OH - my boy is a HATING me right now

[pennyia]

He turns five in two months... and has been fully potty-trained (or so I thought) for over 18 months. Well, a couple of weeks ago, he started ditrying his undies. Knowing that any child having stress will have a set-back, and any child can have an accident... initially I treated it as no big deal... "lets just get cleaned up" -right? Then another time we had some "talks" about things going on at preschool, his friends, etc... nothing seems out of the ordinary - other than the fact that with my recent knee surgery, I was laid up a bit. 

 Then, it started happening more often. Then it got to the point where he wouldn't use the toilet at all for bms. Oh, and got to love it, he would "hold" it while he was at school - wait to get home and then have an accident. OK... enough. So, I started making himself "clean himself up" when he has an accident... he has to change his clothes - and throw away his underwear that were soiled (he loves his undies that have transformers, power rangers, et); take a bath, etc. Still no improvement.

I know some children might have other issues that are causing this, but for the life of me, I HONESTLY believe he's only doing this so that he doesn't have to stop playing.  He's chosing to do this - if I didn't believe this, I would never have done the following: 

I told him (probably bad and I'll probably get flamed for this) that only "babies" poop in their pants and if he was going to be a baby, I was going to buy diapers. When that didn't work - I bought diapers. He's wearing one now. AND HE HATES IT! I told him that if he used the toilet all evening and at night, that he can wear underwear tomorrow when he goes to preschool.

I have no intention of publicly humiliating him... but I'm trying to get my point made.  He's a big boy, and big boys use the potty and don't have to wear diapers. If he's chosing to soil himself, he can wear a diaper.

 I know I'm probably being too harsh, but geez. We haven't had a single accident for 18 months and now he thinks he doesn't need to use the potty anymore? I don't think so.

[kstevenot]

May. 4, 2008 at 9:29 PM I am going thru the same thing with my son, who will be 4 in 2 weeks. He stopped using the potty in Oct. he was really constipated and it hurt when he went. Now he's scared to go potty and he tries to hold it in as long as possible but then he can't hold it anymore. I put him in pull-ups, because i got so tired of washing his underwear...nothing is working and now he won't pee in the potty either. its gotten too easy for him just to go in the pull-up. I know that he is afraid but I also think he has gotten lazy. I have tried bribing him threatening him, making him clean himself, everything i can think of and so far nothing is working. I really don't have any advice for you, but i feel your pain. if you get any really good ideas on how to fix this problem I would love to know.

[pennyia]

May. 4, 2008 at 9:39 PM

Ooh - that's tough... if he's still constipated occasionally, you can get your doctor to provide some stool softeners. My grand-nephew had that issue... and once it stopped hurting, it got a little easier... but he was just mid-training as it was.

 

(Original Poster)