Bowel control is often achieved before bladder control. Parents can usually tell when a bowel movement is about to happen. When they suspect a bowel movement is imminent, they can bring their child to the potty to see if the child is able to relieve themselves there.

At some point your child will no longer have bowel movements during the night. They become a daytime process for most children. The more regular your child is, the easier it will be to start bowel-control training. Children often stop playing when they are having a bowel movement. Some even hide in a favorite spot. Others just grunt or get red in the face. Saying, “I see you’re having a bowel movement” helps a child identify what is occurring and associate those sensations with the process.

Explain to your child that you will be taking him or her to the toilet or the potty chair and that you expect the bowel movement to go there rather than in diapers. Use proper terminology such as “This is what Mommy and Daddy do, what grown-ups do and now what you should do because you’re getting so big and grown up” Give advance notice as to when this procedure will start. Children need to hear what you expect in pleasant tones and words.

Constipation may actually delay toilet training for your child. This is not anything to be worried about, but just one more variable you can be sensitive to. If your child has a regular time for a bowel movement, choose that time to go to the bathroom.  If they have no regular time, try within 30 minutes after a meal. When the stomach is full, the colon is often stimulated to empty.

As we’ve said before, be prepared to sit with your child to keep him or her company. Don’t insist your child sit for more than a few minutes but only as long as he or she is comfortable.

At the same time, know that some children need to be alone to have a bowel movement. Bright bathroom lights and too much conversation may inhibit them from relaxing their sphincter muscles.

A reluctant-relaxer may require different approaches until you find one that works. Consider breaking the task into small, slow steps. Encourage a child to sit on and use the potty (or toilet) with clothes and a disposable diaper on to begin with. After a child is comfortable with this procedure, progress to going with only a disposable diaper sides ripped open.

Then you can move from sitting with a disposable diaper across the seat to just using toilet paper across it. Other children may be able to relax and void (just remove feces quickly with little fuss) while in a warm bath before making the transition to the potty chair or toilet. Or insist, that even using a diaper, a child stay in the bathroom when having a BM and then empty diaper into the toilet and flush.

Constipation is most often a factor in belated bowel control. A child who cries, screams, or kicks when urged to use the potty may be doing so because of the discomfort or pain experienced due to constipation. In this case, it is not stubbornness, but fear (real or imagined), that is keeping the child from doing what you ask and holding back. Some even believe there can be an inherited tendency towards constipation.

Constipation is NOT diagnosed by infrequency of bowel movements, but by the hardness and character of the stool. Dry BMs that don’t stick to the diaper can be a description of constipation. And what may be considered hard to pass by adult standards is not the same for children.

Whatever makes passing stool difficult or painful for a child will inhibit a child from wishing to repeat the procedure thus compounding the problem. Avoid suppositories and enemas as they will be seen as an “assault” by the child.

If your child cannot gain effective control of his or her bowels, there might be a medical reason.  Consult your doctor if there seems to be a really huge problem with your child’s BM.