Help! My 4 1/2 year old is still pooping and peeing in his pants.
He is able to poop and pee on the potty and stays dry and poop free while he's sleeping. However, he continues to have accidents when he's awake. Last week was the first really successful week he had. He didn't pee or poop in his pants for 5 or 6 consecutive days. Prior to that he was peeing in his pants regularly. He rarely pooped in his pants before this week, and this week he has pooped in his pants about 4 times already. We can take him to the bathroom every 30-60 minutes and he still manages to have an accident. Actually, they are not accidents since he is able to control his bowels and his bladder. He just chooses not to.
I feel like we have tried EVERYTHING:
1. calendar with stickers
2. reward system (including toys, candy, and cool big boy underwear)
3. punishment
4. spankings
5. time outs
6. lots of praise
7. pediatrician (she said that there is nothing to do since it's not a medical problem.)
The pediatrician recommended that my son see a therapist.
Do you have any recommendations for therapists?
Have you ever experienced a situation like mine? If so, what worked for you?
Take him off ALL dairy products for a couple weeks and see if it makes a difference.
My son is 4 too, and he had a week of doing the same thing. He may have felt some stress of some issue I was unware of, I don't know, but I knew he was doing it on purpose and the behavior was stressing me out, too.
I thought back to somewhere having read that one doesn't want to make the child feel comfortable in the result of having made a bad decision. In cleaning up his mess, I was enabling him to continue his bad behavior without consequence.
So to fix my own issue, I chose to tell my son in the bathroom, as he was watching me scrubbing his underwear, that this was the last time that I was going to clean his pants for him. Any more accidents and he will be the one dumping out the mess and scrubbing his clothes for laundering. After all, I explained, when you make a mess spilling things or leaving toys around, you clean those up too.
I guess he was listening and didn't like that thought because, amazingly, it didn't happen again. If it had, I would've enforced the rule. I wish you the very best in resolving the issue, whatever technique you use.
Hi, S.!
Wow...do I know your frustration! My son is 5 1/2 and still has accidents. We finally took him to the GI doctor. He has very hard stools and somewhere along the line he learned to hold his stool and now he has lost sensation for feeling when he is having a bowel movement. He is on Miralax to make his stool softer. When he has a urine accident I know he has a bowel movement coming and I send him to the potty.
I take issue with your pediatrician. I don't think he is taking your concerns and frustration seriously. While I don't know that your son has the same issue as my son does I will say that whatever is going on with him is a real issue and very damaging to his self-esteem. I would seek a second opinion and rule out any biological causes. If it was strictly a behavioral issue I would certainly think that one of the things you tried would have helped.
If you look online the condition is called encompresis (spell?). There is also a condition called mega colon. This is where the colon becomes so stretched out from holding their stool that they can no longer feel the stool coming and have accidents.
While this may have started as a behavioral issue it is absolutely possible that he cannot help it now. I would get a second opinion at once (and possibly change to a pediatrician who took you and your concerns more seriously!. If you need the name of a doctor let me know.
Good luck!
I share your pain since I had a little boy. I'd try to keep it in perspective. This to shall pass. Backtracking now and again is just part of the growing up process. Try not to show your stress about it.
There is a great parenting program by Jim Fay called Love and Logic that offers great advice for all kinds of situations. It encourages allowing kids to learn from mistakes, showing empathy (versus anger, sympathy, or indifference) when mistakes happen, and helping kids understand and realize natural consequences to their choices. Even a 4 1/2 year old can begin to learn these lessons.
If the problem continues or gets worse or seems more defiant after a month or so, them maybe a counselor could offer some advice, but 4 times in 1 week doesn't seem extreme at all to me. He might just be more distracted and confused by mixed messages with regards to rewards/punishments/prasie/etc...
I highly recommend Love and Logic. You might even be able to find a workshop in your area.
I totally understand your frustration.
My son is almost 5 and still will NOT go poop or pee in the potty unless we TELL him it's time to go. He ignores all his body signals and will pee or poop himself and not care. We've tried everything under the book. Our urologist says this is actually normal. He told us to get a beeping watch for him to have him timed to go every 2 hours. We've had him checked and he's not constipated.
At this point he knows that if he has an accident in his underwear, he is the one that cleans it out. This doesn't seem to bother him that much either. It's frustrating.
My pediatrician also asked us to go to a psychiatrist, but we didn't choose to do that at this time. The urologist says if it hasn't improved by the beginning of next summer (when he gets close to starting Kindergarten) to then bring him back.
Good luck. This issue in our lives has caused a lot of yelling and issues in our household...
I see no need for a therapist. my brother was just like that and he grew out of it. just be patient. Boys are like that. But please do not punish. No one in their right mind wants poop in their pants.
