Poopie Nap Times - HELP!

Jessie - posted on 11/21/2008 ( 2 moms have responded )

I have a 2 yr old child who has started a new thing that has me stressed and grossed out. She actually first did this when she was 1 yr old, but it was a rare occurrence. Lately she's been doing it almost everyday for a week and it only happens during nap time. I have a routine that I stick by everyday and I'm extremely consistent. What happens is I give her lunch, she has a bath, we do the potty thing, and then I put her down for nap. She's still in the process of potty training and everyday with that is a struggle to say the least. If I'm lucky she'll pee in the potty once a day. Anywho, so once she's done with the potty thing, I read her a book, we tell all her stuffed animals that it's nap time, I give her a kiss, and leave her room to let her nap. Before she'd just play for like 5 minutes and then fall asleep, but now she will play and play and I wait about 15 minutes before going into her room and every time I go in there now, she has pulled off her pull up and smeared poop all over the walls and all over the heater. I don't know why she keeps doing this every single time I put her down for nap now. I have tried so many things. I have tried constantly going into her room and laying her back down in bed when I hear her get up, but she's gotten so fast with the poopie it's not even funny. I've tried leaving the door open, but it seems like she waits for me to go to the bathroom or be out of ear shot and then she paints with her poopie. I have even tried waiting until she makes a poopie before putting her to nap, which resulted in her going to nap 5-6 hours late, which results in a very cranky toddler who starts acting up and throwing huge fits because she's overtired and even then she still ends up painting with her poopie because she manages to hold some in just for nap. I would reward her for the times that she doesn't paint with her poopie during nap time, but like I said she's been doing it everyday for over a week so there's nothing to reward! I've even had her clean it up herself, which she said "eww gross, disgusting", the whole time but it didn't really seem to affect her whatsoever cus she's still doing it. I'm at the point where I feel like I seriously have to physically stay in the room with her until she falls asleep, which could take hours and hours because I know with me in the room she'll just keep getting out of bed and I'll keep putting her back into bed and it'll become a huge game to her.

I'm currently 26 weeks pregnant and am already overly exhausted because I'm not getting any sleep at night due to the baby inside me kicking and punching from 8pm-3am. I still give my toddler all the attention and such she needs regardless of how tired I am. Which is why I don't understand why she's fallen into this new routine of poopie painting. It's really wearing me down and I just don't know what to do anymore. Has anyone else experienced this with their toddler? If so have you broken them of it and how'd you do it cus I've tried so many things. She's done this before, but never to where it's become an everyday occurrence and it ONLY happens during nap time. HELP!!!!!