My son is 3 almost 4, he is totally potty trained with urination, but he is refusing to go on the potty to move his bowels. He will hold it in all day long if he has to. The only way that he will go is if he finds a pull up in the house (i know throw them away) and he will take off his underwear and put on the pull up to go poop. I have put him on the potty to go but he cries and holds his stomach and refuses to go. He has often just gone in his underwear. My husband says it's scary for him , like losing a part of himself, i suppose. The only thing that i can't understand is that on 2 occassions he pooped in the potty 2x when I was in the other room. Is he holding on to his infancy or am I overanalyzing.

My son completely stopped pooping when we were potty training. The Dr. told us that they feel the need to have control over something during this difficult time. I was so worried - we actually switched Dr's over this. He would not poop for a month, and we had to give him enemas. He would hold it in and hold it in until it was too painful for him to go at all.

Finally, we switched Dr's, and she said that this is completely normal. She gave us a medicine that came in a powder that we could put in his juice at bedtime. Then he had no choice but to poop. We were able to put less and less powder into his juice until we were finally able to stop a few months later.

I went through this with the boy I used to babysit for. i even had to quit because of that.He was 3,5 years old and he would hide in a closet or under a dining room table and do it. After two months of that I realized that he just loves to wear his pull ups with his favorite cartoon characters on them. He also had bowl movement problem. He told me it hurt when he goes. At first I would suggest to give him more dried fruit to it. My daughter loves to eat raisins, dried cherries and cranberries and she never has any problems going to the bathroom. She does it before she goes to sleep. she loves to sit on her potty and read her favorite bedtime stories. It's her favorite part of day
Wishing you best of luck