Playing with her Poo

[Casky73]

My daughter is now 2½ years old and has been playing with her poo since she was just under a year old.  She has wiped it all over her cot, the walls and blankets and toys etc, she plays with it between her hands also before wiping it everywhere.  We told her it was naughty, shouted at her, smacked her and then did as the health visitor advised and ignored it.  None of which have worked.  We put her in a big bed as I fell pregnant again so started to train her to sleep in a childs bed.  It stopped for awhile, but then started up again.  This time instead of wiping it everywhere she would just sit and play with it.  She is now 2½ and is toilet trained, she only wears a nappy at night time.  She woke up the other day and when I went in, she was playing with it again.  We leave her door open at night so when she wakes in the morning she can come straight into our room which seems to have stopped it.  However, she has now gone to the next stage.  She goes for a poo on the toilet, wipes herself properly and then flushes the toilet.  On this occasion she put her hand in the toilet and was playing with her poo whilst it was in the loo.

I am at the end of my teather with her and do not know how to get her out of this disgusting habbit.  She has also gone into her sisters room in the morning, taken her nappy off and if there is a poo wiped it all over her sister.  None of this behaviour goes unpunished, but nothing seems to be working.

What else can I do?  When I ask her why she does it, she says "because I did".  She understands its wrong but still continues.

Please help!!!


This discussion is related to playing in her poop.

[Agiesmom]

Save the scolding and punishment.  Get a one-piece snap-up or zipper-up sleeper (like this: http://www.llbean.com/cd-1/37901.shtml), cut the feet out of it if there are feet, and put it on her backwards.  This stopped my son from being able to take his clothes off and therefore, he couldn't make a mess.

Also, I would appeal to her obvious desire for tactile stimulation by putting together a sensory table--put it in the back garden and put play-doh in there, let her play with cornstarch and water, let her play with mud and wet sand, rice, water, anything squishy.  Give her ways to satisfy that desire in appropriate and acceptable ways.

All the best to you and your family.

[ChickenNugget]

Oh I feel your pain :( my daughter is 26 months and does the exact same thing. I have no idea what to do either... nothing works - I've tried restricting her access to her nappy but she still gets into it, I've tried getting mad, staying calm, having her help me clean, banishing her to the bathtub until I'm done cleaning and can deal with her..... she will cry and apologise, then do the same thing the next day. I'm over it.

If you work out the answer, fill me in!

PS: I've been told it's a sign of high intelligence. Not much consolation.