Preparing For Poop

At your age, you certainly don’t remember how you learned to go to the bathroom on the toilet, and to make sure you get your waste in the appropriate place. As a parent, you will get the opportunity to remember how that happens though. Your child will have no understanding of what a toilet is at first. Once they do know, there will still be struggles to get them to use it.

As such, you’re going to find poop in places that you’d hope you never would. It’s not fun in the moment, but don’t worry as it washes off. You’ll survive the experience, but may come out of it thinking that you didn’t know that kids pooped in odd places sometimes. This article is meant to help you mentally prepare for some of the places you’re bound to find poop in your parenting journey - even if you don’t find them in all of these places, you’ll likely find them in places you weren’t expecting.

Poop On You

Ah yes, the classic parent covered in poop. You know you’re a parent once you’ve been peed and pooped on by your baby. I was fortunate enough to only be pooped on twice by our most recent child, and only once with our first - I was peed on more than that.

Babies have this natural reaction when the diaper comes up to shoot their poop at you, especially when you’ve lifted their legs to wipe their bottom. You have those legs in the air, are grabbing a baby wipe, and bam. The poop is shooting at you. In order to avoid this always happening, make sure you have your baby's diaper on them until you’re fully ready to clean and change their diaper. It’s not going to be perfect, and you’ll likely get hit one or two times (hopefully just by pee), but it will decrease the likelihood.

Poop In The Bathtub

Just wait until you find some turds in the bathtub. You’re trying to get your child clean, you’ve got them all washed, and then you see the brown log floating in the tub. Ahhh! Frustrating. You’ll scramble to get your child out, and then have to clean the poop out of the bathtub. You’ll then want to clean your child again, and hope that they got it all out on the first go around.

This is actually one of the nicer places you’ll find poop as a parent. It’s fairly easy and not too messy to clean up. This can happen from baby through toddler phase though, so just be prepared that you may have to clean up even when your child is able to play and have fun in the bathtub.

Poop In Their Pants

Once you’ve started potty training your child, there is a high likelihood that they will poop in their pants. There’s also a good chance they’ll poop in their diaper at night, which is much more pleasant to deal with, but doesn’t help you towards your potty training goal. 

Regardless, you’re bound to have poop in pants at some point. I’m not sure what’s better - the poop to be all sticky in there as they’ve sat on it after doing it, or for it to have fallen out as it’s now down their leg. In either case, you’ll have a mess to clean up and a child to teach about where the proper place to poop at is.

Poop Outside

Cross your fingers that this is the worst place you’ll find your child’s poop as a parent. You don’t have to deal with the smell, and hopefully the cleanup should be simple and minimal. Of course, you still have the job of teaching your child that they need to poop on the toilet, but that’s a teaching lesson, and not a disgusting mess for you.

The great outdoors is a place that your child will learn to go to the bathroom once you start camping, but you’ve got to help them understand that when you’re at home or other places with a bathroom, they need to use that. Children can be impatient though, and going outside is just so much faster.

Poop Under the Table and In the Closet

When your child is still in diapers, you’ll likely notice them going under a table, or in a closet, or other places that are hidden so that they can poop in their diaper. You’ll recognize that they go there, and then you’ll need to change their diaper. This is really good to know because it will help you as you start potty training them.

Of course, the other side to that is that when you do start potty training them, there’s a chance they’ll go to those same places to poop, but without their diaper. Cleaning poop off of carpet is not a very exciting job that you may have to do at some point. Kids like to go to the same places even without their diaper though, so keep an eye on them.

Poop Anywhere They Feel Like It

Kids will poop just about anywhere they feel like it, except the toilet, of course. They will poop in the toilet, but you’ll remember all the times they don’t make it there. It’s easy to remember being pooped on, or finding poop in your pantry, or other random places throughout your home. Don’t worry though, it’s only temporary, and soon enough you’ll be out of the poop anywhere phase for good...unless you have a second child.

Conclusion

This article isn’t meant to scare you, just give you a more realistic idea of what it’s like to be a parent. It’s not always the most fun thing in the world when you’re covered in poop. Just remember, you’ll get to look back at it sometime and be glad you never have to wash poop out of your hair again.