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We're going through some of this with my son. He's only 2.5 and jack starting with potty training but definitely fearful of pooping. I haven't read the book but I've found these videos from the "oh crap potty training" author helpful.

Oomph, story of my life the past 6 or so months!! DD was pee trained early but asked for a diaper to poop for quite some time. We were ok with this bc she was so young and basically trained herself to pee on the potty (we believe due to older kid influence at daycare, since they were peeing on potty she wanted to too).

Anyway, she'd ask for a diaper to poop and we had no problems giving her that. However, what started to happen was if she had to poop at daycare they tried to get her to go on the potty and she just wasn't ready so this in turn began her cycle of holding it. She realized she could hold it and everything got worse because then she'd just hold it for daysssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!! SHe'd hold it at daycare bc she didn't want to go on the potty and she'd hold it at home bc she was too busy playing. Then when she'd finally go it was a nightmare. Would take her hours/even days to poop, it would hurt and she'd cry and scream. I spent days, literally holding her hands while she tried to push out her poop. We ended up on miralax which sorta helped.

She finally gave up the diapers, not really sure why, I mean we talked to her about just going on the potty and stuff but we didn't force anything bc lord knows we didn't want to make anything worse. She just started going on the potty. We do still have issues though.... if she holds it for even a day it hurts her and she screams and cries, it's quite terrible!! I've asked the ped many times if this is ok and they say it is. We'll have 3-4 good days where she goes no problem and she's happy/excited that she went with no problem and then we'll revert back to a tough poop day and she'll cry.... but at least now it's on the potty and it's not taking her days to pass her poop.

All that just to commiserate. Did your DS have any painful poop experience? that could possibly make him revert?

Good luck!!

@math.nerd: We live near a water tower and pass it daily. Since we had already explained the function of the water tower and having pipes underground I used this all to make up a story too. For us it was the fish that ate poop. And, while the fish weren't in the toilet, the pipes underground did carry the poop to them in the lakes, streams, ocean, etc. Worked for her

Now the little one was seriously afraid of pooping in the potty, so I didn't even try. She would have been afraid of the fish biting her bottom.

I also used "brave" and "strong" with our second over the past couple of weeks when we were working through learning to poop on the potty.

When all else failed for us, the exercise really seemed to get things moving to where she didn't have much of a choice but to let it go. Speaking of let it go, I recall our neighbors using Frozen's let it go for their son a few years ago.

This was my daughter exactly. The thing that helped us is distraction. We had an old iPhone laying around, we loaded it with a bunch of kid games (Daniel Tiger Stop and Go Potty was a big hit, but anything else your kid may be into would work), and we told her that she can play games while on the potty. It was incentive enough for her to sit down long enough for nature to take its course, and after a a few times of successful poops, the association was broken that it was painful and now she goes without a problem. It takes time, but something will flip for him too.

For us the answer was not to force him to poop on the potty at all. It was more important to me that he didn't develop a fear of pooping that let to digestive issues and constipation than that he was fully potty trained. We let him poop in a pull-up or diaper when he said he had to go. Every time we'd ask if wanted to try the toilet, and every time he said no. We talked about pooping on the potty, encouraged him to try without being angry or judgemental... and one day, he just said yes. He never looked back, he was fully trained with no accidents since that day. He just needed to be ready to do it.

I don't know if my daughter was SCARED so much as impatient. We're only about a month into potty training but poop has definitely been a thing. She's been a bit reluctant, and definitely holding it for days at a time sometimes (we give her prunes which work wonderfully for her). What seems to help us is 1) iPad (we let her watch videos only when she's waiting to poop. Keeps her on the potty long enough to let it happen) and 2) rewards (she gets 4 skittles if she poops. BIG DEAL! lol)