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EEK! He plays with his poo!

Kathleen - posted on 02/18/2009 ( 1 mom has responded )

23

4

We started potty training my son last summer (he turned 2 in October) when he found he could remove his own diapers and thought it was fun to play with the poo. We introduced him to the potty and he's good at going - he knows how, he likes doing it, but he doesn't tell us when he needs to go. The problem is, he still plays with his poo. He did it several times a week for several months, then stopped for a few months, and just this week he's started doing it again, but this time it's every day, sometimes 2-3 times a day! I am so sick of cleaning poo out of toys, books, clothes, his bed, the carpet, etc. We've tried timeouts, spankings, making him go potty before naptime. Taping his diapers closed worked for awhile but he learned to wiggle out of it, or just to reach in the leg to get the poo out. I tried showing him how to change his own diapers which helped a bit for a little while - he'd put the poo diaper into the diaper pail, but still got it on his hands so it still made a mess, though a smaller mess. This week my mom found on the internet where some other moms had the same problem and tried giving their kids cold showers in response to playing with their poo. They said they only had to do it twice and the problem stopped. My son has had 5 cold showers this week and still does it. I'm running out of ideas and patience. Does anyone have some advice? Has anyone else had this problem?

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Karin - posted on 02/18/2009

22

15

I've had an issue with this, my youngest son who is 2 yrs and 4 mos. was doing this right around when he turned 2. He would wake up from his nap and be very quiet and sneaky, and I suppose he was bored, so he painted his crib with poo. I did the cold bath clean up method, and it worked to a certain extent, because he loves to play in the tub and saw a warm bath as a reward. A cold one was not so much fun. I talked to him while cleaning things up, and told him in no uncertain terms that it was yucky and a no-no, and that he made me sad. I even faked crying, to communicate to him that it wasn't funny, and was not nice to do. I think he got the message.



One thing I did that keeps him from doing this is to buy him cute little boxer brief undies (big boy ones, with Spongebob on them). I put them on over his diaper at naptime. Not only does he love Spongebob so much that he'd never think to mess up his "Bob-Bob pants" but the legs are snug enough to keep him from reaching in thru the leg openings of the diaper. It's worked so far! They have them as small as a 2T size, but 4T works well over a diaper. Good Luck!

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