Toddler afraid of his own penis

[123Dancewithme]

I had a look and there doesn’t seem to be any other threads on this topic, so I’m assuming it’s quite an uncommon toddler fear!

We were getting our 23 month old DS undressed for his bath three nights ago and he looked down and noticed his penis. He completely freaked out and started panicking and crying, and refused to get in the bath. It was difficult to calm him down and he was still upset at bedtime. Since then he has been the same during very nappy change and bath. I can also tell he’s thinking about throughout the day as he keeps glancing down at his trousers.

He has never really seemed to notice it before so all I can think is it must have been a bit of a shock for him to suddenly see it the other day.

I know it’s probably just a phase but does anyone have any experience with this or any advice so we can help him feel more comfortable with it?

Thanks

Id assume it was uncomfortable or painful and get him checked for a uti rather than frightened

You said 'we' so, if your partner is male then I'd probably get him to bath or shower alongside your DS for a few days so your DS can see that Daddy has one too and it's all normal, nothing to be afraid of.

Has he enough speech to say what’s wrong? Otherwise I agree about getting your DH to help.

Thank you. He doesn’t have enough speech to let us know what’s wrong. He just says “no!” if we try to talk about it. I’ll get my DH to help with bathtime later

How did it go op? Poor wee mite! I second letting him see daddy in the shower or getting changed. Not making a big deal out of it and if he mentions daddy's bits say, oh yeah daddy has one like you. That's nice. And move on.

Oh bless him OP that sounds awful I unfortunately have the opposite with my DS 3 years old hes constantly pulling and playing with his 🤦🏻‍♀️ constantly telling him to stop and put it away

Has he not noticed it before now? My 17 month old is constantly pulling on his!

Agree with previous poster .. sounds like it’s tender or painful.
I would take him to be seen ,

How did this turn out? My 3.5 year old going through this now - absolutely terrified of it. Diaper changes and baths are a nightmare. He really hates when it gets bigger and smaller. Everyone I've talked to said their boy was the opposite so I'm very interested in your experience.

I've got a 21 month old son, and although he's never looked down at his penis and got scared, he used to pull at it quite a lot and I worried he would hurt himself. I don't know if this will help you, but I introduced a kind of nickname when he was old enough to understand and I always refer to it using the nickname. We always refer to my husband's using the same nickname, so I hope that by doing this he will understand that it's nothing to be scared of and that daddy has one too. Also my husband has started leaving the door open when he goes to the bathroom (although I hate it!) again to try and get him used to the idea.