Soiling can occur just sometimes, or it can occur once a day or many times a day. The consistency of the stools found in the underwear is usually loose and sort of runny or like clay. Children who have problems with constipation may have stool soiling. They also may have painful bowel movements, or they may have incomplete emptying of stool. Sometimes they may have only three bowel movements a week.
Some constipated children have daily bowel movements, but they pass only small amounts of stool.
Once in a while, they have a very large bowel movement, sometimes large enough to clog the toilet. In children who have incomplete emptying of stool, the amount of stool left in the rectum becomes so large that stool leaks out of the anus and produces stool soiling. Other symptoms of constipation are extreme straining during a bowel movement, abdominal pain and bloating, crankiness, tiredness, loss of appetite between bowel movements, wetting during the day or night, and extreme reluctance to use the toilet. Constipation may occur if your child is not eating enough high-fiber foods or drinking enough fluids. But in many children, no cause for the constipation can be found.