4 Year Old DS - gone backwards, and now poo's in pants all the time

[Dozy123]

My 4 yo ds has been dry and clean by day for over 6 months.

In the last month he has started to poo in his pants. The only days he doesn't do it are days when he doesn't poo at all. He seems to think the whole thing is funny.

I genuinely don't think there is any physical or medical reason for his behaviour and there is no obvious changes at home/nursery etc to have upset him.

Me and his childminder are at our wits end. We have tried, sticker charts, sweetie rewards, removal of priviledges etc but nothing seems to make any difference.

Starting school in September, so getting a bit concerned that we have to have this cracked by then.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Dozy123

I tell you, sons are a different species! Our DS (6 in Sept) went through this phase, but fortunately stopped of his own accord. He rarely responds to anything like rewards/punishments unless its significant, such as we remove ALL his toys.

It seems that every time he is going through a "developmental" phase, his behaviour gets worse in other ways. For example his speech has improved dramatically over the past few weeks, but he wet himself 3 times in the space of 2 hours on Sunday.

Hang in there, it doesn't last forever. Mostly I tried to ignore his pooing in pants, but sometimes you just HAVE to say something. Can't make any promises for September, but if he's like my son, he'll be out of it by then - and if he isn't, the school will probably have some mechanism for coping with it.

If you have a school visit planned then raise it then, just so they are aware. They may be able to give some advice.

Thanks for that MaryBS, I spoke to my health visitor today who said pretty much the same thing.

She thinks it's attention seeking, even if the attention is Mummy being cross, and she suggsets the best thing is to ignore it, clean him up and make no fuss, but heap loads of praise and attention on any other 'good' behaviour. Her advice is that he will just learn that it's not worth it if he doesn't get any attention.

I'll try anything, so here's to a weekend of ignoring pooey pants!

Good luck!

Here is what I did with my boys. After a certain age, they had to clean up thier own mess. They had to change out of the dirty clothes, clean themselves, clean any other mess made(with in thier ability), put them in a plastic bag, and then dress themselves in new clothes by themselves. For a little one this is a lot of work and time away from play, and has been extremely sucessful for me.

Depends on the age. DS DOES try to clean up after himself. The other day he was a "bit loose", so put his clothes in the laundry basket, where it soiled all the other clothes, he trod poo throughout the upstairs in doing so, he covered his back and legs in poo and then got dressed. It was only when I investigated the smell, that I found the "evidence" everywhere!

That is horrible. I've had those moments. When I started making mine change themselves and clean up was after they were potty trained but to busy playing to use the toilet. I also used the real thick training underware.

mine went through a similar phase at that age - very frustrating.

I think I would offer to put him back in nappies - let him have the choice - nappy or toilet. If he opts for nappies just go with that for a while until he realises he is too old for them.

And then praise him like mad when he goes in the loo.

Patience and calmness is the order of the day - not what I did but what I should have done !

Throckenhol, I had thought about nappies, but was a bit concerned that I would have to start again with the potty training. Also with school looming, I don't really want to send him to school in nappies (neither do I want him pooing in his pants at school!!)

Did you try this and did it work?

Leati, what age were your boys when you tried to make them clean up their mess. My DS is 4 in August.

My DS is 6 and has some accidents because he is too blummin lazy to go to the toilet till its too late. He finds life far too interesting to take time out for irritating things like eating, dressing, washing and pooing. I have screamed and shouted to no avail but recently he has improved after 2 things. I made him smell his pants so he could see that it wasn't very nice and this is what he smelt like- pointed out that other people would notice and think him 'smelly' . Also have threatened to remove computer priviledges. Probably the latter but peer pressure is a great thing, as he is likely to be doing it either for your benefit or for my DS's reasons it's lees likely to happen at school as he would as likely as not be embarrassed. Good luch Dozy, DS's are just like that I'm afraid. DD1 has never had a pooey accident, far too clean, but that's girls for you.

have to say I would go back to nappies - how about some very large terry squares, he would find them very different after pants and very baby ish!

Could you buy him some pants with characters on that he really likes and then when he poos them, just throw them away?

He might not find that quite so funny, if he really likes the pants.

my dd went through the exact same thing a few months ago......i just concluded that she was too wrapped up in what she was doing to be bothered to go to the toilet, just sat her down and tried to explain to her that she couldnt keep doing it or she would have to wear a nappy all the time(at school to) i think the shock that she would have to wear one in front of her friends stopped her from doing it

Thanks for all the advice and ideas.

Spent this weekend nursing DS through a feveer so haven't had any chance to put any ideas into practice yet.

Will post an update next weekend if anyone is interested, but I am REALLY grateful for all the support.

Thanks :-)

Aaarghhh.

Thingas have gone from bad to worse. My health visitor was adamant that it was attention seeking, and I do have some faith with that as an idea. So we have had about 10 days of ignoring the 'accidents', just cleaning him up and carrying on, with loads of praise for any good behaviour especially for any good toilet behaviour. Lots of stars on the star chart for any days where there were no accidents and action in the toilet. Things didn't seem to get better or worse, but this weekend he has now started wetting himself. Twice he has come to us to say that he has done a poo in his pants and he is also soaking. Both times he has been cleaned up and sent to bed.

I will get back onto the health visitor again tomorrow, but he now has 6 weeks to get this sorted before school, or he will be going to school in nappies.

dozy, there may be a medical reason for this. If he's not doing a poo every day and he's doing lots of little poos or the poos are very big and stinky (sorry, tmi) it could be chronic constipation which my ds has had for several months. Exactly same behaviour as yours and then started wetting as well but pediatrician explained this as the bladder control lost when the poo comes (or something like that). I would see a gp (and look up chronic constipation to see if the symptoms match). I've come across several mumsnetters with the same issue with their ds's - nearly always boys and about the same age as yours. If you think it's this, try for a pediatric referral as gps know bugger all about it (my dad's a pediatrican, and I wouldn't have got anywhere without his advice). Search on here, you'll find other threads about it too.

I agree with accessorize..See this thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=8&threadid=181341#3747340

Spoke to the health visitor about possible chronic constipation and now have a doctors appointment for Friday am.

Will see what he says, thanks for the suggestions.

My situation is slightly different in that my ds (5 1/2 yrs) is only just (crossed fingers, touch wood etc) toilet trained, yes he has had wet and pooey accidents at school, who have been really good. It is an attention seeking issue, but rewards, punishments etc were all tried without any lasting success. He is, however, interested in how things work and so I found a really easy book showing how people work inside, including what happens to food we eat and kinda shows where wee comes from as well. It took about a month for him to fully digest the information but since then the number of incidents has reduced dramatically. If it is an attention, rather than medical, problem this may help him understand why. Equally if it is an attention issue, could it be something that has/is about to happen that has upset him? I know life factors still give my son bad days/weeks/months (am dreading the next week as he has just found out one of his favourite staff members at his after school/holiday club is leaving and he starts back with a new teacher next week)

Sorry for the rambling, hope it helps
Leanne

My ds (also 6) has had a lot of problems in this department also, and does suffer from constipation. He is now on medication for it, which has improved things alot, but we still get a few accidents, as it takes quite awhile for the bowel which has been stretched due to the constipation to shrink back again.

tbh, there have been times when I really wasn't sure whether it was a behavioural issue or a physical one, as ds never seemed very distressed after an accident, and sometimes even seemedto thik it was funny. But after seeing the GP, it really does seem to be a physical problem, so I would definitely get him checked out. Hope things go well, as I know just how wearing it is to be cleaning up pooey pants all the time!