My 5 year old still soiling his pants

[Alex18]

I have a 5 great old son whom insinst on soiling himself both in school and home,I'm getting frustrated as I'm the one that gets called into change him at school.ive tried cocmocol solution, sitting him on the toilet.he also has a rear of hand dryers so I can't change him in a public toilet any advice?

[mjas]

Has he been checked for chronic constipation? That's a common reason for soiling in children. Might be worth talking to GP. Also ERIC website has a lot of useful information and advice.

[Alex18]

I took him to the doc a while ago and they prescribed cosmocol

[mjas]

Is he still on it? Might need to adjust the dose. We are still struggling with our 5 year old (while 2 year old has no trouble at all, and potty trained himself), so I feel for you. We are seeing paediatrician, and she says it is rather common... I keep adjusting movicol dose, and trying to make sure he drinks a lot, but it is more difficult to control when he is at school. We also talked with his teachers and explained the situation, so they don't make a big deal if he has an accident at school. We also have a reward chart for the days with no soiled pants. We have a routine that he tries to poo every morning after breakfast and every evening after dinner, so he sits for ~10min with a book. This helps a lot - if he has a proper poo at least once a day, he is much less likely to soil. Most important is not to let him to get constipated again.

[OnTheList]

Watching with interest, sorry I have no advice. My 5 year old DD is doing this, but she also still wets herself. She makes no effort at all to go to the toilet or on the potty and its driving me mad to be quite honest. We did discover recently that she has chronic constipation and she had been put on laxido..which has made her poos explosive so we have had to put her back in pullups until we get the dosage right..but shes still making no attempt to go for a wee. I can understand her pooing herself whilst on laxitives until she gets used to having normal poos instead of huge hard balls (that she says do not hurt but the size of them, they must do) but the peeing herself is frustrating me a lot. Shes very sore down there because of all of this too

[mjas]

It is incredibly frustrating... but all the advice I got was to try not to show it. I think pooing and wetting themselves are somehow related. I always notice that my son has more peeing accidents when his poos become abnormal and we need to adjust the dosr. Then he also doesn't notice that he is wet. Sometimes I feel desperate - he is on top of his class in everything - reading, writing, counting, even though we never push him, he loves school and is really smart. So it is so frustrating, and also difficult to explain to people who have no experience with this.
What I find helps is having routines rules when he needs to go to loo, whether he feels a need or no. That is always before leaving the house, after meals, and sitting for a poo in the evenings. That prevents accidents most of the days, at least at school. We also make sure he gets enough fibre - but I don't think that food is a cause, as my 2 year old eats the same food and is absolutely fine.