indi

My two and a half year old has been nappy free during the day since well before she turned two and because of this we did not envisage any further problems with toilet training - we kind of considered the job done (no pun intended). However, she has developed a habit of withholding poo until her nappy goes on at night and presenting herself to be cleaned up within an hour of going to bed. Aside from the admirable display of bowel control, it is an incredibly irritating and wasteful habit (sorry, no pun intended, again) as it is a huge waste of (very expensive) nappies and we are usually confronted with a smelly, pooy child about two mouthfuls into our evening meal.
She simply refuses to do a poo in the toilet.
I know some kids are quite fearful of the toilet, but this is not the case and in fact she is quite keen on the whole toilet process. We have tried praise, rewards, bribes and on the very odd occasion threats. We know that she knows what to do, as when we ask her “where do we put our poo?” she always cheerfully replies “In the toilet” and she has in the past had a quite a few positive “bottom to toilet” poo experiences.
My theory is that it is a control thing- it being one of the few things in her world that she has some control over.
My partner thinks it is an attention thing - she can get out of bed and get some extra attention that her little brother isn’t getting.
Either way we don’t know what to do about it. Can anyone out there help? Has anyone else encountered this problem?