Pooing in his jocks suddenly again - aged 5!!

HELPPPPP...

My DS has just started pooing in his jocks after being in control of this for 18 months or so. He is a late developer anyway with health issues but this is something different.

I am about to have bub #2 and everyone says that we can expect backward steps in toileting. BUT I need some help ladies. I am not handiling it well at all. I am getting cross with him. I didnt at first but now it just seems like he is doing it on purpose. Why would he do it in his jocks and not on the toilet?? He seems to do it at home mainly and not at pre-school either. Today he did one in his overnight pull-ups (not dry overnight yet but I am not worried about that) while I was getting breakfast ready, then twice more today! I yelled, my DH confiscated his toy that he was playing with as DS is saying that he doesnt want to go to the toilet when he is playing, and as it was just before bed he didnt get any stroies either.

He is asking lots of questions about babies doing poo's and wee's in nappies and we have set up the nursery with much discussion on the nappies (cloth) for baby and how he is big boy now and used to need nappies too. Do you think he is jealous of the attention baby will get/is getting about nappies? We have already assigned him the job of playing a special toy for the baby when it is getting a nappy change and he helped my put the change table together.

Its doing my head in ladies, please help me!

Should we just change him and COMPLETELY ignore the pooy jocks? Should we have consequences?? I dont know. Bloody hell this is hard - I thought we had done with it!

Thanks, feel better just for the rant I think. BUT please tell me what you think I should do!

Rachel

please stop yelling at him. My BIL (who is now 9) did this too. Took him to the doc and peads, turned out he had a medical condition. Nothing too serious. cant for the life of me remember what it was called, but it was something to do with his insides. His started all of a sudden too. He didnt even know he was doing it. It got better over time.

I went through this but my son was a bit younger. I think you could try a reward system at his age. A star for each poo in the toilet and a big reward once he does 10 of them could work.
Try not to make a big deal about it if you can avoid it. If he's doing it for attention then any attention is a gain for him, even negative.

It might be worth getting it checked JIC it's a medical issue if if persists.

I have gone thru the same thing with all my boys.

I know this sounds gross but I made them help me clean it up.. I do the grossest bits but then they have to help rinse out the jocks and flush it away ect..

I said to them that there was no need for them to do it as they knew when thier bodies needed to poo.. I pretty much went back to when we were first poop training them and retrained them to listen to thier bodies if that makes sense??

I hope that helps

Thanks for your replies ladies, that helped DH and I talk over some options.

We have decided to not be (outwardly) bothered by poo in the jocks, just clean it up and the only things we are going to say are "you must listen to your body DS, poos go in the toilet" and big fuss of him doing poos in the toilet.

It has been much easier with that approach! Only one accident yesturday (very small too) and he got out of bed and striaght to the loo for a poo this am so heaps of praise!

Its just not worth feeding the problem with anger and guilt is it?

Thanks again.

Rachel

Good Luck.. I hope this phase passes soon for you..

Slightly different situation for me but my 5yo daughter has just started weeing in her pants during the day after being trained for 2 yrs.
We have had much success after making her go to the loo every two hours without fail. We think she's just forgetting, or gets so caught up playing that going to the loo is a major bother and interruption, so she just doesn't do it unless she's busting, and by that time it's too late.
Hard not to get upset by it, esp if it has been fine for so long then all of a sudden backwards progress without explanation. But we just try to ignore the wees in the pants, we just say "oh OK, pants are wet, let's get changed" and then praise praise when pants are dry.
Good luck. :)

Both my brothers did this at about the same age - one's now 18 and the other 14 - and they both just sort of grew out of it.

The now-18-year-old used to call it "doing skids" and he knew it was something he shouldn't be doing, it just slipped out. He would run home to get changed if it happened, and never let his friends know. He grew out of it by about 6 or 7. No explanation was ever given.

The now-14-year-old, on the other hand, would hide it. He'd just sit in it until someone noticed, then he'd throw a tantrum and get angry at *us* for pointing it out! Mum took him to the doctor quite a few times to see what the problem was. If memory serves it was because his body wasn't sending the right signals to his brain to say "okay, we need to poo now!" He "grew out of it" much much later - when he was about 12.

Neither of them did it at school either - I think it could be that they felt more comfortable at home and thus their muscles were more relaxed.