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 BM 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 excellent that s/he has bowel control. In most cases bowel movement training will almost happen naturally. This means that BM's usually follow urination, so once children are trained to urinate in a potty chair or on the toilet, they will also have a BM 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. You, of course, will give your child the extra praise the first time your child has a BM in the potty, and in most cases, BM training flows naturally after urine training.
This is exactly what happened with my children. They had a BM 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 twists on BM training that I think are worth mentioning.
My headstrong older son had his first accident, which was a BM 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 BM!! |
