Soiling accidents in almost 4yo

[KittyandTeal]

My dd1 has been fully toilet trained since she was 3. Over the past few months she has been having an increasing amount of soiling accidents, some days none (although these are rare) but mainly between 2-6 a day.

We took her to the gp who thought it was fecal impaction and gave her movicol. This worked, after the 'clear out' for about a week but now we are back to square one.

I think she is withholding. She hasn't ever been noticeable constipated or had hard stools so I don't think it's the 'fear' that is making withhold. She will only ever do a poo at home, never outside in a different toilet although she used to happily go at preschool.

We lost our second baby in March. Her accidents started about 8 weeks after this. I don't know if that could be linked.

We've tried reward charts earning new pants that she got to choose which she loved but tbh didn't make a difference, it was more chance that she had enough 'clean' days to get them. We don't make a big fuss, we gently praise when she tells us (she didn't tell us for a while and got very, very sore).

I'm at an utter loss. Obviously I've booked another appointment with the doc but today I'm just feeling really sad and worried about her. She's not too bothered about it tbh but she'll be at school next year, I worry about her being teased, I'm sad that she's somehow different and I'm so worried that it's linked to something more serious (I think this is my own stuff as we lost dd2 to abnormalities and no reason for loosing ds so I'm kind of convinced I can't make 'normal' children or babies right now)

And now I'm crying.

[user1471443066]

Hello,

What is her diet like? Can you boost the fibre intake...lots of wheetabix (breakfast and snack??) so that her bowel movements are more controlled for her and she has more of a feeling of needing to go.

If her stools are too mushy, she might not have enough advance notice to get to the toilet, she might not realise it's happening.

Dairy is not great for bowel problems. Is she a lover of dairy?

[minipie]

so sorry about your losses.

DD is a similar age and recently started having poo accidents due to constipation and having liquid poo behind the hard poo. I think it was partly due to not wanting to stay on the loo long enough to allow the poo to come out iyswim (too many interesting things to do).

We have started giving her two prunes every morning and we have switched back to the potty - it's comfier than the loo for her I think, and gives her a better position for pooing. We have put a stack of books beside it to encourage her to stay longer. Seems to be working.

Could you try something similar?

[KittyandTeal]

Her diet is not great tbh. She is very fussy and won't try anything new at all! What she does eat is okish (hummus wrap, peppers, pasta and home made sauce etc) so I can get limited veggies in her. She loves soft fruit. Dh and I have a great diet. She was blw-ed and ate whatever we ate until about a year ago when she started decided she didn't like stuff. I used to just serve whatever we were having and making her eat it or go hungry but she'd just go hungry and get really tired and tantrummy. She's a tall but skinny little thing too so I need her to eat.

We have a potty chair and atm that's the only thing she'll use. We've started trying to get her to sit on it longer but she's so reluctant. She'd basically rather be doing anything else than sitting on the toilet.

Thank for your suggestions. I really want to improve her diet but I have no idea how to go about it! We had a huge step the other day when she are some breaded chicken that she'd decided she didn't like then loved!

She is a dairy lover, she eats loads of cheese and love fromage frais. I've started restricting the cheese and ff after recently reading it's not great for her bowels

[minipie]

Will she eat dried fruit - apricots and especially prunes?

Ipad or phone to keep her on the potty longer? Or put the potty in front of the TV after lunch or tea and let her watch a programme while she sits there? I think this would hopefully only have to be temporary, the aim is to get her bowels used to going every day and then hopefully it would be a habit and get easier.

I wouldn't worry about diet too much and wouldn't restrict dairy if it's one of the few things she eats. There are plenty of fussy eater children and they aren't all constipated, and her diet sounds like it isn't that bad. I reckon not wanting to spend time on the potty/loo is more likely to be the issue - that was definitely 80% of the problem for us.

[KittyandTeal]

Thank you. I'll def give the TVs program a go, she'll sometimes sit in the potty for ages by mistake because she's so engrossed in a cartoon. That fed sounds like it could work.

I'll give the dried fruit a go. We don't have any atm as I treat Freud apricots like sweets and eat loads I'll get some more and see if I can get her to eat them.

[minipie]

Haha I love dried apricots too. Maybe prunes instead?

After meals is the best time as eating stimulates bowel motion apparently.

[GailLondon]

Hi OP, I've been through exactly the same battles with my now 4.5 yr old. I can highly recommend a book from Amazon called 'stool withholding' which finally helped us make a breakthrough.
Don't be afraid to keep using plenty of movicol for quite a long time, it can really take months to break the vicious cycle of fear, withholding and constipation.
(While working on gentle improvements to the diet at the same time)

[KittyandTeal]

Thank you gail, I'll definitely have a look for that book.

Good to know about movicol, I'll keep persisting with it