Poopy Pants!

I would suggest trying a toileting schedule. It's pretty easy and I'm sure your son's teacher would be on board! Just have him go to the bathroom every hour and "try". If he's really involved in what he's doing, he may not realize that he has to go to the bathroom. Set a timer, make a visual reminder, whatever works for your son!

If he doesn't have to go, then no harm done. My experience with young children though is that they just don't pay attention to their body when they are doing something more interesting. If you draw his attention to it, he'll have an "oh yeah, forget" moment and run to the bathroom.

Hi M.,
I could have written your post except my son is 7. We have recently gone to the doctor for this very issue and he was diagnosed with Encopresis. You can google it, but it's basically that he has gotten constipated enough that he has lost all sensations to know when he actually has to go to the bathroom. What the doctor has told us is to give him Miralax (fill to the bottom line inside the cap) once per day and then have him use the bathroom within 10 minutes of taking it. We do it at dinner time and that works the best. He also said to just keep him on a routine and reward even him trying to use the bathroom. This really is out of their control, as frustrating as it is. We are also using panty liners inside his undies and that has helped soooo much with cleaning up the accidents - very worth it.

It's probably because he's very constipated. Check for food allergies. Things like wheat and dairy allergies can cause these kinds of problems. They can't go, can't go and then all of a sudden, "there it is" and there is nothing they can do about it.

My daughter had that problem as well.

Could it be encopresis? Is he constipated?

Does he stand while peeing? One boy I watched (along with my son, before he started first grade) insisted on peeing while standing, but after lunch he'd have lots of accidents. Once I had him start sitting after lunch, he'd take care of business, so to speak.

Girls don't have this issue b/c we don't do anything different. But bowel movements are usually pretty regular, so it may be this simple.

Anyway, just my two cents!

Is he having full-fledged poops, or smaller releases? If the latter, it could be consitpation that morphed into a condition called encopresis. This has the effect of numbing the colon so the person can't tell they need to poop, and pressure builds up until some wetter stool leaks out past the blockage. If your son is prone to constipation, I'd want a pediatrician to evaluate the situation.

If it's just normal, big poops, then try the approach used by Faber and Mazlish in their fabulous book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Your son can become part of the problem-solving team, and when he has ownership of the solution, he'll be motivated to making it work. These techniques are awesome.

maybe he is getting the difference between the way a fart feels compared to needing to go potty? not a bad thing, i know some 5 year olds and older who still struggle. he'll learn on his own time. don't stress too much about it, or he'll start stressing about it and it'll make it worse. just be patient with him eventually he'll figure it out