Why Does My Child Hide to Poop? What's Really Going On
If your potty-trained toddler suddenly disappears behind the couch, ducks into a closet, or goes quiet behind a curtain right before you smell trouble, you've met one of potty training's strangest, most common moments. Your child can pee in the potty like a pro, but when it comes to poop, they vanish.
It can feel like a step backward. It isn't. Hiding to poop is actually a sign that several things are going right, even though it doesn't look that way in the moment.
What hiding is actually telling you
A toddler who hides to poop is a toddler who can feel the urge coming and knows what to do about it. That's two pieces of a pretty complex skill already in place: body awareness and follow-through. The piece that's still missing is simply doing it in the right spot.
Most toddlers who hide aren't afraid of pooping itself. They're looking for the same conditions that have worked for them before: a private, quiet, predictable spot where nothing is being asked of them. For a child who's been in diapers or pull-ups most of their life, that spot has probably never been the potty. It's wherever they happened to be standing when their body did the rest.
As Dr. Fabian Gorodzinsky, a community pediatrician and associate professor at Western University in London, Ontario, told Today's Parent, "it's quite common for preschoolers to withhold bowel movements." It's a stage, not a setback, and one most families run into at some point along the way.
Why bringing up the potty can backfire
Here's where potty training routines sometimes work against this. If a parent is watching closely and jumps in the moment they spot the telltale signs, a child's body often responds to that sudden attention with tension, not relaxation. The muscles involved in letting go don't work well under pressure, physically or emotionally. So a child who's interrupted mid-urge may stop entirely, and that can turn into withholding, which makes the next bowel movement harder and sometimes genuinely painful. That, in turn, can make a child even more reluctant next time. It's a cycle worth avoiding rather than pushing through.
What tends to help
Give their feet real support. A footstool in front of the potty chair or toilet so your child's feet are planted, not dangling, helps them feel stable and secure enough to actually relax and let go.
Let the urge finish its job before redirecting. If you notice the signs, a calm, low-key invitation works better than a sudden prompt. If your child is already mid-process somewhere else, finishing there is usually better than stopping them and creating a rushed, tense transition.
Keep the potty low-pressure and always available. No reminders, no countdowns, just consistent, easy access so it stops feeling like the place where requests happen.
Talk about poop matter-of-factly. Calm, simple language ("poop comes out of your body, and the potty is where it goes") helps take away any mystery or worry without making a big deal of it either way.
Expect this to take some time. Most toddlers shift away from hiding once the potty starts to feel as private and pressure-free as their old spot did.
The Canadian Paediatric Society makes a similar point in its own toilet learning guidance: a child may avoid passing a stool on the potty or toilet simply because they don't have good support for their feet, and discomfort tends to make the whole process take longer, not shorter. The goal isn't to catch your child in the act. It's to make the potty the easiest, calmest, most physically secure option already available to them.
This phase passes
Hiding to poop can feel like a strange hiccup in an otherwise smooth potty training process, but it's one of the more common ones, and it usually isn't a sign that anything has gone wrong. With a bit of positioning support, some patience, and a lot less pressure around the moment itself, most children make the shift to the potty on their own timeline.
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References
Gorodzinsky, F., community pediatrician and associate professor at Western University, as quoted in Today's Parent.
Canadian Paediatric Society. (2000). Toilet learning. Paediatrics & Child Health, 5(6), 336–337. Available at caringforkids.cps.ca. https://caringforkids.cps.ca/handouts/toilet_learning
Taubman, B. (1997). Toilet training and toileting refusal for stool only: a prospective study. Pediatrics, 99(1), 54–58.
This content is intended for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical, developmental, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional for guidance specific to your child. See our Legal page for more information.
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