To think this poo situation is just ridiculous now?

[Alittlebitwary]

Posting here for traffic to see if anyone else has any experience of the same, as I'm at the end of my tether with this and literally don't know what else I can do.

My 4yo just will do anything to avoid doing a poo.
Potty training was fine, this started sometime between age 2 and 3. She holds it to the point it starts to come out, so gets poo in her knickers, but won't go to the toilet. She will cross her legs, crouch on the floor, and though clearly desperately holding it in she flatly denies needing a poo.
We sit her on the toilet and she screams her head off saying she doesn't need one, despite the repeated pooey knickers. She'll then go off and play, then repeat. More pooey knickers and toilet refusal. I'm absolutely sick to death of it now.

We've tried everything.
Poo apps recommended by HV.
Ignoring and letting her lead (she then holds so long - days - that it's eventually painful when she finally does do one then is even more avoidant).
Forcing her to the loo (she refuses)
putting games and toys in the loo to keep her there / make it relaxed (she just plays and no poo comes out)
Positive reinforcement, sticker charts, rewards. Huge praise for every poo.
Also tried not making a fuss so she didn't stop doing it just because she wasn't getting a fuss.
Increased fluids and fruit.
We make doing a poo part of bedtime routine and sit her on the toilet every night before bed.
We often have to spend 15 mins making her laugh to get her to relax enough to poo.
She ALWAYS denies needing to go, even while she's doing one!
However, occasionally she takes herself off to do one, and gets on with it no problem. I have no idea why sometimes she can and sometimes she can't.

We saw GP when she was 2 or 3 and she's been on laxido daily ever since and the poos are always soft now. It's possible she was constipated at one point and had a painful poo.

The thing is, we'll go round in circles having a period where she's going on her own no problem, every day with no issues!! and then suddenly there'll be another period where she is constantly holding and it's a constant battle to get her to be regular.

I am absolutely sick to death of the pooey knickers and her little sister is starting to copy this behaviour and I just can't!

She's at school now and comes home with poo knickers on the regular and she gets a sore bum.

Help me Mumsnet!!

Learn ABCs of behavior.

I think you need to understand the antecedent.

it seems like you’re giving her a lot of attention. And kids want attention positive or negative.

i would reinforce that she’s still a baby and big kids are not ok with poopy bottoms etc.

OR

buy a roll of tickets. Make an earning and payout schedule for what behaviour earns what tickets. And what tickets can be used for. Keep them in a glass jar. Reinforce positive behaviour

My son had constipation and withholding when he was little with lots of pooey pants. We had fabulous support from a Consultant Paediatrician and the specialist Paediatric Nurse for continence issues who helped titrate the medications and also with the behavioural issues. Your GP needs to refer you on. I hate to say this, but if the WL is long, consider going private for the initial assessment and then transfer back to the NHS if that is an option.

What a great idea. Traumatise and frighten a child who may already be in psychological distress. 👏🏻

@Sanfaaa8 I was in this situation as a child and was well aware lots of people thought I was disgusting. Funnily enough that didn’t solve the problem.

My son is exactly the same, everything you have described. We have tried all kinds of tactics too. He will hold it in as long as possible, when he feels it coming he'll jump up and down, avoid sitting or walking, even seen him put a finger there in an attempt to poke it back in, won't eat all the while when he needs one either. It has spoiled many outings and even whole days spent avoiding playing because of the poo. This can go on for a few days. When we finally get him on the toilet he'll stand up on the seat when we're not watching, or lay back so poo is unable to come out. I let him try and go first on his own and talk to him through the door pretending to be a character with his stuffed toy, poke my head in every now and then to make sure he isn't standing on the toilet seat.I encourage him to sit in the right position after a while and ask him to stay like it for slow 20 seconds while I throw a stuffed toy in the air twenty times to distract him. I can do this process 3 times in a day when son decides to try and have a poo. We usually do this between 15 mins to 30 mins each time. It does work eventually but I can completely sympathise as it's so exhausting. We also have a squeezie stress reliever in the shape of a bus that helps too, when I think the poo is near to exiting I give son the bus to squeeze with his hands. I believe my son has had bad constipation in the past after being put on medication for reflux when he was very tiny. He has always had these poo issues even since. Even as a one year old in nappies he would stand straight up stiff on tiptoes and force the poo out in this position which gave him piles too for a while. He is now 4 almost 5, I found cutting down on gluten products helped a little and we use lactalose when ultra necessary. Son still won't talk much about his poo worries. He gets embarrassed when it comes out in his pants and we try not to make any big deal about it. We fimd it's best to keep a sense of humour and as little fuss as possible. I hope he grows out of it but it must be very uncomfortable for the little ones as well as stressful for the parents. I hope you and your little girl finds something to help soon

