My nearly 5 year old daughter keeps soiling herself everyday and tries to withhold the poo beforehand.

[kazlanz1977]

Hi there, Its great to see there is so much support on here and everyone understands what everyone else is going through and that we are not alone. I would like to explain what has been happening to my daughter.

Ever since she was about 2 years old she has suffered with constipation. I have taken her to the health visitor and the GP many times and she is now taking a Movicol sachet twice a day, which has really helped with the constipation and she has bowel movements every day normally when she comes home from school. She does not like to do the poo down the toilet and soils her knickers daily. Before she has a bowel movement she runs around the house, becoming disruptive and then goes into the corner of the room and crosses her legs. It is heartbreaking to see. I have tried everything to try to calm her down and talk to her, read her stories, tried reward charts and goody bags but all to no avail. Most days, it takes a couple of hours for her to complete her bowel movement. Sometimes she will sit on the toilet and will do a small poo and not realise that she has done it at all and then will do the rest in her knickers or a nappy once she is off the toilet. Some days, she will even refuse to sit on the toilet at all. However, she always urinates in the toilet. I feel and wonder if her disruptive behaviour at school and at home is all related to her toilet and bowel problems. Any advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks,

[Alibee75]

Hi - oh goodness that must be hard for you both. I think this forum is a great place to get support like you say so hopefully someone will have some great thoughts to share. Sometimes it's just good to have a safe space to talk about it all. Very best wishes Ali

[Georgina1475]

My son does exactly the same. The paediatrician and psychologist have agreed that his behaviour and school work are directly linked to the constipation in their words "how can he concentrate if he's concentrating on holding on too his poo all day" thank fully we are managing too Poo daily on the loo after school now only a small amount and this has reduced the soiling at school. He still soils sometimes after that so not completely sorted. Is her school on board with helping her during the day? Cleaning and have time to sit on the loo after lunch? It's important that you stick to your schedule of times sits at home too which it's sounds like your doing (took us a while to get a schedule that suited him) also he does squats like a frog jump before he goes to help sounds silly but squatting helps his movements. When he's constipated I make him squat like a frog in the shower too the movements help him move the bowls and it's a natural position for the bottom we're not really designed to sit on the loo like we do. Keep in touch with updates if any of my ideas help.

[annierosered]

Hi there, sorry to hear what you're both going through, I had almost exactly the same situation with my 4.5 year old daughter, although her withholding was more subtle and hard to see. Several things that have helped us drastically and recently are:

1) tripling the amount of fluid she was having. I kept a diary and figured she was having 100-250mls sipped throughout the day, that's it. Upped it to aim for 1000mls via 5 cups at food times, whatever she wanted to drink (within reason).

2) reduced dairy. She still has the odd bit of cheese on pizza and about 1 bowl of yoghurt per week but her normal butter milk and cheese is now soya.

3) bought a squatty stool off amazon. Cost about £14 total, it's a big stool for adult and children alike to higher your knees when you're on the toilet. It's been magic!

4) I don't know if this directly helped but I stopped hovering so much around the time I made these changes a few weeks ago. I was exhausted and couldn't really cope any more so thought that if I made these changes and explained some of it to her and left her to it she surely would make some progress. And she did! Very dramatically!

Let me know if this helps!! xx

[SallyandPaul]

Feel for you totally which is not much help!! Our daughter is nearly 8 and this has been going on since she was three although things have improved over the years, it's usually only once a day instead of three or more.You have some good advice above all I can really add is maybe forget the toilet completely for poos and go back to letting her have a nappy but insist that she goes to the bathroom to do it and gradually over months sit her on the toilet in her nappy good luck x

[Luella19]

Hi, I can empathise with your situation. My daughter withheld but like someone else just said my daughters withholding behaviour wasn't as obvious. When she was 4 she was at her worst with soiling issues.

This may not be relevant to you but may help someone else but what helped us enormously was getting her older sister on board who was 9 and had no toilet issues. I appreciate that not every child has a sibling or a willing one. Older daughter agreed to have a sticker chart too for poo. They both had them stuck on bathroom door with selection of stickers. As children can be quite competitive my younger daughter didn't like that her sister was getting regular stickers so she started using the toilet more and more. Had I not had older sibling to help I would have been desperate enough to create a sticker chart for husband and I on the chance of it working!

Also would she prefer to poo on a potty still? My daughter used a potty when she was 4 and then would use a mix of potty and toilet then just toilet.

I think everything else has been covered above. I wrote a post about a book I read 'the ins and outs of poop'. That was a helpful read. It's in Eric website and Amazon.

We have come a long way with my daughter but only through routines, trying to stay calm (hard one 😡) lots of communication with family and school so everyone on board, she is 6 now and although still has issues, still tries to withhold, dance around and leave toileting to the last minute and still takes movicol but I can see an end to this in the future now which is only a recent feeling.

Best wishes to you.

[kazlanz1977]

Thank you all so much for your kind comments. I can see you know exactly what we are going though and it is so reassuring to know that we are not alone. I have taken on board everything that everyone has said and will update you. I definitely know my daughter is not drinking enough as most of the time she comes home from school with a full bottle of water and she mainly drinks milk which is not ideal although I do mix with water. Have booked another appt at the doctors and hoping they can refer my daughter to a paediatrician who can also help her. Many thanks for your support. 😊

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I think it would help her body conform to a schedule if you would take her by the hand to the loo 20 mins after eating and stay there whilst she sits on the toilet, even if she says she doesn't need to go.