Pre-school poo accidents!

[istheresomethingwrongwithme]

Not a poo troll! Just looking for opinions as none of my Mum friends have children in pre-school yet.

Bit of backstory. DS started pre-school in September and is doing brilliantly. He was 3 at the very end of July, so one of the youngest in the class. 14 in the class, 4 members of staff. He's totally nailed doing a wee on the loo but has regressed with poos. I know he can do it, he understands he has done wrong when he's done it in his pants, but we just can't seem to overcome it. Pre-school said to just ride it out and it will probably come right again.

Whenever he does a poo, they send the dirty pants home in a carrier bag on his school bag. Fine, except they send the poo home too! I don't expect them to be washing the clothes, and could understand if it's a really messy poo, but often it's quite a 'solid' poo which could easily just be tipped into the loo.

I know they're busy, but AIBU in thinking they can tip the worst of it into the loo and then bag up the dirty pants for me to wash?

YANBU the preschool and nursery and childminder my children attended all flushed the poo. Obviously if it was wet there was residue but none of them sent home a fully solid lump of terd. Ew

There is some sort of regulatory issue about handling preschool poo. It may be that different schools have different interpretations, but the end result is that it’s totally normal to get that bag home. I’ll be honest, For this phase I just sent dd to school in clothes I didn’t care about at all (already stained or damaged in some way) and if there was an accident, it all got pitched.

It is a bit grim!

The trouble is also that it makes anything else in the bag smell (other spare clothes etc), so then I end up washing the lot even though it's not really dirty. I've overcome that by putting the other stuff in their own bags, but it could easily be overcome if the majority was put down the loo.

Oh that is rank 😷 ours would tip any solids down the loo and then bag the pants.

I honestly think they will be doing this so you know what kind of stool it is. I say this as the mother of a son who had serious constipation & impaction issues until he was nearly 7. Ive attended more nursery/primary school "poo accidents" than I could count.

Because of my sons issues it was more of a leakage/soiling issue due to the impaction (sorry, TMI), so wasn't anything solid to clean.
My point here is, my immediate thought went to "that would have been really helpful for me, because I'd know he had a full, successful BM".

Its such a common problem for children -especially boys- to have, that its entirely possible the child minders have experienced it before and are thinking in that way automatically.

Hope that makes sense.

@GlowingOrb thanks, I was wondering whether there was some sort of regulation about what they are/aren't allowed to do with it in pre-school, in which candle fair enough. I should have asked that in my OP.

Thanks @redheadwitch, that's helpful.

Could you ask them? Dd had the same problem at 3y/o. Nursery we're fab, they would change her and bag up her pants, often rinsed out if needed. I did say to them that if they are too bad, please feel free to bin them. Maybe have a word with his key worker.

Yuck. I work in a nursery and always tip the poo out before sending the pants home. Quite often the parents have agreed in advance that soiled pants get binned.

We also get sent the poo in the bag, not the nicest thing but there's not really a good kind of pooie pants so is only slightly more grim then what your dealing with anyway.

Yes I will ask tomorrow. They are all great so I'm sure it will all become clear, I just wanted to get an idea of what's normal before I approached anyone.

That's true @ForeverBubblegum, hadn't thought of it like that.

I’d ask them. We had a bag of poo sent home last year, and I just asked why they had to do it, just out of interest. The key worker was mortified and said she was going to bin it but had obviously had a ‘moment’ and shoved it into DS’s bag instead.

Obviously it’s unlikely that this is the reason as it’s happened to you several times. But I think it’s worth asking the question as it’s certainly not the norm in our setting.

Sorry, cross posted with you

Are you sure he's not a bit constipated? Might explain the hard poo but also why he's withholding it more?

I have actually thought that @AurorasGingerbreadHouse. I noticed a thread today about someone else's son who was doing the same and it was mentioned on there too. I have bought some Califig today, as he's difficult to get fruit and veg into.

Yes my DS is doing the same!

I am all for being sustainable and not adding to landfill, but I would invest in cheap pants and ask them to bin them.

Eww! Where I work we would always flush it away... And if it wasn't solid we'd at least attempt to rinse out the pants before bagging them up! A few parents have even told us just to bin them if they're that bad. Why on earth would anyone think it acceptable to send a bag of poo home? Imagine if there was pack of communication and the poo bag was put in a child's bag and wasn't found straight away?!

Could it be in case they think you may want to check the bowel movement yourself?

There is a scale of what poo looks like which can help you work out if it’s a normal movement or if it’s a bit dehydrated or whatever.

Perhaps you could see if his drinking pattern has changed?
Is he the same at home?
Anything else which could be a contributory factor?

Wee soul, can’t be much fun! Hopefully it will sort itself out with the fig meds.

@istheresomethingwrongwithme
@AurorasGingerbreadHouse

My son suffered with constipation and impaction for alot of years. The quicker you recognise it and begin treatment, the sooner it is resolved. My consultant told me that it takes as long to reverse as they have suffered from it aka if they have had it for a year, it will take a year of treatment to get past.

My son was on high doses of movicol for a long time, and we had to work with reward charts etc as a large part of the problem is psychological. As I mentioned upthread, it's particularly common in boys. They dislike the feeling of poo'ing, so try to resist. It makes the stool harder and therefore painful to pass. So, they do everything they can to deter going. My son used to go into corners and squirm trying to hold it in, was such ashame.
It's a vicious cycle that leads to weakening of the muscle that controls the bowel, therefore lessening their ability to have a BM. That's what the laxatives etc are for; to treat the impaction and once the build up is lessened and not as painful, you can begin with toilet training, for lack of a better phrase. You need to set regular patterns for going for a BM. After baths is good as they are more relaxed. Even if it's just getting them to sit on the toilet and not going, but them learning it's not scary or painful etc.

It was a long slog for our family as my son always struggled with constipation even as a baby.

However, it wasn't until he was around 4 that I was told what it could even be and looked for the right help. I wish I had known much sooner. Your children could of course not be suffering with this, but worth keeping an eye on. Sooner its caught, sooner its mended.