No more Poo PLEASE?!!!!!

[MooandPops]

Please help us...DS is very close to four years old and a very big gorgeous boy ( currently in 5/6 year old clothes). Everyday and often three times a day he poos in his pants and it really does feel like we have done EVERYTHING to combat and deal with it but still it goes on...and on...and on.

6 months ago we had another baby whom DS adores which is a real blessing. About a month before he gave up sitting on the toilet completely to poo. Wees are no problem and he takes himself off willingly to one. So for seven months now I have been mopping up dirty pants and throwing tons away when to disgusting to face. Nursery have been good on the whole but a bit stiff about the whole thing. He loves nursery especially his mates and recently knows not to poo at nursery if he can help it. When he gets home he creeps behind the sofa, under the desk etc to poo in his pants.

As its summer I have kept him pantless for a few days during which he ignored the potty we put out for him and encouraged him to use and pooed in my studio where he thought noone would find it. We have seen nursery nurses, done sticker charts galore (please no-one suggest another sticker chart or I will go bang) bribes, shouting, showering him, being never-mindish (for months now). The only thing I havent done is the GP - with him being so regular though with so much and so often (normal texture) I honestly dont think he could be constipated.

He also LOVES to have a bottle which each time proves to be instant calm for him. It was a nightmare to get him off a bottle (which we did about 3 months ago really successfully and to much applaud) but now he has adopted one of the babies' ones and will not give it up..

PLEASE HELP I am at my wits end, really.

Would he be able to wear pull-ups and use them to poo in, but still go off to the loo for a wee?

Or would he be able to tell you he needs to poo, and then you pop a nappy on to catch it?

Sounds to me like, for whatever reason, he's not psychologically ready to be pooing in the loo, which is perfectly ordinary for not-quite-4 year olds, even if they are big!

And it's also definitely a bad idea health wise for there to be situations in which he has to hold in a poo which he needs to do because noone is offering him a way of doing it which is acceptable to him (i.e. a nappy).

go to GP. Even if it's psychological it's probably something you want nipped in the bud before school.

Thanks onwardandupward - I would love him to wear a pull-up (I have bought some of those older type ones with footballers on) but alas he runs a mile and seems really upset when its mentioned.

He does tell me when he is wearing no pants that he needs a poo and we get to a toilet asap - he seems to get almost to the point of impact then panics and gets off instantly crying for pants - what to do?

Your right Wulfstan - thankfully though we have one more year of preschool before primary starts for he is Oct 1st birthday.

Go to the gp. While you don't think that he is constipated it might be that he is and so is soiling. The soft stuff makes its way around any blockage but it feels either very uncomfortable for the child or they get to the stage where they don't know they need to go until it's too late.

Look up encopresis and see if ticks any boxes.

Thank you Juule - have just read through the stuff on Wikipedia and it could well be encopresis - will book a gp appt. There is also a booklet that am downloading too. Thanks for your thoughts

You may already have read the Soiling article but if not, it might be worth reading.

I think you are doing the right thing getting a gp appt.

We had this with dd1. Identical story, you could have been writing about her. Same age too. I tried EVERYTHING and was at wits end due to fact of imminent starting of pre-school. Was just about to go to docs when attempted this.

DD1 is obsessed with princesses (not through any encouragement from us). I went and bought a large tupperware box which i filled with lots of pink toot/trinkets that I knew she would covet, that we would never normally buy for her. I taped the box shut so she could see but not access. The following morning I explained that a 'poo' princess had come by for a chat with mummy and daddy. She said she wanted dd1 to stop pooing in pants and start doing in the toilet. We explained that the princess said that for every poo on the toilet she could choose one present BUT for every poo she did in her pants, the princess would come and take one present away and give to other girls who were pooing on toilet. DD1 had been pooing in her pants for 6 months straight at this point. Within the next 24 hours, she had poo'ed three times on the toilet! It took about a month to re-enforce and now she takes herself to do it (with no reward other than praise) when she needs to. She still has the odd accident (illness, change of routine) but touch wood, it seems to have worked.

Like you, DD1 very regular and never constipated. Lots of fibre in diet. I have only just realised that she can not tolerate any kind of fruit juice. She rarely has it but on the occasions she does, an accident seems to follow. It's almost as if it moves so quickly, she gets the signal too late.

The other thing that seemed to help was getting rid of night time nappy. I think she was getting conflicting messages and couldn't process the ambiguity. I knew she had good bladder control and decided I would rather deal with wet beds than keep on buying zillion pairs of pants. Her nappies weren't dry when she was waking but within a week she was completely dry at night.

Hope this helps. I completely understand where you are at, i remember sinking moments when all anyone could suggest was a sticker chart. My HV helped me come up with this princess idea on the basis that if reward wasn't working it might be worth considering a potential punishment. When we did have accidents, we took the present out and left on front porch for princess to come and pick up over night... Good luck!

Hello Cookie

What a brill story and one that we can absolutley have a go at - thank you so much for taking the time to write it out for me - I think that Prince PowerRanger might be winging his way around ours over the next week or so!

Will let you know how it goes. Am off to visit M tomorrow so will write you next week

Thank you so much

you're welcome! Wish you all the best xxx