Am in an ongoing potty-training saga with my son, who is 4.5yo. He has never liked doing poos, but would until around 18 months ago, go in the potty. He will pee in a toilet or potty without too much bother.
About 18 months ago, he moved up a class at nursery (all very standard). The expectation in the new class would be that all children would take themselves off to the toilet when they needed, rather than being taken to the loo in small groups as before. We didn't get any forewarning of this.
Basically since this time, we have been going through periods where our boy will try to hold in poos as long as he can, normally (when at home) we can eventually coerce him onto the potty, but he will generally have smeary pants by this point.
We have tried every form of bribery, incentivisation, reward charts, poo goes to pooland, other poo books, you name it and it hasn't worked. We don't get angry with him, he gets lots of cuddles - although we do try to explain to him that poos have to go in the potty or toilet, and that this will be nicer for him.
We sought help from the GP (not my usual doc but have seen her before and thought ok) who prescribed laxative - we have tried giving this every evening which I think does make him more comfortable, and it's easier for him to poo. But the bottom line (pardon the pun) is that it doesn't stop him trying to hold in poo all the time.
The poor boy had a horrible experience this week, when he had a minor tummy bug - this was at night and he had the runs in his pants. We cleaned him up (this happened twice) - he was upset but seemed ok. I was away the next day (work) and my husband made the (wrong) decision to put him to nursery as usual - naturally he had a couple of accidents and nursery are now saying he can't go on trips with them (there are a few planned over the summer) until it's sorted out. This is such a shame for him and naturally we are also very upset about it.
I am intending to take him to the GP again to ask for the following:
- medical referral to see if there is a physical problem
- child psychologist referral to see if they can help with the psychological side of things
Has anyone been through this route? Are these options actually available? We have private health so I have my fingers crossed.... Would love to hear some others' experiences.