By age 6, teach your son to retract his own foreskin. Teach him to clean beneath it once a week during bathing. This will help to prevent poor hygiene and infection.
Once the foreskin is easily retracted, your child should learn to do this as part of normal washing in the bath or shower. The penis should be washed the same way as any other part of the body. Ensure your child rinses off any soap and replaces the foreskin to cover the head of the penis afterwards.
Without regular cleaning, a build-up of a whitish-yellow substance known as 'smegma' can occur under the foreskin, which may cause infection.
Most boys will be able to retract their foreskins by the time they are 5 years old, yet others will not be able to until the teen years. As a boy becomes more aware of his body, he will most likely discover how to retract his own foreskin. But foreskin retraction should never be forced.
Always put the foreskin back to its normal position if it has been pulled back. This may happen during sex. Or you may pull it back before sex, before you urinate, or while you clean it.
It sounds like you are suffering from a phimosis, where the foreskin cannot be pulled back to expose the head (glans) of the penis. This can be caused by a few conditions but most commonly, a skin condition known as BXO (otherwise called lichen sclerosis) is responsible.
Not able to retract the foreskin back easily can be a symptom of a condition known as Phemosis. It is due to tight foreskin. It is completely curable problem. With minor procedure, it can be cured.
By age 17, most boys will be able to fully retract their foreskin. Phimosis can also occur if the foreskin is forced back before it is ready. This can cause a fibrous scar to form. This can stop the foreskin from retracting in the future.
It's normal for babies and young boys to have a tight foreskin (phimosis), but adults can also be affected. See a GP if your or your child's foreskin is sore or swollen.
To be sure, we recommend you contact your health care provider. They can also prescribe a cream that you can apply to your foreskin to help it retract, or pull back. To help prevent this in the future it's important to gently retract your foreskin every time you shower and clean with lukewarm water.
In addition to other answers concerning the frenulum, it may be that the foreskin is simply not fully detached yet. There's a layer of skin - similar to the layer between your skin and fingernail - that holds the two together. This gradually dissolved between puberty and in some boys takes as long as age 18.
It's best to avoid full-body bathing until the second day after surgery, but sponge bathing is fine. After the second day, you can bathe your baby or toddler as normal; with newborns, you should wait until the umbilical cord has fallen off, at about two weeks. Avoid very warm water.
Gently pull their foreskin back toward their body. Use mild soap and warm water to clean the area, and wipe away any smegma. You only need to clean the area once or twice a week. Around age six, teach your child how to retract their foreskin and clean it while bathing.
After Age 1 Year - How to Clean:
Wash the exposed part of the glans gently with warm water. Then, dry it. Do not use soap or leave soapy water under the foreskin. This can cause redness and swelling.
You don't need to pull it back for cleaning. If your child does pull back the foreskin in the bath or shower, that's fine – but it's not needed. Once your child goes through puberty and can easily pull back the foreskin, it's good for your child to do this in the bath or shower for cleaning.
Adhesions can form along the tip of the penis (glans), as the foreskin naturally separates from it. These are normal, require no treatment and go away on their own. Pus-like clumps called smegma can sometimes form as the foreskin naturally retracts. This is normal, requires no treatment and goes away on its own.
Circumcision can be done at any age. Traditionally, the most common time to do it is soon after your baby is born, or within the first month of life. Because the process is painful, a local anesthetic is used to numb the area and the surgery is performed while the baby is still awake.
A request circumcision is a circumcision performed for non-medical reasons, such as parental preference, religious reasons or to potentially prevent disease at some future time. Circumcision is mostly performed on babies for family, religious or cultural reasons.
Conclusions: Pain is mild to moderate after circumcision in adults under general anesthesia with an intraoperative penile block. Severe pain is rare and mostly related to complications. Younger patients generally have more discomfort.
There is no difference in health and cleanliness (hygiene) with or without circumcision, as long as a boy can handle cleaning and care. There is a higher risk of urinary tract infection (UTI) in uncircumcised boys. This is more so in babies younger than 1 year old. But the risk for UTI in all boys is less than 1%.
The most common method involves using a sharp object to remove the foreskin, but this can be extremely dangerous and result in serious injury. Even if done correctly, there is a risk of infection and scarring. For these reasons, it is best to leave circumcision to trained medical professionals.
Infants may be fussy and in pain for some hours after a circumcision, but this usually does not last more than a couple of days. Signs of pain can include crying and problems with sleep and feeding.
The same basic principles apply whether you have a foreskin or have been circumcised. Gently wash your penis each day. Carefully pull back and clean underneath the foreskin, as well as the tip of your penis (the glans) using only water and a very gentle soap. Don't scrub this sensitive area.
Phimosis is where the foreskin is too tight to be pulled back over the head of the penis (glans). Phimosis is normal in babies and toddlers. It isn't usually a problem unless it causes the symptoms described. Take your child to your GP if they have these symptoms.