5 year old having soiling accidents/withholding

[mamasmith18]

hi, new here so pleased to find this forum.

My 5 year old son has been having soiling accidents. He goes to a forest kindergarten so the toilets are not right where he is, and I'm not sure if that has been the problem or something else? He will withhold his poo as his default and thats not always successful leading to some soiling accidents of varying degrees.

He has a pretty well rounded diet with lots of fruit &veg and is happy to drink a decent amount of water. We have 'toilet time' after breakfast and dinner (and lunch if he's not at nursery) which he is happy to do and if he has success there, there are obviously less accidents. his stools are soft and easy to pass mostly.

He starts school in August and obviously i'm worried about him having accidents there if he doesn't take himself to the toilet.

he's not on any medication at all. Any advice?

[Hidden]

Hi, I’m in a similar position (you may have seen the thread I’ve just posted), maybe a little way ahead but not much, but I wanted to post in solidarity.

But also to say that I was also so incredibly worried about my daughter having accidents at school and so far she’s only had 3 at school across two whole terms. There have been many more at home but she just seems less conditioned to poo there.

In terms of, um, volumes, do you think it‘s all coming out or any chance there’s a backlog forming?

Also I’m assuming this isn’t the case otherwise you would have specified, but if the poo is soft to the point of urgency and even with undigested food bits, you could consider food intolerance (our daughter is lactose intolerant which has definitely had it’s part to play in where we are now)

[mamasmith18 in reply to Hidden]

Always good to know we're not the only ones going through this. I do think it's all coming out as there is good 'volume' most of the time. I really hope school isn't a problem.

I initially thought a food intolerance may be a reason but can't pin point what it may be. He has minimal dairy anyway but is not dairy free....still has some yoghurt & chocolate(!) but can't say it makes much difference. Did you have your daughter tested or was it trial & error?

[Hidden in reply to mamasmith18]

We did a dairy exclusion (stools got better), then added non lactose containing dairy using the milk ladder with no return of the really urgent/loose stools, then tried a few lactose containing products with unpleasantly dramatic effects! We’re meant to be trying milk ladder for lactose in a couple of months but I think I’m going to have to delay it after she recently ate the wrong thing.

What country are you in? Here in UK I think many schools are really good and discreet about when the accidents happen, my daughter hasn’t had any negative peer experiences as a result of her three accidents there.

[mamasmith18 in reply to Hidden]

He has excema as well which had reallyFlared up this last 6months which has made

me think it’s food related. But just can’t pinpoint it just now.

I’m in UK too so hopefully all will be ok at school. Although would love this to be resolved by then. I keep thinking it’s just because he’s too distracted to notice he needs and that’ll get better with age but Hope I’m not missing something obvious to try.

[Hidden in reply to mamasmith18]

Yes, I think aside from the lactose intolerance, the other huge thing for my daughter has been that she gets so hyperfocused on what she’s doing. She is definitely better at self identifying she needs a poo when she’s in between activities or doing something less fun. Plus there’s now just general lack of confidence I think 😕

Ironically I am a health professional who has sometimes given advice on these sorts of issues - very often with successful outcomes. She’s definitely less straight forward a presentation than some! Trying so hard to remain positive and stress free to avoid her feeling pressured, not sure how well I managed today 😭

[mamasmith18 in reply to Hidden]

It’s so hard some days to not get stressed about it. Sending hugs

[Honwave]

We’ve had similar issues for a number of years and been though all the options, but in the end the only success has been keeping him loose with food fibre diet and laxative if needed and encouraging Toilet Time before going out. It’s so difficult and stressful, and we’ve found there’s no magic answers, but we know once they start withholding it’s a very hard habit to break. So good routine, plenty of water and laxative if they stop pooing and encouraging toilet time is the best way. What’s tricky is to feel they will have more accidents if they are loose, this is a bit counter intuitive, but it’s definitely best they ‘get it all out’ !! Then can relax and get into routine.

Lots of stress I know.

[mamasmith18 in reply to Honwave]

thank you x

[JamesParkin]

Hi, your son sounds similar to me when I was his age, I never once used the boys toilets at school for a poo and withheld it instead, resulting in many times I went home in dirty underwear, as well as full-on poo accidents in my pants at home.

You may like to read through my short blog for children with him, in which I tell my story in simple language. This is designed to encourage kids to go to the toilet instead of withholding their poo:

theboywhopooedhispants.blog...