please poo in the potty

[theorist]

My son turns 17 months old in a few days. At 10 months we started EC and for about a month, all poos and most pees were in the potty. Then we moved and some of us were quite sick, so ECing stopped for a while. Two weeks ago we decided to begin potty training, but at this age it is mostly ECing. He's caught on quite quickly and for the past three days he hasn't had any "accidents" and has had a dry cloth diaper after waking from his two-hour naps. We're still putting him in a disposable at night (since he's usually down for at least 12 hours – no, not straight through). During the day, sometimes we're seeing his cues and helping him onto the potty (he has a BabyBjörn potty) and sometimes he goes and sits and pees by himself (!!!). It's the potty with the bowl that comes out, so it's a little difficult for him to sit on it by himself, but he does this funny squat and backs onto it. Whatever works, right?

So I have two questions: (1) He has cotton underwear, but doesn't understand pulling it down yet, so he's half-naked all day. At what point might he start pulling them and his pants down? I don't really care about him being naked (and he sure loves it), but it is starting to get colder here... And (2) what can we do to encourage pooing on the potty? He hasn't done it even once in two weeks. He pretty much just goes once a day now and seems to be saving it for his disposable diaper. He has pooped a couple times in his underwear. We're surprised by this since he was doing all his poos in there at 10 months and now won't do it at all.

Is this the right place to be posting these questions? I didn't see a potty training forum, and we feel that we are taking an EC approach to this, even though he's older.

Thanks in advance for any help!!

[lisavark]

On the underwear: I can't speak from experience, but from what I've read, I wouldn't expect him to be able to pull his pants up and down for a while yet. My 19-month-old DD *tries*...but she always ends up with her underwear below her butt digging into her legs...pretty funny, but not very effective. One of the reasons why our culture waits so long to start potty training is the difficulty of pulling clothes up and down. If you're concerned about cold but want to keep him nakey-butt, get a couple of split crotch pants! You can buy them from several online EC stores, or you can sometimes find them on diaperswappers.com in the EC section. Or you can just tear out the seam of the crotch of an old pair of pants. Or sew your own if you're into that. I personally prefer wool or fleece for split crotch pants so I can keep re-using them even if they get a little bit of pee on them.

On the pooping: Well...two weeks isn't really that long to recover from a big change like a move, IMO. I would just keep watching him and cueing him if you can't get him to the potty. Do you have a different cue for pooping than for peeing? Is he somewhat regular in his pooping times? If yes to both, then you can encourage him to sit on the potty when it's close to time for him to poop and encourage him to poop by using your poop cue. He probably understands a lot of words at this age, too--I can ask my DD if she needs to poop when she's already on the potty, and she'll *try* to poop. If he doesn't have a different cue for poop, then I would try to teach him one--or just the word poop--by talking to him about it when he does poop, showing him the poop and identifying it (gross, I know!), explaining to him what you're doing when you're pooping, etc.

ETA: Do you know when he's pooping? If so, and if it's not too disturbing for him, I would go ahead and put him on the potty in the middle of the poop. I still sometimes have to do that with DD occasionally, even though usually she's very good about telling me she needs to go before she poops now. But last night I caught one because of the look on her face and the way she was standing--she had *just* started to poop, but it hadn't really come out yet, and I got it all in the potty--which was good since she was wearing underwear!

[jenneology]

My 2.5 yr old is still struggling pulling up his underwear and pants after using the toilet. We've tried to teach him to pull up from the front and the back, but we generally help him. He ran around naked-butt alot of the time. We are just now emphasizing having pants in certain situations like when we have company over. I wish we lived in a place where he could run naked-butt outside but there's this neighbor kid who shares the courtyard that I seriously think is a child molester in training...but that's another thread.

[theorist]

lisavark: Thanks for your response! I wasn't very clear, I suppose, but we moved in April when he was 11 months. He is now 17 months. Maybe I'll try undoing some seams, since he has tons of pants (and I don't want to spend more money on clothes right now). That could work!

We do have separate cues, take him into the bathroom with us, empty his diaper into the potty so he can see where it's supposed to go, etc. He does have a more or less regular time and it seems to be first thing in the morning. You know, before our brains are actually functioning or our bodies moving. He says 'kaka' for poop, but only says it after he's gone. We can tell when he's going, but see the prior sentence about our brain function early in the morning. But even when he doesn't go first thing, he will wait until he has something covering his butt before he goes. Everything I've read about the topic pertains to older toddlers who have negative associations (pain or fear) with the potty, but I don't see how that could be the case here.

jenneology: I wonder if this is a difference between boys and girls? My son's cousin (a girl) was fully potty-trained and in cotton undies at 26 months. I honestly don't know if she pulls them up and down on her own, but she's obsessive about keeping them clean and dry. I don't know if your son does this, too, but mine wants to just take the pants off completely once they've been pulled down. He's really good at that! Maybe it's something we can practice and make fun during non-potty times, although I don't want him to start undressing whenever he feels like it. He's also quite good at getting his shirts on and off. Not 100% by himself, but it seems like that skill should somewhat translate to pants? So sorry to hear about that neighbor kid, btw! Creepy.