My DS was exactly, exactly the same. We ended up not making plans if he hadn't had a poo for 3-4 days as they would inevitably end in needing to leave whatever we were doing and rush back to the house when he finally decided, most distressed, that he had to go. Then he would need to change pants for pull up nappy and would hide behind a curtain and go in that. Honestly, I don't have any great advice, but wanted to say he's now a clever, rather naughty, well liked 16 year old, and there is life on the other side of this I promise. He grew out of it slowly, with all being fine by the age of 6 or so.

Squatting position is the best way to poo so you can get foot rests which bring your knees up a bit and help with this. Blowing bubbles and balloons all sound good too.

hi,
first gentle hug, this can be so frustrating! Any sibling coming along when 2/3?

it needs to be positive reinforcement, so stickers with a reward at the end: whatever she really really likes.
she needs to “like” her pooh so tell her how beautiful her pooh is and make her see how you positively feel about it.

good luck!

I say this as a parent of a 14 year old with a school only toilet phobia and who has to wear pull ups for school. It’s really hard when there’s psychological issues at play. My child was put back in nappies by their school who got sick of all the wetting and soiling as they didn’t have the staff to change her and it was really inconvenient. We tried watches with alarms to get her to go (wobl watch). At first she was a total toilet refuser at home and could hold in were for hours. When we broke that cycle the refusal then was purely at school. We still don’t know to this day what the issue was as she doesn’t either, just that even now, if she sat on a toilet at any point in the school day nothing would come out. Yet she uses pull ups and pees on them. She has trained herself to poo at home but won’t leave the house to she’s done one. Some days easier than others. She’s also autistic but attends mainstream as she has no learning disability. Toilet issues are common with autistic people. We didn’t know she was autistic when she was a toddler and just forced the toilet training as school and actual pre school required it. I think the issue was not waiting til she was ready. But hindsight it a great thing.

You could try going back to nappies to see if she will actually release the poo in one or if she withholds. If she’s pooing in a nappy then there are techniques for gradually withdrawing the nappy over time to desensitise the fear of letting the poo go. There’s lots of resources online for toilet issues for autistic children. These find useful even for you child who’s not autistic. Although the same sensory issues could be at play.

Another suggestion is to keep a note of the time of day she sometimes starts to have a bowel movement. If there’s a pattern then as school to maybe take her to sit on the toilet regularly at that time, with some toys etc to make it fun and not a punishment. I work in an send school and we have children on different toilet programmes but often it comes down to staff taking them every 20-30 minutes to try and catch the poo when it’s starting to come out. I’ve a little girl who regularly does it in her knickers but that’s because she’s non verbal and can’t say. But you usually tell when she’s needing to go as behaviour changes and she starts moving in certain ways. She also suffers constipation so taking her once doesn’t result in a poo on the toilet. So we take her regularly. Sometimes the toilet catches it and sometimes it doesn’t and she’s cleaned and changed.

As a parent you have my sympathies. By cheap knickers and bin them. I got to the point I couldn’t cope with washing the poo out. Sometimes the school would send home the knickers with a massive poo still stuck in them. The smell etc was awful. Told them to bin anything soiled. And made sure she had plenty spares.

My own child also didn’t like praise. The even weed on the the toilet and denied it and tried saying that it was already like that when they sat down. It wasn’t. Just had to stop making a fuss.

