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At 3 she should be able to understand the concept that the holding is what's causing her to hurt. Just explain to her that not holding her poop will help it get easier. Tell her that any time she feels like she needs to poop she should come find you and you'll do whatever she wants (help her on the potty, give her a diaper, hold her hand for comfort) to help her try.

My 2.5 yo held his poops for the first month or so of potty training too. It was a viscious cycle of him being afraid of painful poops and withholding causing firm, hard, painful poops. We ended up loading him up with juice and Miralax so that he couldn't hold it in anymore. We dealt with a few poop accidents in his underwear, but I actually preferred that over the holding. Once we were able to get a number of non-constipated poops consistently in the toilet, his fear finally subsided. When he would make his face of "impending poop", I would rush him to the toilet and have him lean forward to give me a hug, and encourage him to push the poop out. I think the position and the hug helped. The Miralax was also key to "force" the issue. We've had daily poops in the toilet for over a week, so I think we're there.

We went through this too, although LO potty trained earlier and we did OCPT so we didn't want to go back to diapers and contradict the "method." It sorted itself out in a few weeks! Maybe this thread will be helpful: http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/day-2-of-potty-training-amp-no-poop/

I thought LO got plenty of fiber but I fed her a couple prunes a day for months to keep things moving. Now she is a pro at pooping on the potty!

Also, @bao wrote a guest post about something similar a few months back!

@jaguar: I never had any luck with making LO stay on the potty for long periods but sometimes she needed to try, like before we left for a long car trip. (This was just for pees--we didn't have a poop issue.) so our compromise was to have her sit on the potty and 'try' until I counted to 10. I counted fast or slow depending on what she needed. If she didn't have anything come out then we went on our way. I wonder if just offering the chance to try for a short period would help her get over this hiccup?

@jaguar: We didn't have this issue but I read a PT book and the author had a suggestion that I thought sounded good. She said to get some sort of stick or wand (like a cool one that a kid would want) and leave it outside the door then have your LO find it by knocking on the door or ringing the bell. Say that it's from the "poop fairy" (lol) and that if she holds it while she poops then it won't hurt (and only let her hold it while she's on the toilet). Might be worth a shot.

Probably not a recommended method but we rewarded poops on the potty with M&M's and other treats. He was a bit younger though, closer to 2. It never became and issue because he was so excited to get his treat.

@jaguar: oh geez. I really hope some of these other suggestions help.

Currently going through a similar situation right now with my LO. He says he has to go and runs to the potty sits for a minute and then gets off and says he doesn't have to go. By the time he does have to go, it's already happening and he has an accident on the floor or in his undies and he's a total wreck about it. This is only for poops. It makes it hard for us to go anywhere. I'm not sure what to do - the extended sitting doesn't help us at all, and it's only worked a few times to distract with books. Any suggestions? I'm going to try the "Listening for Toots" game as that is so his sense of humor!

@jaguar: thanks! I'll keep posting if anything works for me!

This is probably not the way to go about this for everybody but we were having a similar issue and my son was holding in his poop until night but sometimes would hold for several days. We couldn't even convince our 3 year old to sit on the potty most days. One day when my husband was staying home with our son and it had been at least 3 days since the last poop, my husband picked up a suppository from the drug store. They used it and within 5 minutes everything was ready to come out. My son sat on his potty and he was delighted when it worked. This experience appeared to have given him the confidence he needed to poop on the potty. We threw him a poo-poo party with a cake and balloons and he just continued to go poop on the potty from that day forward.