Pooing in pants

[hollie84]

DS1 is 4 and for the last 6 months maybe has been regularly pooing in his pants. He was potty trained at about 2.3 and although poos took a bit longer than wee he got it quite quickly.

He does poo on the toilet too, but we seem to get poos in pants at least every couple of days. He doesn't tell us when he has, and will deny if asked. He also claims he didn't know he needed a poo/didn't know he'd done one in his pants but I'm not sure I believe him.

How should we tackle this? So far we have (mostly) not got cross about it but have helped him clean up and have instigated a toilet routine in the evening, but today and yesterday have both been shitty pants days.

I went through this for 9 months with my then 4 year old who is now 12. It aged me. It just was the most difficult thing to tackle. It was related to anxiety and we worked with him on tackling the things that unnerved him. We discovered that the nursery toilets flooded big time while he was alone in the cubicle and this astronomical problem with pooing his pants just grew out of control. Anyway, once we discovered the root of his anxiety, the nursery teacher turned the toilets into Thomas the Tank world. It worked a treat. We had tried EVERYTHING... reward charts, punishment, health visitors, GPs, etc. Nothing worked. Then, by chance, DS told us about the flooding toilets at school and we learned about his frightening experience of being alone in a flooding bathroom. Took ages to find out and by that time every toilet, including ours at home, went unused. Pees were fine, but poos were done in the pants, despite having been fully toilet trained. Try turning the toilet at home into his place with his themes and posters of heroes and characters. I wonder how your son felt at nursery. It tends to create anxiety in a lot of children, even if they seem reasonably happy there. Inbox me if you wish.

He did mention to me a while ago that he didn't like pooing in the nursery toilets because they were always messy and other children were waiting - however, he told me this about a day before the end of term and he's starting primary school in September!

He doesn't seem to have a problem using the bathroom at home - indeed today he did poo in the toilet here and then half an hour later pooed in his pants at the park

Is it (tmi) particularly sloppy poo?
If so you might need to look at constipation overflow and food intolerances as possible causes of genuinely not knowing when they are pooing.

Otherwise asking the child to own the experience of clearing up (set something up so they can put their pants in the wash, clean up and change by themselves) is usually good advice for an older child possibly looking for attention.

I wouldn't necessarily worry too much because regression before starting school seems quite common.

He seems to get very solid poos in the toilet and only does softer ones in his pants, but I wouldn't say they are sloppy. Sometimes I will notice him looking uncomfortable and find skid marks in his pants where he is trying to hold one in.

I don't think it's an attention thing, and he is already involved in cleaning up. He'll sort of shake his head and sigh "oh no, pooey pants again" along with us as if he is just as exasperated

Exactly what my boy was like. It wasn't an attention thing. It was anxiety. You have a few weeks to help him but honestly, even without bells and whistles and a Thomas the Tank themed toilet :-) he will outgrow it. My son got better at home in the summer and by reception, he was fine, never pooed his pants again. It just righted itself. This is not an uncommon problem. And just moving on and moving up from nursery helped. Have you had,a chat with your GP?