2 year old eats her poop

My neice is turning 2 in a month. When her parents get her up in the morning, she has taken off her clothes and diaper,  and proceeded to smear her poop all over her crib.  Sometimes she will eat it.  They have tried diffrent pajamas (something harder to get off) with no luck. We've read on the intranet to put her in a cold shower so she would know this is wrong, but nothing seems to help. What should they do?

[RockRose]

If they can't keep her out of her diaper,  they haven't tried hard enough.  ;D  

When my son was much younger - I think around 15 months - he was doing that.    It was GROSS,  every morning,  poop smeared everywhere.  

They need to put chothes on that child that she can't remove.  

In wintertime it's footsie pajamas with several tiny key locks on the front snap area.  One at the neck area and one at the waist will do,  they're uncomfortable so you don't want to put too many.  You can buy them at Walmart or anywhere,  they're tiny.

In the summer,  get a pair of cotton overalls.  Stitch socks to the bottom hem of the pants,  and key lock the button hole at the shoulders.  

I've long considered going into childproofing business - I can create a cabinet lock a child can NOT get into because of my oldest son,  and I can create an outfit a child can NOT remove.    I think I'd be filthy rich.  BTW,  that son is now a freshman in college and doing great.  Your neice will be fine.

[lylli]

rock...you have not met my youngest...that girl might bust your system...lol.  Please tell on the lock though (she keeps stealing food from the cupboard and I have purchased or made prolly 3 dozen types and she has gotten past them all!)

seriously though...this may be a sign that she is seriously ready to potty train.

[RockRose]

Okay,  here's my cabinet lock system - and if you do it right,  she won't be able to get into the cabinet.   It's a finger strength thing.

My cabinets look basically like this,  with two round knobs near each other for each double cabinet doors:

http://www.aristokraft.com/accessories/index.cfm

Get big dog collars (the kind with the plastic inserting snap) and key rings from the hardware store.  Cut the dog collars in half and sew them to the metal key rings so that they "snap" together to lock the door.  It takes some doing to get the size right,  but the collars are adjustable so you should have some wiggle room.  This probably isn't clear at all.  : (

Before you go to all the effort,  take her to the pet store and hand her a big dog collar and see if she can open it.  The cheaper the better- very difficult,  large clasps are what you're going for.

Best wishes!  Of course you could always actually chain and lock the cabinets with those little dollar store locks and some kind of interesting looking chain.

[lylli]

thanks for the tip.  I will try that this weekend.  I don't mind her sneaking down and snacking so much as the mess she makes doing it...lol.