My 3 and a half year old son continuously soils his pants both at home and nursery. My Health Visitor has suggested reward and sticker charts for when he has used the toilet. This method has not made any improvements and I have been trying over the past few months. When I ask him why he pooh's in his pants and not on the toilet, he replies "I like it". I would appreciate any advice or methods. He is a very happy and sociable little boy who has many friends and has no problems going to the toilet to wee.

A Boys are very often later with toilet training and ‘pooing’ on the toilet/potty can be very late indeed.

If reward charts have no effect then I would feel he really is not ready to come out of nappies. The main point is not to make an issue of the soiling because the boy is clearly not ready to be trained.

I would suggest mum puts him in pull up nappies and reduce the emphasis on toileting completely for 1 month.

Using pull ups means he can still use the toilet/potty to wee without the difficulty of constant soiling.

If there is no change in a month I would advise mum to reassess a month at a time, there is no rush.

health visitor

back to faq's - Toilet Training