Cant cope anymore

[VitoCorleone]

Tonight ive snapped. I cant cope with my 4 year old anymore.
The problem is, he wont go to the toilet for a poo. Now, if he poo'd in his undies then i dont think it would be so bad, but he hides behind his toy box or his door and poo's then wipes shit everywhere. This has been going on for a while now, we used to keep him in nappies at night, but he'd take them off and there would be shit on the carpet

The thing is, he wouldnt even try on the toilet, he would wait until he had a nappy on THEN poo. So wee took the nappies off and left him with nothing on bottom, at first he held his poo in, then once he couldnt hold it any longer rather than go to the toilet he started pooing in his room.

I have spent soooo many days/nights cleaning shit off carpets, radiators, toys, beds, toy box etc i cant even guess how many times ive sat there cleaning shit crying my eyes out.

Tonight, i put him in his room while i ran a bath and put baby to bed, 4 year old shit behind his toy box, rubbed it over the toy box, over the radiator and a couple of his toys where absolutley caked in it, after months of this i totally lost it tonight and just started shouting and screaming at him, i had to leave the room to calm myself down, i dont think ive ever been so mad.

I cleaned it up and came downstairs, then half an hour later went and got my 4 year old out of bed and gave him a milkshake because i felt so fucking guilty for losing it.

I also put him back in a nappy. I just cant cope anymore.

What can i do? Keep him in nappys at night, then he never even tries to use the toilet, just waits until he has a nappy on and then poo's? Or keep him out of nappys and spend my nights cleaning shit and crying?

Im at the end of my tether.

[VitoCorleone]

He gets plenty of attention at home, i dont think theres a problem in that department, if it was a recent thing then maybe i would have thought it had something to do with baby being here, but this was happening before i got pregnant.

I've tried the ''doesnt bother me'' thing, just simply cleaning it up and telling him its naughty, ive tried taking things away, ive tried shouting. He doesnt respond to anything.

Ive lost it with him before in the past, he had smeared shit all over the radiator in his room, i mean pretty much the whole thing, the heating had been on and the shit had dried on pretty quickly, i spent over an hour cleaning it off, crying my eyes out, the whole house absolutley stunk and i lost my rag. Im scared ive given him some sort of complex about it :(

[DorsetKnob]

Vito I have PM'd you.

[neolara]

Potty training dd1 was horrendous and she pooed in her pants for about a year. This is obviously not as bad as pooing and smearing, but has parallels. I was beside myself with rage at her and the situation. A very experienced teacher at my dd's nursery school helped me to come up with a plan of action. Obviously your situation is different to ours and not all tactics may be relevant and those that are, may not work for you. However, it worked almost instantaneously for us so I thought it might be helpful to share what we did. OK, this was the plan.

1. Absolutely no reminders about going to the loo. None, none, none. Very hard to do for me.
   
   
2. Casually drop into conversation every so often "Babies do poos in their nappies, but Mummy and Daddy do poos in the loo, and so do big girls like you. All your friends at nursery do poos in the loo" .
   
   This resulted in the first poo in the loo for 3 or 4 months. I almost fell over backwards.
   
   
3. When there were accidents, I waited for my DD to tell me. Sometimes I had to wait for up to 30 mins. The time got shorter and shorter.
   
   
4. After she had told me, I would say "Oh well just let me know when you want to get cleaned up" and then I walked away. This was to get around the marvellous game of running away from mummy. Sometimes I would have to wait for half an hour or so. I would occasionally remind her that if she wanted to get changed she should let me know.
   
   
5. When she said she wanted to get changed, I encouraged her to take off her trousers and pants by herself, as much as possible. I handed her some wipes and then let her clean herself up as much as possible. While she was doing this I turned away to clean up her pants, or would leave the room and just let her get on with it. When she was clean I would give her new clothes and tell her to put them on. I would not praise her for cleaning or getting dressed but I also wasn't nasty at all. It was all very matter of fact. Throughout I would aim for a zen like calm!
   
   It was only through using this approach that I realised how much negative attention I had been giving DD for soiling. I had thought that I was being calm but actually I was so wound up by it all that my crossness came out through odd comments, gritted teeth and general tenseness.
   
   In our case, the issue completely resolved itself within a week. We had a slight relapse when we went away and I fell back into my old ways of nagging her. However, when I returned to the plan, it instantaneously resolved itself again.
   
   Incidentally, I think if your child is constipated then a different approach may be called for.
   
   In your case, I think you need to deal with the smearing separately from not pooing in the loo. When you see he has smeared, I would give an automatic time out for 4 mins, telling him why but not getting into any further discussion / telling off and crucially, showing absolutely no emotion whatsoever. Just very calmly say "You've put poo all over everything so you're going to time out." Then once time out has finished, get him back to the room where he has smeared, give him a packet of wipes and some gloves and let him spend 10 mins or so cleaning up. Leave the room while he does it. (Obviously you'll have to clean up afterwards as he'll probably do a rubbish job.) Throughout all of this, you have to try to look as if you really couldn't care less about what has happened and this will be the really difficult part.
   
   Good luck. Potty training has been the worst part of parenting in my opinion. Those parents whose kids just "get it", don't know how lucky they are!

[Leafmould]

neolara what a brilliant post!

Very interesting strategies, and like you say, very different from what is recommended for constipation. Thank you for sharing with us. [hgrin]

[beyondcrazy]

Hey VitoCorleone,
Just wanted to say, I really really feel for you. I think you deserve a medal for not losing it a thousand times worse than you did, a thousand times over already. It's an absolutely hideous thing to have to put up with and I'm not surprised you feel totally down about it. Big hugs to you.

p.s. I don't have any useful suggestions at all except I would vote for going to the GP if you have a nice one - maybe they can refer you to a child therapist for a bit of behavioural help? I dunno.

[GailTheGoldfish]

Was going to suggest getting him to clean it up himself but neolara's post is fantastic, plenty of great advice there. Good luck.

[jaffacake2]

Hi dont know if this is any help,it came from a training session from a child psychologist.
The fear is letting go of the poo into the toilet which is why he wants to poo in a nappy. Without a nappy he will panic and poo anywhere out of distress.
So the advise is tell him he can have a nappy on to poo but he needs to be in the right place eg bathroom.
Next step sit him on the toilet still with nappy on so that he is still pooing in the nappy but now on the toilet.
Final stage to let back of nappy go down when he is pooing so that he is aware the poo is going down the toilet.
Lots of praise at each stage,but also dont change the sequence. May take some while each stage
Have used this with lots of families as an HV with success
Hope this might help

[jaffacake2]

Have never written the word poo so many times!!!

[Journey]

Great post from neolara.

[midseasonsale]

Time out straight away, even if covered in poo! I think he has to take some responsibility for the poo mess also. Next time don't react (it might be attention seeking behavior anyway). Stay calm and don't discuss it. Give him a cloth and clean it up together. Dont make a meal out of it, just get on with the task. Then move on and get one with something nice you can do together.

[Journey]

Jaffacake2 advice also sounds very good.