POOP.
Poop. Poop. And more poop.
All we have done as mothers and humans…graduate school, careers, global travel, making art, making life…all to culminate in you, being brought to your knees because your child did or did not poop in the potty. Had someone told you this 5 years ago, you'd probably have laughed out loud. But here it is. Poop.
The begging. The cajoling. The eagle eye for signals.
If you have cried over poop, this post is for you.
You are not the first nor will you be the last to have poop on the brain. This is an endless topic in potty training; from slight, unconscious withholding to willfull pooping on the floor to massive power struggles over requesting a diaper. If you are registered on our forum, you know the topic list reads: Poop. Poop. Poop. Poop. Poop.
There are so many aspects to why pooping is so dramatic that I've broken the topic down into digestable parts. Let's take a few minutes and really talk about the myriad of things that are going on with your basic poop in the potty. Part One of this Poop Series (Really. Did you ever, in your life, think you'd be reading a Poop Series on a blog?) is the slight, unconscious withholding. This is a HUGE concern for a lot of parents. This is your standard first few days. Your child used to poop 2 or 3 times a day in a diaper. Now you officially start potty training and…hm…no poop. You may be experiencing resistance to actually sitting on the potty. Many children will say a variation of "my bum hurts". Or there's just no poop.
The number one thing you need to remember, right from the get go, is that poop is personal. In a very primal way. I think we as adults, understand that but somehow we forget it when it comes to kids. Poop is one of the few things we can truly call our own. Here's another way to look at it: it's said that the mouth and teeth are highly emotional, which is why so many people panic at a trip to the dentist. It's an orifice. It's mine. Don't go in there. Right? Well THAT'S an orifice everyone can SEE for gawd's sake! The butt hole was not meant for scrutiny. And yet, here we are all up in our kids' business and what they keep up there. This whole process was kept tucked away in a diaper…of course, you did change the diaper, BUT you had NO part in HOW the poop came out. Right? You had no idea how the process worked for your kid. You probably saw a "poop face"…but that's just when it got pushed out. We have no idea how long it took to park itself on the off ramp. So now you start potty training and it's like this GLARING SPOTLIGHT has now been put on your kid's butt and what it produces.
Let's take another minute to talk about that GLARING SPOTLIGHT on an otherwise, private function.
THE ANUS IS A SPHINCTER MUSCLE. IT OPENS AND CLOSES WITH EMOTION. This is one of my favorite lines from my book (I'm even thinking of getting T-shirts made. Because I am not well.) It means exactly what it says.
I'll give you an example. Another big sphincter muscle is the cervix. Which is one of the major muscles responsible for pushing babies out into the world. Ina May Gaskin, a world renowned midwife, explains how the cervix NEEDS to be open to effectively give birth. And how it can slam shut.
" Even when the voluntary muscles get tired, the sphincters don't get tired. Those are connected to the organs that fill up with something; the bladder, uterus, intestines. They expand and contract, and when they yawn open, whatever is inside comes out, and then they close again. But, they work better in privacy; they're shy, and this is true of humans and most animals. We seek privacy to allow our sphincters to do their jobs, jobs that at the most basic level, have to do with hormone levels in the body. For example, oxytocin levels in blood rise when something big comes out (whether it's a baby or a bowel movement). Laughter is one thing that can help open the sphincters. I ask women to laugh when they're having a baby because it helps the process along; it also adds to oxytocin and endorphin levels. But on the converse, if someone is afraid or feels violated, for example, the sphincter can slam shut."
Now, she has been known to illustrate this point in her birth classes. She puts a big silver bowl in the middle of the room. With a hundred dollar bill in it. Anyone who can poop in the big silver bowl can have the $100. So far, no one's been able to.
So now…here we are potty training and the potty chair is pretty much in the middle of the room. Right? Even if only metaphorically speaking. The spotlight is on the potty chair. The spotlight is on the child and the poop. We're expecting the child to poop in the silver bowl. And it doesn't always work that way. The tricky part is that you can't give your child complete privacy when they are learning something. They can't be left alone and they most likely are needing your help in recognizing the feeling and manipulating the actual getting/going on the potty chair.
What I generally find is little to no tolerance for any stalling or non-pooping on the child's part. The parents decide to potty train and expect everything to just flow the way it did in the relative privacy of the diaper. This is often confused with the child being "not ready". Which is the complete opposite. The earlier you potty train, the less your child is aware of the privacy of this bodily function. The older child will be very aware, thus showing increased resistance.
But as with the cervix, the anus is going to respond to gentle; to not a lot of fanfare and words. To relaxed. To semi private. To laughter. The more normal and routine you can make pooping for your child, the more relaxed the anus is going to be. The glaring spotlight of this whole process can back some kids up. Not true constipation, but not the normal once or twice a day. That's totally normal. The analogy to labor carries through. When you are in labor you want someone SURE and STEADY by your side. You don't want someone over talking logic and reason. You don't want some one high strung. And you certainly don't want anyone breathing down your neck to get this done.
Patience, consistency and understanding are what's going to make this normal for your child. I realize privacy is hard with a small child just learning a new skill. In the very beginning stages of potty training, I suggest you keep the potty chair wherever your child spends the most time. But that doesn't mean it has to be in the middle of the room. This process can be discreet without being behind closed doors. You can be by your child's side but not all up in his business (Seriously. Do NOT spread your kid's butt cheeks to check if the poop is coming. A hard urge to resist, but resist you must.). A really great trick is to have your child sitting for a poop and all of sudden think of something you need to do in the other room. Tell him to sit tight, you'll be right back. 9 times out of 10, the child will poop when you are gone for a minute. In fact, a huge tell tale sign that it's time to potty train RIGHT NOW is when your child goes somewhere specifically to poop. Don't miss that window of opportunity!
The goal is to take that GLARING SPOTLIGHT off your kid and off this process. No one wants to poop with all eyes on them. Of course, a nice poopy dance once the deed is done is perfectly fine!
If your child isn't pooping in those first few days, relax. This isn't willful and it's not manipulation. It's a normal process of wanting to keep what's theirs, theirs. Of course, this is just one minor component to the Drama of the Poop. I'm sure you'll be waiting for Part 2 with bated breath. Scintillating stuff, poop.
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