The constipation however does cause issues psychologically as there’s a connection between pain and going t the toilet. So getting the dosage right and making it pain free is necessary.

Eric were useless by the way with behavioural toilet refusal. If you child can be bribed then do that. Mine couldn’t. No amount of bribes from chocolate to special shoes to an iPad would have got them using the toilet in school. But at least as a teen they now just manage it themselves.

My son was like this too. I found it so so hard. I found little pads, a bit like sanitary towels, that I stuck in his pants in the end. They were a lifesaver. At one point I was washing 4 or 5 pairs of pants a day. I've looked and they were similar to 'dry like me'.

I've not read the full thread but just in case it's not been mentioned there should be a paediatric gaestro/constipation nurse that you could be referred to for help via the GP. Good luck

Is it the smell? If so could she have some

Is it the smell? Could she use poo loo?

Sending you the best get it sorted with your DD xxx

More like 5+ years to fully resolve in our case! I should say that with specialist help it was manageable within weeks but there were relapses and he was on meds for years.

We had this, started potty training at 2.5 of her own choice and took to it quickly but poos were completely different. We would have overflow poos sometimes several times a day. Used to thrown out knickers every day if they couldn’t be saved. Other times there would be no poo for 5-7 days. Then when she did go they were firm and absolutely massive!
When the HV came to see my new baby I asked her and she said it’s very common and not her choice, it’s just her little body. Sometimes it can take 4 sachets a day to get it under control. I went back to the GP and we were put on Movicol. We eased in with 2-3 sachets a day to clear the backlog and then she started going every 1-2 days. Once we had that under control we dropped to 1 sachet a day and still on that now.
Our GP said it can take 6 months of several sachets a day to get it sorted which I can totally believe. I haven’t washed a pair of pooey knickers for nearly 2 months now! I do agree with the potty comment, I think they angle does help them go.

This is 100% a psychological issue. If a child's environment is stressful to them the child will usually express this suffering in a physiological way. Toilet issues is a classical form. Autistic toddlers have been known, for example, to 'fight back' against parents who make them feel scared by pooing in or on their bed or shoes.

Given the length of time this has gone on and the large number of remedies you have tried without success (none of which are ever likely to work with a serious psychological problem) I would recommend seeing a child psychologist.

No good parent wants to hear this but it could certainly be your behaviour that is the issue, not the child's. It is very easy for adults to totally underestimate the impact of their own 'normal' behaviour upon their children, especially those too young to understand what it is that is frightening them. It could be music that is too loud, an 'ugly' ornament, a tree outside the bedroom window, etc.

The fact that most children do not develop issues like this correlates with the fact that 15-20% of children are highly sensitive and will grow into especially sensitive adults. I know about this subject as an H.S.P. myself who, as a child, had 'poo issues' related to my environment. See The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron. The subject is not well-known and it leads to a world that is, for such people, commonly overwhelming such they will have to develop coping mechanisms.

In conclusion, I suspect your child is an H.S.P. and needs special care to best deal with its needs to avoid the type of problem you are suffering.

@Alittlebitwary I saw later in the thread that there are question marks as to whether your daughter might have autism. Lots of children (including my autistic son) display similar symptoms in this regard. I have picked up that you say about her being "told" to do things. Have you ever considered a PDA profile? Perhaps do a bit of research. It may be trying a different approach to how you say things to her might help. Of course I'm not diagnosing at all and it may be way off the mark but no harm in checking it out. At this stage you've got nothing to lose!

My son used to do this when he was about 7, every day he would come home from school with cloggs of it in his pants, he was completely toilet trained & this behavior started when he was about 6 for no aparent reason.
I think he was just being extremely lazy & just couldn't be bothered to go to the toilet or wipe himself, we never got to the bottom of it 🤗
We didn't make a fuss about it, just cleaned him up & threw some away.

One day, just as it started it stopped, he is now 21 years old & has a girlfriend, they arn't young for long & trust me she won't still be doing it at age 12, it will stop.