I’m at my wits end! DS is 3 and recently diagnosed as autistic. Up until about August his nappies has always been pretty loose, not tummy upset loose, just very soft, formless and usually quite vile smelling. Loads of appointments to check for any allergies etc but all pretty inconclusive. He was very regular, once a day, sometimes twice.
Since the summer he’s been stool withholding. It got so bad he had to go through feacal disimpaction using movicol and suppositories. He’s now on a maintenance dose of movicol (4 sachets a day) but he’s still withholding and I don’t know what to do! He doesn’t really poo anymore, just lots of little bits of soiling. I’m going to take him back to the dr to assess medication etc but obviously need to get to the route of the behavioural stuff (I know by this stage he’s probably not doing it consciously).
He’s still in nappies and I’m getting really worried about school next year. The withholding may have started with an attempt to potty train or just before, can’t really remember. I was really really low key about potty training, no pressure etc and he seemed to be getting the idea with weeing But was advised that if he was withholding it was the wrong time to start training. He may also have started withholding because he got really sore from a particularly acidic couple of poos I just ^don’t know.
^
I’m so sorry this is such a huge post I just have no idea where to go from here, keep second guessing myself as to the best course of action, worried about him still being in nappies, worried about how uncomfortable he must be....arrrrgh! Please someone help me work out how to help him and what to do with potty training!
He’s verbal (lots of learnt phrases but speech is getting there) and has understanding of simple concepts. Will listen to stories but I’m not sure how much goes in-animation seems to capture his attention more. Is there a YouTube video out there encouraging kids to poo?!