Potty training aberrancy

[LisaInga]

My granddaughter turned 3 in January. She gained a baby brother on Nov. 21st 2010. She was not potty trained yet before he came along and really had no interest in becoming potty trained. Her parents are trying to potty train her now, but she is not having much luck at it, and in fact, she has started to take her diaper off and poop on the carpet at various parts of her house, and started to smear her poop on her toys. She'll proudly point out her poop to you too. What can cause this behavior and her lack of wanting to go on the potty?

[AnnieBrooke]

Mommy time one-on-one, and Daddy time one-on-one, should make a big difference.  If she is regularly being fobbed off on someone else while Mommy is consistently one-on-one with the baby, they should consider fobbing off the baby on Grandma and showing the daughter that the baby can't interrupt her time with them.  This is sometimes even done overtly -- "Billy, don't interrupt us now, it's my time with Angela."  And the parents should stick to it.    

[RockRose]

I agree with the Annie - this sounds like she's shooting the finger at her parents in the best way she can think of.  Failure to potty train is pretty common,  and poop smearing isn't really all that uncommon,  but proudly showing that she's again smeared her poop is jabbing at her parents in the best way she knows how.

I think for the time being,  she needs clothes she can't remove by herself,  which takes some engineering by the parents.  

Matter of factly,  calmly  saying we don't smear poop or even touch it,  and so for awhile you'll have to wear clothing that only mommy or daddy can help you take off.  Poop is germy and yucky and you could get very very sick putting your hands in it.  

She might need some big girl activities that she can do by herself,  and some one on one mommy or daddy time so she can bridge this time period.

Best wishes.

[worrymum]

I have a boy and wanted to potty train him but when we came to it he clearly wasn't interested so I didn't..-i waited until he asked and then it was easy for me. Sometimes your time to train is there time.
And as for the poop smearing I would advise you have no reaction atal just clear it up...as any attention is good attention in the eyes try to praise a lot when she does good things and then she may see a difference between the reactions.

[tinkerbell1124]

My son did that a few times. I also had him pretty good for a few months and then all of the sudden he wanted nothing to do with it. I ended up waiting a while and trying again. I'd say it took 8 months to get him fully trained. Have them do rewards if she potty's on the toilet, have them try and make it fun for her. Girls are usually easier then boys. Hopefully someone with a girl can tell you something

[AnnieBrooke]

The advent of the baby brother.  Even negative attention is better than no attention, when you're used to having all the attention.