3 1/2 year old daughter, was fully potty trained and now she's back to pooping in her underwear.

[KatrinaD17]

I have a 3 1/2 year old daughter who poops in her underwear. We potty trained her right before her 3rd birthday. She's been doing great! Peeing and pooping in the toilet, letting us know when she has to go, just doing awesome! But until a couple of weeks ago, she has been pooping in underwear everyday, going through 2-5 pairs a day! My husband and I were getting grossed out by it so we put her back in diapers. She still goes pee in the toilet, but wont go poop. And since she's been wearing the diapers she does poop alot, just alittle bit or mainly skid-mark type poops, like she's trying to hold it. We offered to help her in the bathroom, with wiping or anything else, we've taken a toys away, hoping she'd get the hint to start using to toilet again, but she still does it! So we just change the diaper, not say anything at all anymore. She tell us she wants to wear big girl panties again, but Its just too messy and she hasn't shown any signs that she wants to start pooping in the toilet again. What's going on with her? Help?  
Katrina

[KatrinaD17]

Well when we first potty trained her, we did the star chart, 1 star for pee, 2 for poop. 10 stars she got a small prize, 50 we got to go do something fun like go see a movie. But was just baffled that after 7 months of doing great, wearing big girl underwear, no accidents, even at night, that she all of a sudden started pooping in her underwear. I did go out and buy some pull-ups for her. She seems to just run off all of a sudden to another room while playing so I started following her and realized she'd go off to go poop. But I catch her in time and we go into the bathroom. I think I need to bring back the potty chart though. So Im going to go out and get some more star stickers! Hopefully we can get this sorted out. Thank you!

[margypops]

The only way in my opinion is to remove the pullups /diapers as its enabling her to poop in them , no mess as you said, get the big girl pants , it will make her want to be clean ..listen to your daughter, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings LOL

[hopeshell]

Sometimes kids do regress backwards.  Have you tried Pull-Ups?  They are a bit pricey, but worth it for this transition time.  That way, she can pull them up and down and gain some confidence back at her own pace.  Her accidents will be caught and able to be thrown away.  You could also make a star chart for her and every time she has a successful bathroom potty, she could get a star.  You can work out some type of reward for when she gets a certain number of stars.  Kids are so independent at that age.   She may not be able to make it through the night without having some accidents until she is a bit older.   So, leaving the pull-ups on her at night as a precaution would be helpful.  My kids each had issue with potty training.  Hang in there!  They will work themselves out in time.