Hi there. I’m Dana. Today we’re gonna talk about a topic that makes a few people cringe a little. But hey, it’s a bodily function, and so let’s just get comfortable with it. We’re gonna talk today about potty training and why a lot of toddlers are afraid to go poop.

There, I said it, and I’m gonna say it a few more times. So it is common, first of all. It’s very, very, very common for a toddler in the potty training phase to go through a little spell of not wanting to go poop in the toilet. And I’m gonna give you a few tips to get through this.

The first thing is to try to make it as casual as possible. So take the pressure off. I say this a lot in just about everything parenting, that the more you try to bribe and push and force things, often the worse that they turn out. So we don’t wanna make this a big deal. We are keeping an eye on it, right? We wanna encourage. We wanna support, but we don’t wanna force or push our children into this. Another tip would be to let them see that going poop is no big deal. And so, again, please get comfortable with this idea. Have them come into the bathroom with you or your partner and watch you have a bowel movement, and you can explain what’s happening, that you can feel, here it comes, and it’s gonna make a little bit of a splash in the toilet, and then let’s look and see and wave bye bye to it as it goes down.

This is called modeling. So what you’re doing is showing your child that there’s nothing scary about this, that you do it too, that the other parent does it as well, if brother and sister are around, that brother and sister do it too and just get them to start feeling comfortable with the idea that everybody does this. Another little tip or strategy is to put some paper towel down or some toilet paper in the bowl before your child has a bowel movement because sometimes if it makes a splash or if a little bit of water touches their behind when they’re doing this, that can cause them to be a little bit afraid or upset.

Some kids feel like I’m losing a piece of myself, right, that somehow a piece of myself is falling into the toilet. So just making sure that they’re aware that this is just food, right, the food that we eat. Explain a little bit of the process. That the food that we eat goes into our stomach and goes into our intestine and then eventually some of it comes out in a poop. That’s just normal and fine. If you find that your toddler is waiting for a specific time of day, my middle son, we went through this with him, where he would wait until he got his diaper on at bedtime and then he would have his bowel movement.

Again, I didn’t make a big deal about this. I knew that with time he would eventually start. The body is the body. It doesn’t always wait until exactly the right time to do this. I knew that there would come a time when he would have to have a poop at some other point during the day and would start to learn that it was okay, that it was safe, that we didn’t need to have our diaper on in order for this to happen. You can try manipulating it a little bit by giving them foods. I find that oatmeal, or bananas, or lots of fruit, if they eat lots of vegetables, kinda up the vegetable intake, get a lot of fiber kinda coursing through the system, which can then stimulate a couple of more bowel movements at different times throughout the day. And also make sure you’re keeping your child hydrated.

If they get constipated, if there’s a little bit of constipation happening and they do have a bowel movement, it can hurt sometimes, or they might have to push hard and that feels uncomfortable and it might hurt a little bit when it comes out. So that can, that is often how this starts is with just that little constipation sends a signal that this hurts or this is painful in some way. So keeping them really hydrated throughout this phase is gonna help make this process easier.

And I promise, this will not last forever. You will not have a 12 year old leaving the house in a diaper. They all get through it. It’s just a matter of time and patience and a little bit of coaching on your end and everything will be okay.

Thanks for watching today, sleep well.