copying pooping in underwear

[Boww]

Hi folks.

I am occasional poster hoping for a little perspective on this issue. My daughter is just under two and a half. She has been wearing underwear most of the time for the past two months or so. She always pees in the potty but, while she has pooped in the potty a few times, the vast majority of the time she continues to ask for a diaper when she has to poo. She goes to daycare two days a week. It is a fantastic center and she loves it. The caregivers will watch her and provide her with a diaper when she needs it. In two months, she has had maybe a total of our pee accidents and no (yup, none at all) poo accidents.

Until yesterday. Also at daycare is a little boy whom my daughter adores. We are actually family friends, so she sees him the two days a week at daycare and also out of daycare (evenings and weekends, since he is in care full time) fairly often, at least once a week. This little boy has just started wearing underwear. Yesterday at daycare he pooped in his underwear twice. Apparently, according to the caregiver whom I respect and trust, Danica found out he had pooped and then promptly pooped in her own underwear. Yup, for the first time ever. And then she proudly announced that she had pooped in her underwear, just like her friend. This happened twice yesterday, the only two poo accidents we've ever had.

So I suppose I'm looking for thoughts on how to encourage my daughter to continue on her own potty learning path, whatever her friend is doing. Obviously, being like her friend seems better than staying clean. Given that she has demonstrated the capacity to stay clean, we were thinking about instituting some sort of sticker chart to reward her for staying clean. When she had enough stickers, we would reward her with an outing of some sort. I'm not really in favour of reward for potty training, but I guess this seems a bit different to me because it is for something she is already obviously able to do, but because of her friend's influence she is choosing not to do. Thoughts?

More importantly, I'm looking for thoughts on how to gently encourage my daughter to be more independent-minded, less influenced by her friend. Or are we over-reacting to this? Is this normal toddler-type behaviour? Thanks for your thoughts.

[Elismum]

I think you might be overreacting.  Our LOs already do and will continue to be influenced by friends and that's not always a bad thing. Sure we want them to be independent thinkers who make their own wise decisions but at such a young age, that might be a lot to ask. That doesn't mean you can't talk to her about her choices being her own, etc. and start that dialogue. 

It also strikes me that moving to pooping in underwear from diapers may be an advancement in her potty learning process. Although she may not be "clean", it's important for her to realize she can poop somewhere other than a diaper in order to get to pooping in the potty. She may not even really considered the possibility until she saw her friend do it. I know cleaning poopy underwear is really no one's favorite thing (I had to do it for a few months almost everyday with my DS) . . .  Maybe instead of seeing this as a set back of uncleanliness, look at it as progress to the potty. The ultimate goal, afterall, is the potty, not diapers.