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BabyShrink readers Angie, Sharon and Stacy have emailed me over the past few weeks with the same horrified question: Why is my toddler suddenly smearing poop everywhere, and HOW CAN I GET THAT DISGUSTING BEHAVIOR TO STOP?! Although I tried to offer some suggestions, I had never experienced the same thing with my kids, so I really didn’t have much “oomph” behind my answers.

And then the Great Karmic Finger pointed at my household. And that finger had poop smeared on it.

Our TT is now 2 1/2. He’s kinda-sorta potty trained. He’s healthy (minus one hernia, which I will update everyone on later in the week), developmentally on-track, and he’s got the “easiest” temperament of all our three kids. But over the past few weeks, it’s happened three times; he’s pooped in his diaper, then reached in to decorate his crib with it. And it’s the grossest clean-up job I’ve ever had to do.

Your story is similar. Your toddler is somewhat engaged in potty training. They’re at the age when they can understand most of what we’re telling them…and certainly understand that poop is yucky. Then all of a sudden, you discover your little darling has smeared poop all over the place. Reader Sharon tells her stinky story this way, “She’s in her crib about to nap, and I hear the usual noises of her just talking to herself. Then I hear this: “Mommy, yucky.” So I go in there and see the worse scene of my life!!!! She apparently had a poopy diaper, took it off, and proceeded to smear the walls, her crib and everything in the vicinity with poop. I was mortified! I quickly yanked her up, stripped her down and got in her the bath as fast as possible. I had to call my husband and tell him to come home so I could sanitize her room. Ugh, it was awful!”

Is This Normal?
Yes dear reader, it is. Not necessarily common, but normal. A 2-year-old is struggling with attempting to master his own body, to control it’s functions, and is quite curious about his productions. (They don’t call it the Anal Stage for nothin’!) Preschool teachers will tell you it’s common to see children this age quite interested in messes, too. They can alternate between being quite the obsessive neat-freak, OR the poop-smearing opposite — as they struggle to master this stage. I would say, however, that poop-smearing past the age of 3 1/2 — 4 would concern me. An evaluation, starting with your pediatrician, should occur in that case.

How Do I Get It To Stop?!
First, know that, for an otherwise typically developing toddler, this should be a time-limited, passing phase. Nobody likes the smell of poop. It’s an experiment that is naturally self-limiting!

The most important thing is to control your own reaction. Don’t overreact; you risk reinforcing the behavior. If Junior knows that Mom will FREAK every time this happens, he’s got a potent weapon to use, when necessary! Instead, calmly say “Yucky. Poop is dirty. It belongs in your diaper or the potty. No more touching poop.” As grossed out as you may be, take a deep breath (outside of the room!), clean up the offensive little beast first, and close up the room until you have backup. You’ll need time, and someone to watch Mr. Stinky, while you break out the Clorox.

Next, it’s time to get practical and LIMIT ACCESS TO THE DIAPER. Go out and find some toddler sized “onesies”, or other one-piece clothing. Some creative parents have even put one-piece PJs on backwards to further limit access to the diaper area. Keep them clothed this way as needed, until the phase has passed.

Also, take it as a sign of interest in potty-training. Use it as an opportunity to review the proper use of the potty, and validate their interest in poop. “Here, make your poop in your potty. Then when you’re done, you can look at it. We don’t touch it, but you can look at it if you want to see what it looks like.”

Finally, create opportunities for your creative genius to make acceptable messes. One of the hallmarks of this phase is the desire to make — and clean up — messes. It’s how we eventually learn to keep things clean and organized, and how to handle all the messes in life. So it’s a vitally important lesson to learn. Offer messy finger painting, kitchen mixing and squashing, and outdoor mud play, liberally. Talk about it, as you do. “I know you want to make messes. THIS is a good place to make a mess. I will help you clean it up later. Here, let’s make a mess together!”

Hope that helps, Gang. Happy Cleaning!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

My Shrink Husband David and I met in grad school, and we’ve been married for 15 years. Go ahead, I know the jokes are coming about how 2 head-shrinker parents raise their kids! But seriously, one of the reasons I married him is because he is such a natural with children. He has an innate sense of when to intervene, and when to let them figure it out themselves. And he’s a “guy’s guy”, which helps me a lot when I’m struggling to understand issues with our boys.

I rely on him both personally and professionally. So I thought you might like to read an occasional post from BabyShrink’s Husband. I asked him to take a “crack” at a Potty Training question:

I have a three-year-old son who will only poop in his diaper, but regularly urinates in the toilet without any problem.  He is aware of his body sensations when he needs to poop, but refuses to use the toilet.  He does not have a medical condition, and is usually quite compliant. What should we do?

Alex in NY

We experienced something very similar with our son. He also refused to poop in the toilet. Instead, he would regularly run to the playroom and quietly hunker down in a mogul ski jump position, eyes forward and red-faced, scrunch up his face, complete his business, breathe, and then, after a moment of bliss — Mission Accomplished!  We openly discussed the potty with him between the ages of two to three, and the potty fascinated him. While he may have picked up on our enthusiasm about it, he did not verbalize what was on his mind regarding the potty. He always had an inquisitive expression when we flushed the toilet, but refused to speak to his shrink parents about his thoughts.

As psychologists, we had many analytic theories running through our minds. Was he afraid we were flushing his masterpiece, his private creation, or part of his body down the toilet? Was he worried that he himself was going to be flushed down the toilet? Were his shrink parents applying too much pressure? Did he have a dream or thought about losing things in the toilet? And so on.

So how did two highly educated psychologists handle their own son? “We” didn’t exactly handle it; instead, circumstances beyond our control happened one night when our germ and bodily-liquid phobic babysitter came to take care of our children. Our son was not wearing a diaper and started panicking about needing to put one on. Before the babysitter was able to put on the diaper, he started his business on the floor. She carried our screaming and crying son to the toilet where he undoubtedly went ape-sh*t.  He was feeling out of control and proceeded to hose the babysitter with urine while finishing his business on the potty. Upon returning home after our wonderful night out, our son ran up to us and excitedly said, “I made doo-doo in the potty!” He was very proud about his new accomplishment, and no longer afraid. Needless to say, our babysitter was less-than-proud about her evening, but is now a little less liquid and germ phobic thanks to our boy. After that incident, our son has never had problems and has been successfully using the toilet.

The moral of this story? Leave the tough sh*t for the babysitter.

Kidding.

It is interesting though that kids often do things for other caretakers that they seem unable to do for their parents (e.g., you are amazed by your child’s model behavior at school or at someone else’s house when they can be a complete hellion at home). What I realized is that while this wasn’t the way we imagined our son would potty train, I doubt that any serious issues will arise from this experience. This is because we firmly believe that it is the "big picture" that matters. This "incident" happened in the context of months of communication, conveying that he could dictate the pace of potty training.

The most important aspect to convey regarding toilet training is patience. While this “incident” did not convey patience, it was the constant discussions over a year and a half that were fostered by our little one that were most helpful. Pushing a child too hard with this intimate activity can create power struggles between parents and children. Children can feel violated and belittled by all of the pressure placed on them by people and settings. Many boys are not fully potty trained as three-year-olds. If, however, your child is squatting and squeezing in a corner at his frat house, you can certainly start pushing him to use the potty at that point!

But by far, the vast majority of children have a developmental pull that leads them to want to potty train on their own schedule. Additionally, it is also important to contain your own anxiety; remind yourself that your child will potty train when he is ready, and when that happens he will feel good because he will know that it was his accomplishment.

(Thanks to David’s shrink brother Kevin Wittenberg, PhD for helping to edit this post!)