Just want to see if anyone else's son has had issues with a tight foreskin and whether anything medical was required.

My son is 3 1/2yrs and appears to have a tight foreskin. In the bath I encourage him to wash himself but it seems to be tight compared to his 18month old brother, whose foreskin regularly semi retracts when he does a bit of self exploration during a nappy change. I am a bit worried that DS1 may have Phimosis as apparently his paternal grandfather had this and had to be circumcised as an adult. I was not aware of this family history when deciding on not to circumcise.

So has anyones son's experienced this? I will chat to my GP next time I am there and he does not have any onther problems ie infections. I am just a bit worried that this may be an issue for him as a teen or adult.

Hi there

My husband had a circ at age 4 due to phimosis. Our little man is 3 1/2 also & has been seeing a paediatrician for 18 months already for phimosis & another issue.

Our last consultation, 4 weeks ago, was encouraging. We were told that the foreskin not retracting is quite normal & common until the age of 7 or older in some cases.

We were told not to let anyone but our son try to retract it. He said that includes doctors & specialists as they cannot feel when it hurts & by the time our little man says it hurts, permanent damage could have already been done. As in tearing or dislocation of the foreskin, which will both result in painful surgery to try to correct.

He also said do not over encourage our little man to pull the foreskin back.

We certainly do not want to put our little man through the stress of surgery if it is not required. So we are happy to wait & see with the foreskin issue.

So please do not worry. Your precious boy sounds perfectly fine. Each child develops differently so keep that in mind & if you are worried, seek a paediatricians' advice.

PS. My nephew was able to retract his foreskin well before he was 3, which made me panic about our little man. So I understand where you are coming from. xx smile

If it's not causing him any discomfort then it isn't a problem. My ds1 was only able to retract his at around 7 yrs old, prior to that it wasn't giving him any him any pain so we just left him alone and it happened in it's own time smile