3.5yo DS was fully toilet trained for months, but now poos himself almost every time. Any advice?

[KirstyJC]

DS3 was fully toilet trained just before he turned 3. He was able to tell us when he needed the toilet and took himself off by himself to do it. He needed help to wipe his bum but otherwise was able to manage. He was dry a little bit before he became clean and trained fairly quickly and easily.

He remained completely toilet trained for about 3-4 months, then he suddenly started to poo himself again. This has now been going on for a couple of months, and practically every time he poos it's in his pants - he really doesn't seem to recognise that he needs to go. He can tell us afterwards although he does deny it sometimes.

He doesn't seem upset by it and he doesn't mind sitting on the toilet. If we get him early enough he is quite happy to do the rest of the poo on the toilet. He is still fully dry day and night.

We are stumped! Does anyone have any advice as to why he is doing this, or how we can support him to become clean again? It just seems so strange that he was managing it for so long before it went back again.

All suggestions welcome. Thanks

[Popalina]

Watching this with interest as our son is a year younger and been doing a poo in his pants every day for the last few weeks after being fine before and going on the loo. It's so puzzling!

[KirstyJC]

Anyone?

[Popalina]

Another pooey pant situation today! I now come to expect it every day.

[BarbarianMum]

I can think of a few possible reasons for you to consider.

The first is constipation reducing sensation, with overflow poo escaping.

The second is that he is now a bit bored with toilet training and would rather be doing other things so delays going to the loo til too late.

The third is that your response to the initial couple of random accidents caused your ds a lot of stress around pooing so he is now in 'needing a poo' denial and accidents keep happening.

The forth is that he gets a lot of negative attention about these accidents so is perversely "motivated" to keep having them.

I have experience of 2 and 3 with my children, and know several people who have had 1 and 4. This is a really common problem. If he is constipated he'll need medical help. If its behavioural then what works is staying very calm (to the point of being disinterested) and getting him to clean himself up (with a little help, if necessary) and put his pants in a bucket to soak.

HTH

[Piratejones]

If you have ruled out constipation then the negative attention he is getting from messing himself might be the reason, i would put a pullup on him, let him use it, but change him in silence with limited eye contact, making things as uninteresting as possible.

And of course Lots of good attention for toilet use, as it's more intresting.

[Popalina]

Good responses and helpful to know we are not the only a ones. It's not constipation so either my fault or he is being a bit lazy. Either way, will aim to remain neutral and very quiet when clearing it up and see what happens!

[KirstyJC]

Thanks for the replies. I am pretty sure it's not constipation here either so we'll try not to make a big deal of it.

We won't go back to nappies here as he has been out of them for almost a year now, but will just keep it low key when we help him cleam himself up.

Fingers crossed for a poo-free Christmas Day!

[Piratejones]

Hope it went well!

[Popalina]

Ours wasn't poo free but I think he might have worms. I haven't seen any but he has said he has an itchy bottom a few times since the weekend and it suddenly dawned on me today so going to investigate tonight.

[Piratejones]

POPAlina, Time for the torch test.

[Popalina]

Did it and worm free! Still pooing himself every day though. I ignore it beyond getting him cleaned up. Not making a difference. It's just so weird when he had it nailed before. He is 2. 5 so youngish. He wears a nappy at night and I am finding a few times a week that he has pooed in it come the morning. That's new too.

How are you getting on Kirsty?