Potty training a withholding 4 year old

[emma79646]

Hi everyone. My son is 4 and will be starting school in September. I am so worried that he will still be in pull-ups when he starts school. He is such an anxious little boy and can be reserved in groups of more than one child, so I'm really worried that this will worsen or that he'll be singled out if he is still in pull-ups.

He withholds his wee and poo and is on movicol maintenence 4 sachets a day. We had a long break of not trying potty training or even talking about it for a couple of months but now we are starting to introduce the idea again. He will sit on the toilet with an ipad and will sometimes even ask to sit on the toilet. He knows when he needs to go but he holds and holds, to the point that he quickly stands up off the toilet if he feels the wee/poo coming out, so that he can suppress it and stop it coming. It's so hard to see, he is so close to doing it but he won't let himself. Has anyone got any tips on overcoming this? We have tried tempting him with sweet treats or even larger rewards but it doesn't seem to work.

We are being referred to paediatric incontinence nurses but who knows how long that will take to come through. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you 😊

[Yaleamanda]

Have a read and watch of these

ERIC are a bowel and bladder charity, great website and fab helpline/email

eric.org.uk

There is also bladder and bowel UK they are similar to ERIC. bbuk.org.uk

NHS poo nurses taking about movicol and how to use

thepoonurses.uk/

Great article

bornready.uk/blog/the-mecha...

Different video about constipation

youtu.be/pNagQup0Upg(Not working as expected?)

[Mintchoc]

Agree with first comment - ERIC website is really useful. Have you tried social stories? Telling him a story about how the poos (and wees) really want to come out into the toilet to play with their friends… etc. it makes them angry when he stops them… Important to make sure he’s on enough laxatives so it doesn’t hurt. Sometimes children think poos are part of them so doing a poo is scary like losing their arm so explaining what poos are and a kid body book could help? Good luck - I hope you manage. We are in a similar boat - son starts school in sept and only just managed to get him into pants two weeks ago. Lots of praise. A sticker star chart. Duggaes potty activity sticker book. And consistency - we set a date and talked about being a big boy… He’s still in pull up at nighttime but I feel relieved we’ve got this far… good luck - I just keep telling myself he won’t still be in nappies when he’s 18 so it must resolve itself at some point!

[PurpleMoo]

Hi , first of all I completely get where you’re coming from as I’m going through the same thing with my 3 year old, she withholds until she’s asleep and it is so stressful and so hard to see and they know everything about what should be happening but have such mental blocks and it’s hard to know if you’re helping isn’t it? We made some great progress with her weeing last autumn and then gp prescribed senna to help overcome poo withholding and I think the sensation was so strange and unwelcome it triggered to withhold wee again. We are only now just starting to get the odd wee in a pull up. I’ve had email advice from the charity ERIC before but I tried their helpline again last week and got through to a really kind and supportive lady who explained her fear of letting go was rooted in the memory of painful poos and gave us lots of things to try and get her understanding that her poo doesn’t hurt her anymore so I would really recommend you call the helpline, they do get busy but really worth it. The other thing I’d say is play it cool when he does a wee, I’d read it and heard but couldn’t help laying on the praise and doing a happy dance with her thinking this was positive reinforcement but I think this just added pressure. So I just say well done and keep it normal. X

[Le15 in reply to PurpleMoo]

agree with all of this! Naked time and treating it as completely normal - like no acknowledgement at all wherever he poo’d worked for us

[MumCG in reply to PurpleMoo]

This all makes sense to me; I am in similar position to you Emma. Worried my 4yo will still be in nappies when starting school, waiting for referral to continence team. I emailed Eric team today, there is an option to have phone call or email advice here

eric.org.uk/helpline/

I clicked ‘submit web enquiry..’

[emma79646 in reply to MumCG]

Hi MumCG, thank you, I have referred to the Eric website a lot but haven't called them yet so maybe I'll try that. Our son seems to be turning a corner with withholding and is going regularly now and weeing a bit better, this has been in the last few weeks. We have had our first appointment with the continence team but they can't officially take him under their wing until he starts school! Which seems ridiculous to me. We are doing toilet sits with him every day, twice a day, but there has been no change with him actually wanting to "go" on the toilet. He prefers to hide behind the sofa or his sisters bedroom and poo or wee. I just can't see how the toilet sits will change this.

I hope you have better luck and things improve for you before school starts

[MumCG in reply to emma79646]

We’ve been doing toilet sits since July, my daughter will now do tiny bits of poo on the toilet but not wee, I think she is scared of actually ‘pushing’ stuff out because of past constipation. I hope Eric can help with this.. I had heard that about the continence team and school starting, ugh it’s frustrating. That’s why I’m going to see what Eric offer. I had a friend who’s daughter always wanted to hide to do a poo, they set up a potty in a pop up tent! Don’t know if something like that would be worth a try.. see what Eric people say I guess. Good luck!

[Le15]

we were in a really similar position and the school were really understanding. We did toilet time with an iPad every day before school and mini disimpactations on a weekend as required throughout the first year. Also sent loads of clothes etc. to school with wipes and gloves in the bag! We also spent the 2 months before school practically naked. We stayed at home a lot (it was painful!) and cancelled lots of activities to focus on getting it done. I’ll attach a few books we read that really helped… we started with the ‘oh crap’ one but just for the technique. She’s an American author and really it’s not focused at children with constipation issues so ignore the rude tone! But the actual techniques are brilliant. We then read more consitipation focused books that helped me mentally to get in a good headspace before the start of school. Whatever happens, things will work themselves out. I promise! Xx

Consipation books