6yo soils himself. I'm worried , DH is furious

[lisbey]

DS2 was dry during the day around his 3rd birthday, but not really clean for another year.

Since then 3-4 times a year he has had spells of several weeks when he has started soiling himself again. Not occasional accidents, but every day for several weeks. Then one day he'll stop and be OK again for months.

Until the schools broke up he'd been doing fine for several months, but as soon as he finished school he started soiling again and the only days he's been clean since were the 3 he had diarrhea (work that out!)

It does sometimes seem to be an attention seeking thing or a protest when he feels he's not getting his own way. I've been trying to be matter of fact, clean him up with minimum of fuss etc, but DH is ready to take a hard line and when he did it today made him wash his own pants. I'm not sure I like that and in any case DS seemed to enjoy it.

What can we do? DS2 is not at all embarrassed or upset when he has these "accidents"

Well I guess that as you and dh disagree on the way to treat this, it is pretty important to work out why this is happening. We had a similar pattern and when we went to the gp he suggested that it was due to constipation, and prescribed a mild laxative which seemed to sort things out. Have you eliminated any physical reason?

I completely agree with LadyMuck. Take your ds to the doctors and they can tell if he has chronic constipation or not.

Try googling 'encopresis' or 'overflow' or doing a search on here, there are lots of stories. If you think that's what's going on, e-mail your dh a copy so he can see why your son might be soiling himself. It's happened to my son and I personally don't think that making him wash his own pants will help at all.

My DS had similar spells of soiling until recently (he's now 6 1/2). I found it difficult at first to hide my frustration but found that he responded best when we didn't make a big deal out of it and offered help with wiping or agreed to check after he'd wiped (he seemed to be anxious about this in partiular). Also, we tried to ensure that he sat on the loo every morning and evening, just to try to regulate his going to the loo (he'd avoid it otherwise) and to prevent constipation and possible accidents. This was particularly important in the holidays when a lack of daily routine meant that he was more likely to soil.

We never really established why our DS had these issues but with sensitivity and support and continuous monitoring, he has been much better over the past six months.

agree with jc&p, search on here for 'encopresis', it sounds very likely that he's suffering from it, the poor love. your dh's approach is quite wrong.

Harhsness will lead to bigger problems in behaviour. Please involve DH in finding out the cause and try to get him to relax about this. Even if it is a gesture of defiance of some sort, it shouldn't be taken in a personal way by an adult. Nobody really wants to go around with smelly pants. If you rule out physical causes, then you will have to investigate psychological ones, because there is definitely something going on.

Hi lisby,i think your husband is out of order and will make the situation worse this will not help your ds,and its help he needs.

Thanks for your views

We did see Dr about this sometime ago and were told nothing physical wrong, he would grow out of it. Which he did for a while.

DH has now accepted he's wrong and I have made another appt. Thank you

Message withdrawn

With my ds, it does go in phases. It seems to be mainly related to how much water he drinks and, to a lesser degree, his fruit and veg intake.

So try to encourage lots of water in the first instance.

Take all pressure off your ds, tell him you know it is not his fault (which it isn't if it is related to constipation). Just get him to tell you straight away if he needs help with cleaning up (my ds got to the point of hiding his soiled clothes before we twigged the cause)

Buy lots of cheap pants so you can just bin them when really bad

good luck with sorting it all out. It will take a while.

Loads of threads on here about soiling, encopresis and pooing - all with really good advice.

Another one here with experience in this. Fecal impaction/chronic constipation. The longer it goes on the harder it is to reverse as the impaction (if there is one) stretches out that area of the colon making the likelihood of another impaction that much greater. Fluids, cutting back or eliminating dairy, lots of fiber and in many cases a months-long regimen of stool softener.