4 year old hiding poo

My daughter is 4 years old and has been potty trained since the age of 2. I have never had any problems with her when she needed to use the toilet. A few months ago she started wetting her pants and saying that it was an accident but this became a regular thing,she would wait until she was bursting then go to the toilet and other times she would stand and do it with no effort to go to the toilet. Now she has started to poo her pants,the first time she did this was at a friends party and i had to throw away her pants and put a nappy on her that i had to borrow from a friend. This was very embarrasing as people could smell it and i wasn't about to admit that my four year old had soiled herself. Now it is becoming worse,I have found poo in her toy box twice and had to throw away the toys that she had soiled on! I cannot understand why she is going into her bedroom to poo in a box when the toilet is right next to her bedroom....please help as I am out of ideas on what to do,she has no remorse when i ask her why she has done this and she gives me no explanation as to why either!

[ifsogirl]

My daughter had a similar problem.  Allthough we never had any regression my daughter was soiling her pants until she was 4.  Your little girl may be constipated.  Mine refused to poop in a toilet but would pee.  Unless she was witholding for too long.  Look up encopresis in children, see if the sypmtoms fit.  If not she may just be getting distracted.  You may have to be a little more aware of her body signals.  Some kids don't want to stop what they are doing just to use the toilet.  They are worried they might miss out on something.

Good Luck to you

[boozybird]

Hi thanks for your advice....the problem is not because she is busy doing something,she actually tells me she is going to the toilet then goes into her bedroom to do it,this is the part im confused with. I will look up encopresis and see if i have more of a clue about things,thanks.

[grandmaof2girls]

Hi,

My 3rd old granddaughter has the same problem.  She hides and poos in her pants and if you ask her if she pooed she will say no.  We only know she did because we smell her.  She is more then happy to stay that way forever.  Did you find an answer?  I have no clue what to do about this.  This is a every day thing.  She will pee on the toliet but not poo.

[Susyj]

I also have a 4 year old who has accomplished going to the bathroom to pee.  When we started potty training, he went poopy twice in the toilet on the same day... then suddenly stopped.  I'm a full time working mom and my mother is her sitter for most part of the day.  We have tried having him wash his underpants and himself... giving him half body showers everytime he goes in his pants, bribing, leaving him on the toilet alone and with ourselves.  I know when he wants to go, because he hides from us... when I follow him, i tell him excitedly: "lets go potty", however, he just doesn't go when we're there.  He always finds a moment to go in his pants since we have a 1 1/2 yr. old daughter also and can't keep an eye on him all the time.  We are expecting our 3rd child this May and i think i'm going to go crazy w/ chaning all three kids... I need help... we bought the potty for him, but he just ignores it...HELP  ANYONE....

[Lauren_M]

I have a 6 year old daughter and she is potty trained but for the last year she has been pooping in her pants and playing with it.  We took her to the Dr's and he said it was normal.  But it had started to get worse..So I decided it was time to go see a therapist.  It turned out that she had been molested on the bus when she was 5 and has held that secret for a year.  Now we are getting the 3 boys who hurt my daughter for life in trouble, but it won't ever undo what's happened to her!  She was shown by the boys sticking their fingers in her butt felt good to her.  So now that opened a whole can of worms.  She plays with her butt because it feels good and it's her way of dealing with what happened to her.  My heart hurts for her soooo bad.  She try's to hide her poop mess but we always find it.  I'm not sure how this problem with resolve itself or if it ever will, but please all of you's out there with a similar problem , please have your child speak to a lisenced Therapist.  It only took my daughter 15 minutes after meeting this therapist to blurt it out.  She thought if she told us that she'd get in trouble.  I have learned that kids hold things inside even if you are the best parent.  Please pray for my daughter.  Thanks Lauren M.

[Mummanay]

I honestly thought i was alone before looking at these posts... Both my children have the same issue, they both poo their pants. I cry, I smoke 10 more smokes now in a day then before when i was on the road to quitting, I dicipline them thinking that they are just being silly and lazy, i should feel eased that my kids are not the only kids out there that have this issue and there is a cure, but what is it for my kids???
I am a single mother and i have a 3year old and a 4year old (both boys). They had been toilet training since the age of 2. They both did their wees first go and they had it, i was so proud, I gave them so much praise over their success but the poos they had trouble with. I kept at the routine and put on a brave face everytime i saw that they had poo'd in their pants. I would continuously ask them before i looked and it became either a game or an upset to them like they where ashamed, i hated the feelings of them being ashamed... i got them both to start telling me when they had done a poo in their pants and that eased me alittle but they still had that problem. We used to have a good relationship aswell, the kids loved watching morning tv and then playtime outside and just mum and kids fun all day, we kept to routine and were well behaved children but these days after nearly 2 years of cleaning their poos day to day and the frusturation that its affecting us i am not so positive. I feel run down now and alone because of this. I have tryed everything... Weve been to the doctors several times and they said that it could be lazyness and i was convinced aswell so i started diciplining them both for this, I was also told that it could be because they are developmently delayed, an effect from their father that they just couldnt have the confidence to sit and push because they could be scared. I get their pre-school complaining that i dont send them in training pants after expaining to them constantly that my kids dont get the concept that training pants are different to nappies... I called my eldest son a baby on several occations as well as today because i thought i was alone and i feel over this, it is hard dealing with the stress of day-day of cleaning dirty underware and then dealing with guilt for lowering your childs self esteme by using different techniques friends tell you... I dont know how to make this positive and i would like a smile on my face over this situation... I want the old mummy back
Please help