I have a chatty nearly-two who reports all day that they've pooped. They come over and wait for me to check. This will happen several times in a continuous row (as in, in under a minute), then stop for an hour or two, then happen every five minutes for an hour, and so on. This started at enrollment late last year and it's increasing. (Five times in the length of time it took me to type these three paragraphs!)

They seem to have typical bowel movements, and they use other learned phrases to redirect or to avoid things they don't want, like naptime, so I'm inclined to think this is more emotionally- than medically-based. They are dry when I check, so it's not an issue of confusing #1 and #2, and their digestion seems normal and painless.

That said, is there a way to extinguish this behavior without being a negligent authoritarian jerk about it? I can't honestly say "NO, you have NOT pooped," because once every day or so, they actually have. And unlike one of my kids, what they're producing isn't super-whiffy, so I don't feel comfortable telling them to wait until an activity ends for me to check, since, again, once every day or so, they really would be sitting in their own mess while they waited.

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