My 2.5 year old has been doing so well using the potty at home for pees, with no accidents, but he is strong-willed and seems to have an extreme fear of pooping in the potty. Lots of screaming, kicking, and clearly fearful crying while he knows he has a poop feeling. We spent a whole hour last night going between the dinner table and the potty because he knows he has to go, but jumps up from the potty the moment he feels it coming. He has only ever pooped in the potty twice, once by complete accident at age 2, then again few weeks ago when he couldn’t hold it anymore while on the potty, but he still had lots of fearful tears right before.
We’ve tried offering incentives ranging from his favourite foods, activity, different potty, to offering to put a diaper in the potty so he can sort of have a familiar feeling (he keeps asking for his diaper to poo).
What has worked for you? Pooping in the potty seems to put him a lot of distress (and us in a lot of stress!) and he isn’t able to tell me why he’s scared of it despite being super chatty and insightful.