Poop Potty Training

In most children, bowel control develops before urinary control. This is the reason that many toddlers will let you know that they are having a bowel movement by their posture, gestures or facial expressions, but very few will let you know that they are urinating.

So, if your child has bladder control, chances are they have bowel control too. In most cases bowel movement training will almost happen naturally. This means that bowel movement's usually follow urination, so once children are trained to urinate in a potty chair or on the toilet, they will also have a bowel movement while urinating.

You, as the parent have already set expectations that both pee pee and poo poo go into the potty, so that your child already knows what you expect. Give your child the extra praise the first time your child has a bowel movement in the potty, and in most cases, bowel movement training flows naturally after urine training.

This is exactly what happened with my children. They had a bowel movement while urinating in the potty and of course got plenty of verbal and non verbal praise, which reassured them that this was the expected behavior.

Both of my children did have a couple of small accidents on poop training, here is what happened:

• My headstrong older son had his first accident, which was a bowel movement just as we were getting started on the "Big Day". So, during the potty training session, I used both terms when I verbalized desired behaviors -- "Big boys pee & poo in the potty."
• My organized methodical younger son had zero accidents; however, he did have to learn a couple of things about his own body. On the second and third night after his "Big Day", he woke me up to go use the potty, but when he sat on the potty, all he did was pass gas. It took him a number of times of sitting on the potty to pass gas, before he had learned the difference between passing gas and having a bowel movement!!

("Big Day" is used in the Potty Training In One Day Method, please check out Chapter 3: Potty Training Methods for more information on this potty training method.)