I'm a little embarrassed by this but I have a 5 year old son who is having alot of trouble with toilet training, mainly for poos. He can have a mess in his pants up to 5 times a day. He simply will just not go to the toilet, and also won't tell us he's done it. Every time I check his pants and/or bum there is always poo. I've tried rewards, taking toys away, taking away ipad/tv as this seems a distraction. I even took him to the dr who just suggested rewarding him.
I'm very concerned as it seems to be getting worse and he starts prep in a few weeks.
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated as I'm at my witts end and on the verge of a breakdown. Thanks in advance
Toilet training help
Toilet training help
Posted in:
Baby & Toddler, Potty Training
11 Replies
Let him soil himself and make him clean it up. Chances are he’s just lazy.
Go back to your doctor or (as I'd be tempted to do) see a new one. Demand an x-ray of his tummy, a full physical examination and whatever else they need to do to ensure it's not a physical problem. However, having been through this with my youngest, I'd bet my last penny it's encopresis.
I'm not sure if you've heard of that before but it's incredibly common in kids. To put it in layman's terms - the child ends up 'holding in' their poo for whatever reason for so long they become constipated, the constipation causes them to hold their poo longer and more frequently (as trying to poo when constipated rather hurts and can in turn cause anxiety which perpetuates the cycle), eventually they get leakage as the fresh poo flows past the faecal compaction and they tend to lose the sensation of needing to poo, making them at times completely unaware they've even had an accident.
Don't let people fob you off and suggest he's just lazy until you've ruled out physical problems, even then toileting issues very rarely equate to mere laziness.
Best of luck with it!
I second this. I have a friend who had this happen to her son in his early teens and he soiled himself at school which was extremely upsetting for him.
See a new Dr.
From the poster - thanks for this. Just talked about it with my husband and he agrees with what you described.
He was at daycare last year so aged mostly 3 and he was practically fully trained. Started at kindy and we feel something happened there so hes afraid to poo and it's gotten worse from there
My son was hard to master the poos too. I just decided one day that I was no longer doing it for him anymore and that he needed to clean it up himself. So whenever he poo’d himself he had to strip himself off, put whatever in the toilet and jump in the shower or clean it up with wipes ect ect.. I supervised but I wasn’t helping anymore.
I think he did this for two days and then realised it was much easier to do poo in the toilet, just as he had been doing the wee in toilet for ages
I'm the poster. We've tried the "clean it up himself" but he loves to clean so it didn't faze him.
I think I'll be going back to another dr in the new year to get it sorted.
Start him on 2 Junior Movicol a day to help with disimpaction.All the instructions and doses needed are inside the box and it comes in chocolate flavour too. You will get poo explosions but that is just what they call the wash around. You need to keep going on this routine for a few weeks and then do a maintenance dose for about 6months whilst the bowel repairs itself. Get started asap, it is safe for kids and we have had to do it with ours with advice from a pediatric gastroenterologist. If ur in Bris and need to see one Dr Emma Mcintyre at Mater Private is absolutely amazing!
Dr Emma is fantastic! My son used to see her because he was tube fed and she inserted his mic-key button.
Can I also suggest not sending him to prep. Maybe another year of r year old kinder. It could be a bit of anxiety about school.
You can get another funded year of kinder if needed. You just have to talk to the kinder teachers and see what they think. They can help with the paper work.
Speak to your dr about seeing a Continence nurse. We took my 4 almost 5 year old to see one and she was great gave us a few ideas and we were finally able to get him to poo on the toilet rather then needing a nappy for it. Continence nurses are there for this sort of thing and would be able to help. I know we tried everything with my son and it just didn’t work. Once we saw her he master it. Good luck.
From the poster.
Thanks everyone for your answers. I went to the dr who informed he was definitely constipated with possible endopresis. He's on a big dose of Movical (thank god for strawberrt milk to mask the taste) and there's a huge improvement already. He's still having accidents, but that's because hes having poo explosions to clear himself out but he actually feels it and tells me. And he even sits on toilet when I ask him, with no arguing.
Wish we did this 6 months ago