Advice for DS 3.5 yr with continually loose bowels

[NichyNoo]

Hi - DS is 3.5 years old. He seems to have continually loose bowels. He doesn't have diarrhea and isn't in pain. Yet he often 'follows through' when he trumps and when he sits on the toilet he passes lots of wind and kind of sprays the toilet with bit of loose poo. His poo is always very, very pale. Nursery have noticed this and said it might be due to his sphincter being weak or a dairy intolerance. I intend to take him to the GP but wanted to gather some opinions on whether this is normal? Thanks.

My first thought would be a food intolerence. Dairy being a likely suspect. I would start a food diary see if there's any correlation with severity and more dairy than usual.

We had this and GP kept mentioning toddler diarrhoea and not really helping at all. In DD's case it turned out to be a severe wheat intolerance and milder dairy intolerance but repeated GP visits didn't help and I'm not sure they get much training in allergy-related stuff.
Does he have any pain at all or get tired, anything else unusual? Dd was very low in energy and had frequent tummy aches so our experiences may not help

Compacted stool? Did he ever get constipated?

Ds had this too, was referred to a dietician. We kept a food diary and the culprit turned out to be bananas.

Thanks for the answers. He isn't tired, doesn't complain of tummy pain or bum pain. He often plays/fiddles/scratches his bum but I think that is normal. He does like dairy but always has and eats less dairy now than when he was a baby (and had no problems).

Sorry - no constipation either.

Might be worth worming him just in case

You could try switching to lactofree milk, my eldest suffered from very similar sounding symptoms, eventually a paediatrician said swapping to lactofree semi was nutritionally fine, as he would still be getting the benefits of milk etc...

Haven't looked back