Erm dirty pants

[sesley]

not just skid marks but lumps, i have tried switching off his tv,until he uses toilet and trying the reverse toilet then tv. he exclaims oh no dirty pants,then he has tv on, what are your pants like,don't look he says,which means not good. I suppose its just another challenging phase,one which has to be the worst.I even got him washing his own pants to hope he will feel disgusted nothing seems to get through to him. He has had constipation problems because of his limited diet,but i have been managing to hide veggies in his dinner so i don't think he's constipated, i think he doesn't think toilet is more important the what ever he is doing.He doesn't smer it every where or leave it in other places other than his pants he is 8 years old in chronological age in december.any one out here have simular problems

[paulathomson]

my 8 year old nephew does exatly the same..no matter how my sister tried to change this behaviour she couldnt..at the moment we have managed to understand that he might be under sensitive to the sensations of 'the urge' to go until it is too late. and of course he knows that he will get into trouble so will sit in it all day.

 

to counter-act this my sister asks him every hour to go and sit on the loo for a minute just to see if he needs to go...strange but it is working at the moment...although not at school.

[curra]

My son had this problem until he was 12. There's some useful information in this website:

 

http://www.eric.org.uk/

 

Try not to react to his difficulties since they are usually of a neurological nature but can become an emotional issue when parents get too upset. My son learned to change his pants by himself and put the dirty one in a special bin only when he was 12. All my efforts and parenting strategies before that were useless. Eventually he began to feel it was yucky and learned to go to the loo as soon as he felt pressure in his bowels. Most of the time he arrived too late and not only his pants but the toilet was dirty, but in the end he learned to control his bowels and now he doesn't have the problem anymore.

Good luck!

 

Curra

[bluefish]

Hi, E is a smearer(if thats a word) and is more than happy to put it on himself or toys if he gets the chance! but I was having the exact same problem as you until about two months ago. Without fail he was doing it in his pants and at my witts end I took him to buy a potty and said potty or nappies! I told him the nappies could be our secret but I did not want poo in his pants any more. He chose the potty and although it was a step back as he was more than able to use loo, he stopped doing it in his pants almost immediatly and now uses potty every time.

Just an idea. I know just how frustrating and exhausting it is

 

Lin x

[Mookamoo]

We had the same problem but (touch wood) he is through it now.

 

Nothing worked for us - no punishment (we did the TV thing etc), no praise etc. Eventually we narrowed it down to was anxiety about unrelated issues - it just manifested itself with soiling.

 

What we did is do the sticker chart thing - with a number of stickers for various goals throughout the day - one being clean at the end of the day. If for some reason he had an 'accident' we would sit him down and do what we called his 'feelings book' - in that he would draw or write his feelings and we found that when he was soiled there was often (not all the time) a reason for it which was not obvious to anyone at the time. Just simple things like people off school with no explanation, others playing games he didn't understand etc. Once we found out the problem and explained it to him he often went days without a problem. Eventually the good times outweighed the bad and he seemed to 'grow out' of it.

 

Having said that we will always take a spare set of clothes with us if he is in an unusual place or situation.

 

It's very hard and very frustrating - hang in there.

[joybed]

We have recently gone through a bad stage of this with Ds who is 11. He used to regularly soil his pants or his bed every day until he was 8 and then stopped doing it, don,t know why but he just started using the toilet. He started soiling again a few months before he went to comprehensive school, I suppose it was stress. He used to say "My bottom is leaking again", and i used to calmly tell him to go and clean himself up, (we always have wipes in the bathroom). The first time he was reluctant and said it was disgusting but I explained to him that it was equally as disgusting for me and he cleaned himself. Didn,t stop the soiling at that time but it was less pressure on me. He isn,t soling as regularly now i suppose he is settling at school ( I hope anyway). He takes massive doses of laxatives and still tells me when he needs the toilet even if we have people in the house or it is the middle of the night, and he would never dream of having his bowels open at school or in a public toilet. I suppose he will always have toileting issues and to be honest I have come to accept these as part of him.

[MichelleW]

I have exactly the same thing with J who is 7 and has been on laxatives since he was about 2. The soiling is known as seepage - and it is common in autism. The constipation and seepage is nothing to do with the amount of fibre in the diet, though trying the gluten/casein free diet may help.

 

It is something that I just accept as part of J - he doesn't know he is doing it. But it is difficult not to get frustrated - especially if it seems that it is happening when they are engrossed in TV or play station for example. However, over 5 years, I have come to the conclusion that J just doesn't "feel" it inn the same way NT's do.

[Cariad]

I have the same, the DS is 12 in December and often poos himself, he does it in bed and then smears it as it "feels nice". What I found which helped was putting him on the toilet the same time everynight before his shower.

 

We sometimes read to him or he'll read a book himself on the loo. Have you tried that? We have forgotten some nights when he has horseriding etc and he will have an accident in the night.

[LizC]

Hi Matthew often goes through this (which is hard work lol) he is 7 now but still has 'episodes'. it is normally when there is a change in his routine or he is nervous about something then he just can't seem to holod himself in!! I know it can be hard for you but try your best not to get angry with him!

 

take care and hope it doesn't last for too long lol!!

[ryansmum2]

hi my son is 7 1/2 and has aslightly different probelm, we can 'just about get hime to the toilet' in time (alothough sometimes it's right at the last second!) anyway, he'll wee fine , but when it comes to a number 2, thats it - he will just sit there until someone comes to wipe him (normally my poor husband ,as i'm disabled)

We hve tried just sbout everthing to try to train him to do the wipeing himself - he just hasnt got to co-ordination to do it,

bless hime - he has taught himself to hold it in school , or go in the morn before school, of couse if it does'happen' in school he then comes home with messy pants and a very sore bottom from being sat in it - yuk !!

we are seeing the OT in a few weeks so im hopeing he/she will help !!

 

anyone else with this problem?

 

love mel xx

[joybed]

It took Marcus a long time to learn to wipe his own bottom althpugh i am not sure whether he cpould do it but found the idea repulsive or had genuine difficulties. He just suddenly started doing it one day don,t know what made him but thank goodness he did.