Poop everywhere!

[Czen:)]

I am presenting this situation on behalf of a friend. She is the mom of a 3.5 year old DD, and 9 month old twin boys.

She is having very trying problems with her DD regarding potty issues. Her DD is handles the use of the potty expertly when they are away from the house. Never an accident. However, when they are home there are frequent pee accidents. The hardest part seems to be that she plays with her poops. Today my friend found her in the bathroom rubbing poop into her hands and arms like it was a hand lotion. And of course the poop was spread out around the room.

My poor friend is already stretched with the twins and this is just adding alot of stress to her days! Has anybody been there, done that with this situation? How did you/would you handle it?

I would like to add that this little girl is a very intelligent child. I think she has both the physical control and mental understanding to use the potty appropriatly.

Please tell me, what do you think?????

Czen

[mamamillie]

Perhaps this mother is too busy w her twins to give this little girl as much attention as she needs. I wonder if the mother reacts strongly to this potty behavior and the girl is doing it to get focused attention from her mother.
I don't know.
The only things I would suggest to that mother is to a. minimize her reaction to this behavior. Obviously, it is happening, I would say calmly as possible clean the girl up, try to tone down all responses to what has happened. And then b. give this child extra focused attention, and if possible, alone time w the mother for positive and pleasant connecting.
Good luck to her.
HTH

[Czen:)]

I think you are making a good call. I am ashamed to admit my 1st response hardly fit in with GD or anything close!

I am seeing my friend for breakfast tomorrow. (she needs to get out!) Anyone else have any thought to share?

Czen

[intensity_too]

Some kids just like the texture of poop. My 3 y/o is a poop artist. We've had it smeared on about every surface in our house. He has no health problems and gets loads of attention. He just likes the way it feels. I dunno if this is helpful at all. We find slighly warmed playdough out where he can play with it when he wants helps curb the poop playing.

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

My son had accidents, only at home, for at least 2 years after being potty trained. In fact, it has only been since this fall (after he turned 5) that it has stopped. Luckily for me, his were only urine and much easier to handle. For me, the best answer was to just really be low key about accidents. As in "Oh, you are wet. Please put your dirty pants in the garage and put on dry ones." No other response. I did mention it when we had an accident free day. The few times he's had a poop accident it is always because he is way away from the toilet and he's having some soft-poop issues. These I just help clean with sympathy. Anyway, long way of saying, I think the accidents are a normal part of some kid's process.

As for playing with the poop, is there a way to prevent this? If the girl is still using a small potty, maybe graduating to the big potty would make it harder to get to? Encouraging use of a toilet that the mom can see, even when she is caring for the baby and insisting on an "open door" policy?

I too would suspect that this is an attention getting behaviour and that it would resolve itself if the mom can figure out a way to balance the attention factors. Of course, if she figures that out, can you be sure to share her method because I'm still struggling with this one and I don't even have twins!