5 year old and toileting

[blake12336]

My 5 year old boy keeps pooing himself. Usually twice a day. He was fully potty trained until about a month ago when this started. I've mainly ignored it and just cleaned him up and reminded him to use the toilet but it's getting ridiculous now.

He will lie and say he hasn't and have a massive tantrum until eventually he will come to me or his dad and say I'm ready for you to change me Now! At my wits end! I've tried not to get cross but being 40+ weeks pregnant (I know this is probably a factor) it's hard not to!

Any advice please?!

 

[_Meep_]

Could he possibly be suffering with constipation? What's the poop like? It doesn't have to be very hard for him to be constipated - if he has a hard impaction of poop blocking him up, it may be that he is leaking softer poop around the impaction and genuinely cannot control what he is doing right now.

If this is an option, I'd ask for advice on getting him cleared out and perhaps start a stool softener or probiotic, or just up his fibre/fluid intake to keep things healthy and moving.

 

[Sarah Lou 80]

We had a spell of this with our almost 5 year old. I think with him it was where he was constipated as he wasn't drinking much at school.

 

[noon_child]

Yep - my usually regular child does this when constipated. I always make sure she has veggies with every meal but at school she'll skip them if she doesn't like them and her dad will forget to include veggies if he's cooking, so that leads to constipation and poop leaking out round a hard stool like pp said. She never complains of feeling constipated but we get multiple soiled pants and she says she cant feel it happening. It has been a real struggle to get her drinking enough at school too. Even after meeting with the teacher to ask them to remind her, she's gone full days with her drinks bottle left in breakfast club!

 

[SarahBear]

Rule out constipation, but if it's a behavior, I'd put him in charge of clean up. I know that at 5, cleaning poop off yourself isn't always easy, but I'd make him do as much of the clean up as possible. Have him clean his own pants. Show him how to dump the poop in the toilet and rinse off the underwear in the bowl before putting it all in the laundry. Then have him do the laundry. Don't just clean him up. Help as needed, but walk him through it while emphasizing that he be responsible for it. Don't get his new clothes out. Make him do it. If he is made to do the clean up, his behavior should improve. After Violet was hospitalized, she did lose control of her toileting. After she regained the ability, it turned into a behavior problem. At that point, I had her do the laundry. She got right back to the toilet pretty quick after that. At just short of three, she was capable of dressing and un-dressing herself. She also could use the toilet, but didn't want to. I put her in charge of cleaning up to her ability level and it worked to get her potty trained.