Poop problems

[woobert]

My son is 6 and was recently diagnosed with ADHD (though we suspected it for a couple of years now). He has been potty trained for several years, however...he's been having recurring issues with not noticing when he needs to poop. He often accidentally poops in his pants. I have come to recognize the look on his face when he has to go and will ask him if he needs to go and he says no. Then within the next 30 minutes, I will smell the poop in his pants. It is never a full load (though it used to be when he was around age 4), but the cleanup is not fun. The occurrence of this has been increasing in frequency as of late. I have read that kids with ADHD have more problems with this than others. Is this an ADHD thing? Has this happened to anyone else? How do we get past it?

[eva2022]

I’m so sorry. This sounds really hard! One more thing to manage…

My husband is a pediatrician. He shows parents and children this video when children who have been previously potty trained start to have difficulty.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=SgBj7...(Not working as expected?)

I would ask your own pediatrician, but he usually recommends a ‘clean out’ with Miralax to help reset.

[MetsMama in reply to eva2022]

This is what we had to do for our son when he was 7. The pediatric gastroenterologist said that the longer the issue has been going on, the longer the “clean out” takes. For us, it had been over a year and so it took many, many months. We also started having him sit on the toilet for 5 minutes after breakfast and again after dinner because we think part of the issue was he didn’t notice the urge on his own. That wasn’t easy at first, and we used a lot of rewards to get him to cooperate. But it’s two years later and now it’s almost a habit (or certainly something he’s used to) and we haven’t had to use rewards for a while. We have an Alexa in the bathroom so he can set his own 5 minute timer and listen to an audiobook. It was kind of a nuisance to set this new habit and make sure he had his Miralax everyday, but definitely better than cleaning up the messes and carrying around changes of clothes everywhere. Good luck!

[woobert in reply to eva2022]

Thank you for this. I will speak to his pediatrician about the Miralax. In the meantime, I showed him the video, reminded him that it's not his fault and we now have 'poop' appointments with his favorite physics game on his tablet in the morning after breakfast and in the evening after dinner. He loves the game time (previously allowed only when traveling) and I'm feeling optimistic : )