Potty trained for over a year but got through 9 pairs of knickers in 2 days

[GillL]

Dd is 3.5 and has been potty trained for 16 months. She has gone through phases of wetting herself and pooing in her knickers but it has been really bad in the last few days, mostly with poos. Sticker charts used to work but she lost interest. We have started taking away her favourite toys. She has lost 7 or 8 so far but that lost its effect after the first 2 toys were taken away. Telling her she'll get them back if she stays clean and dry isn't even working. I took her to the doctors a few months ago but she said she didn't think it was a medical problem. Any ideas what might be causing this or what I can try?

Hm...is your dd constipated right now...and maybe a bit scared to "let" go of her poo and hence soiling....as a little bit will escape, so to say?

That's a possibility. She does get that fairly often as it's difficult to get enough fruit and veg into her. I spoke to mum about it too and she thinks she can't be in control of what she's doing if taking her favourite toys isn't an incentive to stop doing it.

Seems quite harsh to be punishing her for soiling herself, especially if you know it's quite possibly linked to constipation.

I would ignore the soiling and go for the 'never mind' approach and focus on getting as much water, fruit, veg etc in to her as you can. If you think she's constipated she should see a dr for something to help clear the backlog, as it were. it possible that she has a very hard mass of poo, and that the soiling is just liquid bits coming past the hard stuff which she will struggle to control.

But first off I would stop punishing her. She's only 3.5.

Stop punishing her, poor little girl , sorry but this makes me very

i also had a 3 year old who took a large backstep - got angry,stickers,bribes,etc but the best thing for me was actually not mentioning it - just clean it up etc and not say a word...my D - 3 is at nursery so is always around other children. when we started again to have no accidents i praised a lot!!! but still didnt mention if there was...it was real hard work - but think she is finally on track occasionally there are still accidents - only wee...i also think that comparing to their friends helps!!

Gill - do you still supervise poos? Do you know what she's doing and when?

What you are describing are the symptoms of chronic constipation - when the bowel gets so full that all that comes out is the "overflow" - and there is no control over that. And if it is bad constipation the backlog of poo causes desensitisation of the bladder so daytime wetting gets to be a problem.

If it is this there is nothing your dd can do about it so stop the punishing.

Go and see your GP and ask if he can examine her (prod the tummy not up the bottom!) to see if she has a very full and "rocky" bowel. If she has the solution is laxatives and exercise and good diet and you seeing the contents of the toilet after a poo so you know something substantial has been passed!

Sorry, but I'm not sure why this would make you angry kittywise. How was I supposed to know she was not in control? Previously when I have posted about this people have told me it was for attention because of her little brother. Even the gp told me it was probably behavioural. I had tried everything I could think of and this was a last resort. Now I know she is not doing it on purpose I will just ignore and clean up.

Thanks gagarin - I still have to go to the toilet with her most of the time even for wees. She generally does lots of little poos throughout the day followed by one huge poo. This happens at least every other day. She is finally starting to eat more fruit and veg (she used to refuse) so I will keep encouraging this and see the gp if it doesn't improve.

Gill...getting angry, generally, is not the best way to go....however...I can also understand how difficult it can be.

My ms is 6 and we have daily soiling, because of chronic constipation issues....and we are under a Paediatrician now and will be seen a behavioural psychologist or therapist soon....
However, by what you are describing I would not think it's a chronic constipation problem.
To me your dd sounds more like my ys, who normally has no problems, but every now and then he may not go as often as he should and he will get constipated (just as most people can sometimes get...maybe a day of to much chocolate or something that messes our regularity up), and if he hasn't gone for a few days he suddenly will get "scared" of letting go. This will lead to him soiling himself, because his poop sits right down there, wanting to come out but he won't let it! When we get to that point we just give him something to make him go .