I'm late in posting this but yes a child can still be constipated even if they poop every day. This was the case with my son up until his 7th bday. I have no good words for Miralax and that was what the Dr's kept advising us so I worked really hard investigating a more natural way to get over this problem. What ended up working for us is a daily probiotic, a daily fiber chew/tablet, upping his amount of liquids, ABA guided re-inforcers (using a reward system)and the most important thing that gave us the most results was going casein free. My son is not allergic to casein/dairy but clearly his body has issues with it. It took time but we are there (o: Just to be clear, our situation was truly a sh!tty one. Poop nuggets falling out of his pants (raisins are not allowed in our house because of the resemblance and the possibility for errors....you put it together!), streaks that really required their own zip code, physical tantrums about not sitting on the toilet and then more tantrums and tussles about getting cleaned up and rashes from not getting cleaned up soon enough. The feeling and smell didn't even faze him while it fumigated the entire house. Not eating because he didn't feel good from being backed up. Some days I felt like I lived in a porta-potty. Just about every day, sometimes more than once a day we had some sort of poop issue that needed to be wrangled. It took time but we are now through it.

@A MyAutismTeam Member Thank you, your answer is very helpful. My son is the same as far a pain. I don't know how many ear infections he has had that I had no idea about because he never complained about pain. It is so helpful to know I am not alone here.

Mentioned Users

A MyAutis...

I'd say first talk with your doctor to rule out medical causes. If it isn't medical, work with an occupational therapist... a lot of times it is sensory, and an OT can help you identify the specific causes for your son. It is all so individual.

My son still doesn't wipe well... he is 18. For him, he has severe tactile sensory differences. He is hyper-sensitive to rubbing/tickling/surface, but doesn't register surface pressure or deep pain/discomfort. Other things this results in is a dirty face (he doesn't feel the food on his face and hates the feel of wiping/washing), burst eardrums from no reporting of ear pain, and broken furniture because he doesn't feel how hard he is pushing against something.

I was actually able to laugh when the "fix" for this presented itself, and reduced my anxiety tremendously. All I will say is that we have clear visual and olfactory evidence of when he has discovered a cute girl and wants her to like him.

From what I understand, this happens a lot with some autistic children. For some of them, it's that they are constipated and this is a "leakage" issue. When we told our son that he would lose time playing on his video games, when we followed through, it cut back on some of his "accidents". He still has skid marks some times but not as badly as he was doing. We have an appointment with his dr to see if it's something we should be concerned with.

I realize this is an old post, but my 4 year old son used to do the same thing. I finally found a doctor to help him stop holding his poop in. I had to give him an enema every night for a month using just water to make him poop and realize pooping doesn't hurt. He finally stopped holding it in but now he goes in his pull up every night. Definitely better than holding it in but really wish I didn't have to clean dried poop off his butt every morning! If anyone has any advice to get him to poop on the potty, please pass it on! He pees most of the time on the potty but still has a few accidents sometimes.