like a gravity-loving firework - onto the carpet, alas. The thud it made as it hit the floor was... mighty.

[Branwen]

Can I just say that I love how Asher refers to himself in the second person! My three year old never did that and I think it is adorable.
Regarding the potty training, don't know what to tell you. My sister had her daughter do "potty practice" (read: sit there for 10 min) if she had an accident but you have the opposite problem. I haven't read the other comments, but what about letting him have an accident, since he gets so excited when he actually poops in the potty, and maybe he'll figure out that he would rather take some initiative than sit in it. Does he throw a tantrum if you refuse to pull down his pants like he does if you refuse to pull up his pants? If so this might just be a horrible idea and of course you know him best but it's just a thought.

Hoping it doesn't last long!

[Carmen]

Oh, this was me & my life seven months ago. Will it help if I say that Kieran now poops & pees without any intervention? So there is light at the end of the tunnel. With K it took about 2 weeks of producing the thigh-sized megaturd before he started just going on his own and letting me know when he was done. Although I do have to wipe - he shows no inclination to attempt that himself. Mostly it's fine, although we go through phases where I have to sit in the bathroom with him while he poops. Which is about as much fun as it sounds. Even better, he ALWAYS has to go in the middle of dinner. Every night, like clockwork. Sometimes it feels as though I will never eat a warm dinner again.

But anyway, I was trying to cheer you up, not make it worse. Things will get better VERY soon. I promise. *hugs*

[Suz]

I hate to give you advice because I'm sure you've got plenty. But what has worked for me and may work for you is spend 2-3 days at home with no clothes on. (Asher, not you, silly). No child likes to poop or pee on himself. One accident is all it takes. When that happens, just very calmly sit him on the potty and say, we do this in the potty, not on ourselves or on the floor. Then just go about your business. Hard part is not being able to go anywhere until either accident or success but this is important. Good luck!

[Chattycricket]

I like what Bethany has to say about trying to direct him to wait until closer to his Regular 7:30 PM Constitutional. It's worth a shot, right? Maybe by taking some of his focus off of the potty during the day, he won't get as worked up about it? And if he has an accident, he has an accident. We also did the pants free method for a while (works well if you're home with the kids and if he's consistently in the house with you or you have the option to keep him around the house for about a week). I think that helps especially with recognizing the need to pee, but it could be a total pain in your ass if you have carpets- we're 99% hardwoods in these parts.

I think you're doing ok. Potty training is a total pill, unless you have one of those kids who randomly lets you know they have to poop and you stick them on the potty at the right time, and they never look back. We don't have those kids. Lady was fine with it, but she REFUSED to go in public so even though she was potty trained, we had to keep her in pullups when we left the house for an extra 6 months until she was physically strong enough to hold it. She STILL won't go in public, thanks to those self flushing toilets that sound like they could suck a cow right down the drain. Mister was great for a week, then he 100% protested the potty. HORRIFIED by the potty, except strangely in public and then ALL OF A SUDDEN he had to go and it HAD to be on the potty. I think it's because he wanted to check out the bathroom in public. Now he's fine on the potty, but I get a lot of false alarms when he tells me he has to poop, and he'll just fart. Or he tells me he has to poop and then he just pees and I'm like WHAT ABOUT THE POOP??

I think so much of potty training is hit or miss. And so much of the misses are INFURIATING. But can I tell you the funniest thing in the world I have ever seen is tiny little Mister buns hanging out when he stands to pee at the potty? (Which, incidentally, I never thought to teach him but Sweetie did)

(for the record, Mister is coordinated to get his clothes OFF, but nowhere NEAR coordinated enough to get them all back on. I've seen him try)