It Hurts When I Poop!: A Story for Children Who Are Scared to Use the Potty

Bought this book for my 3 and a half year old as he was withholding and getting really stressed about going to the loo...and stressing us all out too. It's the best money I've ever spent. He read it twice the first day and the following morning got up and grabbed the book and said he needed to go to the loo...and did! 4 weeks on, we still use the book occassionally when he needs a reminder but the change in his behaviuor is huge and he understood the book straight away - perfect for 3-4 year olds and a great relief to have found such a simple solution to our problems. The only downside is the American language 'trash', 'poop', etc but a bit of rewording was easy and well worth it for the positive effect.

Really good book for helping children understand how we poo and why you can’t just hold it in. Bought to help my two and a half year old son who withholds and along with other books about poo seems to have really helped. He certainly asks to read it and is now proud when he does a bowl movement on the toilet when previously he didn’t want to talk about it. It is quite long and detailed so younger children or those not quite so aware of how the body works may not understand the story but I’d always leave it a while and try again in a few months as it is a great book for helping with holders. I also never drew comparison between him and the book character, I let him realise that on his own.

This is a strange one to review: I didn't think it was that good, but it instantly struck a chord with my stool-withholding 2.5 year old. What I liked about it: it's a brilliant idea. I'm a firm believer in using books and stories to work through children's problems, and for a problem so common as stool-withholding there is surprisingly little good material out there. The book started off promisingly. The idea of telling a story within the story, and using the dirty house as a metaphor, is also interesting. What I didn't like: the language just wasn't appropriate for a smaller child. I don't just mean the Americanisms (which the reader can easily change), but statements like a "taking control" or "being the boss of your house" just didn't mean anything to my son. Some pages could be much better layed out for a non-reading child, such as the list of 'good' and 'bad' foods. (I also didn't like this putting down some foods as 'bad', because children can easily get frightened by them in this context - and cheese etc. are all perfectly healthy and important foods for them to eat, overall). The last 4 pages are also confused, in a narrative sense - the boy is at the doctors', then he is back at home, then he is at the doctors' again, and then home. So I didn't read it but rather told a more simplified story to match the pictures, and my son was (and still is) completely taken with it. When we now talk about how he has to try to do regular poos he always talks about Ryan and wants me to tell the story again. So I suppose I have to praise it, even though I think it could have been much better executed.

This book is okay, I don't regret getting it. Buy I really hoped it would be much better. I got it for my 2 year old son, who has struggled with constipation since he was baby. He has been on medication for it most of his life. We've recently started toilet training which funnily enough seems to be helping and I bought this book to help support us through this stage. The graphics in this book are really bland and didn't really grab my boys attention. Improving these alone would make the book much more enjoyable. I also think they could have made the book a bit more concise for young readers as I find my boy struggles to make it to the end without losing interest (he's only 2 though, so maybe this is aimed at older kids). I really like that it tried to explain what poo is and where it comes from, I think my son gets the basic concept now which is pretty cool. I'm not sure how I feel about the lists of foods in the book that are bad/good for making poos soft. For example, cheese and apples are fine if not eaten in excess and as part of a healthy diet. I think it's important to make children aware of food, but I would be worried that he would blame certain foods for his problems - which is definitely not the case for us anyway. The book explains that some of these foods are still good for you and suggests eating less in the 'poop plan' at the back but in the story it just lists them as foods that make poo hard. So I would say it's worth getting, as there seem to be so few books that cover this problem, but it could be better.

I bought this book to help my son with potty training as he couldn't do no 2's but had been fine in all other aspects of using the toilet. Couldn't get over how well he understood what was happening to his body through reading this book. It totally worked after a long time of trying everything we finally overcame this hurdle. I then passed the book on to a friend who's son was having the same problem and she reported the same results. I cannot recommend this book enough.

My son has been refusing to poop for over a year. The first time I read this book to him, he said to me "he sounds like me Mummy". In the book it says what food is good for his tummy to not make the poop hurt and what will make the poop hurt. Over the next couple of days my son would say, that will make my poop hurt won't it Mummy, I can't have that one. Amazed at how a simple story has helped. We are a long way from him being cured but he is definitely heading in the right direction and this has helped with that.

Good content although will use and re write some info linked to my own child in relation to certain foods. Illustrations could have been bolder and less fussy, but overall brilliant thought out story

The book was bought to read to my three and a half year old son who is finding it "scary" to poo on the toilet and in the potty. Although he is reasonably interested in the story, it's only because it has dinosaurs in part of it. I do not like the book at all. The bulk of the book contains very pale/pastel complex pictures which are lost on a young child. Also, the majority of the book is about a coyote who has an untidy house and needs to sweep the floor, wipe the walls and wash his dishes - all of this is meant to be a metaphor for the need to clear out your bowels but it's a tenuous link to say the least. The supposed connection between the untidy coyote and pooing on the toilet simply does not translate for an intelligent three and a half year old child. In my opinion, the single most useful page of the book is near the end, which shows a diagram of the digestive system and demonstrates how poo is made; this enabled my son to understand where food goes, what the intestines do and how poo is made. However, I could have looked this picture up on Google. Finally - although a minor annoyance - when reading the book I have had to change lots of the terminology "in the moment" while reading it aloud as it is written for the American market (we are British) and is therefore full of words like garbage, trash, poop, etc. Sadly a disappointing and pointless purchase.