Thanks everyone for the great advice, I went to my doctor and he assured me that there was nothing to worry about. He explained that things will happen when thay are ready, to make sure that he knows about good hygiene, and to explain to him that if he feels that anything is not quite right, to let me or his dad know. My doctor also said that he will check things when we come in for visits. Lucky my boy is very anal and can not stand being "unclean". He would have a shower after every toilet stop if I allowed him. :)

I taught my son at about age 5 to pull his back and clean , he is now 7 and does it on his own. No matter what, I think it's important it gets cleaned properly. They are boys after all , they run , the sweat, they somehow manage to get lint and dirt and god knows what else in there. I just try to keep a watch , that is when he will actually let me get a glimpse to make sure that it isnt red or irritated. Other than that I leave it up to him but always remind him to wash his "peter" properly.

My 3 year old is circumcised but we had a little problem about adhesion (the left over skin attaching itself back on). And because the left over foreskin has attached itself, it was causing problem and irritation. Dead skin gets trapped inside causes irritation and it hurts him quite a bit. So from 2 years old on, we've been teaching him to pull the skin back a little bit when he takes a bath in order to clean himself. So now at 3, he is quite good at it. Fortunately, there is only a tiny bit of adhesion left.

So my answer would be to teach your child proper cleaning methods from very early one so that it becomes automatic as they grow up.

Hi there

I was always told by my gp to basically leave it alone and it will retract on its own by about the time he was 5 or 6. From this age, whenever I had him at the dr for whatever reason, I got the dr to just double check all was ok. This was when he discovered it was not retracting nor was it going to. Unfortunately he had to have surgery at the age of 8 and have had no probs since. I would however, be looking for any ballooning of the foreskin when your child urinates and if you do see any then go to your gp.

Hope this helps

jo

We didn't get our boy done either, I have been told to just leave it and it will happen naturally once they "discover" this part of anatomy and start to play is usually when it retracts. Was also told not to try and do it, because you can actually tear the skin if you try to pull it back to far.

I only have girls, so can't really help too much.  Only want to say that it is upto you whether or not your son is circumcised or not.  There are pros and cons to it, so being as informed as possible is the best thing. 

hi, i have 2 sons and don't believe in circumsising either and i was always told that it starts to retract by itself around 4 or 5 years of age. then they can be taught to "pull it back" to clean it themselves. they may have to have it explained or shown to them what to do... never force it though.