31/2 year old soiling every day

[Ali_cat]

Help please. Very frustrated.

Maintenance dose being given to my 3 1/2 year old.... my child poos (soils) in her knickers 3/4 times a day. I don't know how to stop this. She is visibly withholding all the time. It's horrible to watch as she won't sit on the potty and when I eventually get her to only very skinny poos occasionally come out. I'm extremely frustrated and trying to keep calm. I've just had a baby and moved house in the last couple of months so feel like I'm going crazy as poo is getting everywhere and it feels like we are making no progress at all.

Can anyone give me some advice? Will the soiling ever stop? I can't keep cleaning knickers/ carpet/ house this much but if I put her in a nappy she wees in there too.

[Yaleamanda]

Have you disimpacetd her? Sounds like she is backed up, hence the soiling. You can use both a stool softener and stimulant to do this. Encourage regular toilet sitting to encourage a good routine and if need be back into nappies to take some of the anxiety off the witholding.

[Zoe_P]

You are not alone, lots of people on here have dealt with this.My now 6 year old did this at 3.5 yrs, the withholding causes the soiling so you need to sort that. I would start with disimpactation with the regime, start at 4, the 6, 8, then eventually at day 7 you'll reach 12 sachets of movicol. If you look it up, it'll tell you the exact regime. This clears the bowel and you can then look at a maintainence dose.

If you've already tried the above, it sounds like you might need to try again.

We had this issue for 6 months before we got it sorted, it can take a lot longer. We worked on the psychological aspect of withholding as well as physical.

[EmmaSunny]

Hi Ali

My daughter has had problems since she was two. One of the most important things to establish is whether her soiling is psychological (withholding) or physiological (motility issues or other reasons outside of their control for not passing regular stools). The first step would be to try Movicol this can be prescribed by your GP, there will be a period of trial and error in trying to establish how many, you need to incentives them to drink at least 1 litre of water a day as this is an osmosis medication so it takes water to the bowel and establish a routine for with a reward chart for getting them to sit on the toilet for 20 minutes at a certain time of the day.

Keep a daily chart of their bowel movement and how much Movicol you give them to identify patterns of teens over a 4 week period and REWARD them for going to poop. I used to wrap up seven things and let them pick out of a lucky duo bag every time they sat on the toilet and did a poo.

If after three months things haven’t improved then I would ask the GP to refer you to the specialist nurse who would work for your gastro team at the local children’s hospital. Have a look at the NICE guidelines on constipation and spiking as this is the underpinning framework for treatment do this condition. When you start the move ok the first week you may want to discuss with the GO whether there is any merit in doubling the dose as they may need to be disinfected initially. Hope this helps.

[Ali_cat]

Thanks so much for all your advice. I feel like my understanding has come a long way since I posted this and called Eric. A month or so ago I did a disimpaction but now I realise that failed so I’m trying again now. About 8 days of max dose and she’s still withholding plus only at a gravy poo stage. My doctor said he might prescribe a stimulant next week. This is the most progress we’ve made in years. Thank you so much for taking time to help me.