to be scared my dd will still be in nappies when she starts school?

[Frustratingsituation]

DD has just turned 3.

She's been in nursery since she was 10 months old part time, loves it. She showed interest on potty training aged 18 months and was full trained by 2.5 years.

For some reason since she turned 2 and a half, she suddenly started to hold on to her poo. She's fine still doing wees.

It's been a nightmare.

She can hold on for so long she will not open her bowels for up to a week. When she gets abdominal cramps she screams, stands rigid and crosses her legs and it's impossible to comfort her.

She's a bright thing and understands completely about pooing but she says she is scared of it.

We've tried EVERYTHING.

She's on movicol and we're still trying to adjust the dose so she is not having diarrhoea but able to poo with ease.

we've tried reward charts and rewarding her with watching a DVD if she does a poo

We've put a nappy in the toilet to see if she'd find that comfortable or sat her on the potty with a nappy on but no

We've overhauled her diet, let her order her own potty (we said it was a special present from Queen Elsa so she can be a big girl) and her own underwear

We've been an open-door household since she was born (not between me and DH!) so she watches us do poos and wees etc

We've tried Vaseline on her bum so the poo won't hurt on the way out

We've tried potty books and potty videos on YouTube (I even sat there through numerous videos of giraffes pooing - her favourite animals)

We've said if she starts pooing in the potty she can go to ballet or gymnastics.

We're at our wits end. We've tried so hard not to put our anxieties across, we've tried to make it fun and not put pressure on her but it's driving us both mad.

Has anyone ever had this and managed to work it out? Please help, I'm desperate.

[bubalou]

I worked in a nursery with aged 2-3 year olds for over 2 years. This was very common.

I know it's not helpful but I agree with above poster - if you can remove everything and ignore everything related to pooing.

A lot of parents I know went through all extremes you have and it only all stopped when they did.

Do not mention it, don't speak or even say the word poo in front of her or let anyone else. If she has an accident clean it without talking about it. Don't ask her to go. I know it's not easy but I have known it to work a lot.

DS went through a phase when he was 2.5 and within a few days of me doing this he was pooing normally (he also had the movicol phase etc).

Good luck.

[TalisaMaegyr]

Someone online sent me a PDF of something called Poo Goes to Pooland . here

It was the only thing that worked for my ds, he was terrified of pooing in the toilet!

[deste]

Are you sure she doesn't have a fissure which is very painful when trying to poo.

[WaitMonkey]

If she's only just turned 3, she won't be starting school this September will she ?

[Frustratingsituation]

No I know wait monkey, what I meant was that this is going to take a year to sort out and potentially won't be sorted by sept 2015.

We've done the poo goes to Pooland thing.

Thanks for everyone's advice. I'm really trying to chill out about it but I think everyone else is getting stressed and it's rubbing off on me. I do try to ignore by DH, my dad and my in laws are very 'oh DD you must poooooo'.

Right, so basically I need to chill the F out. Cool, will do. Thanks! :)

[WaitMonkey]

Try not to panic. September 2015 is a long way away, there is plenty of time. Good luck.

[nocoolnamesleft]

There's no point stressing yourself out trying everything else (which can be a lot of work) until you've got the constipation sorted. Because until the constipation is sorted it won't work.

She's scared because it hurts. It needs to not hurt for long enough for her to get her confidence back.

But it's more complicated than that...the last bit of the gut is meant to sit empty, like a stretchy muscley hosepipe. When poo moves into there, that's when you get the sensation of needing to go. When they're constipated for a while, the "rocks" of hard poo sit in that last bit of the gut and stretch it up. So you end up with a big baggy area which is great at filling up with poo, and much less good than usual at pushing poo out. The longer the poo is sat in their, the more water the gut wall sucks out of it, so the harder the poo gets. Because there's poo in there all the time, the body gets confused about the messages, and is less good at knowing when/how to push. If they get really really bunged up, then you can get soft squidgy poo leaking past the lumps, which can make them have accidents. The good news is that kids heal up as well on the inside as on the outside. The bad news is that this only heals up if you empty out the old poo, then keep the new poo coming through soft and squidgy (scrambled egg to soft sausage) for usually months, to let things recover. Which also helps the bum hole recover, and stop things hurting.

You didn't mention whether your DD has a backlog (fecal impaction) of hard poo waiting to come out. If so, they tend to need a week of increasing the movicol to absolute shedloads to clear them out (think pooing to the point of lots of gravy), to get to a blank slate, before trying to keep things empty. Your GP can check for this by having a good squidge around feeling her tummy (very low down on her left side is where it most commonly lurks). If she's got a backlog and it isn't cleared out, then starting the smaller doses of movicol tends to make them swing between hard and soft poo.

Then after clear out (or if not needed) it's the amount needed for everyday pain free soft poo. And only reducing very slowly (or they get back into bother).

Try to stay sane: together you'll get this sorted. This stuff really does work.

[appealtakingovermylife]

I'm going through similar with my dd, 3.5.
The best advice I've received is to associate pooing with the bathroom rather than using the potty in another room etc.
My dd is very embarrassed doing a poo and has been from a very young age. I feel like you, worrying if she can master it before reception next year, am sure they both will:)

[Frustratingsituation]

Hugs to you appeal.

Thanks nocoolname. I do know all of that from my research and my job (I'm a health professional). That's the cycle we are in at the moment - fuck loads of movicol to get the bowel empty then reducing and trying to find the maintenance dose, which we're struggling to get at the moment :( but perhaps we do need to keep her on a lot of it for a few weeks rather than reducing it down (5sachets gets the gravy poo). She does have faecal impaction sometimes from the withholding but we try not to let it get past a few days now to avoid the baggy rectum syndrome.

I just feel so bloody sorry for her. The screams when she is blocked up and the pain she must be in... It's heartbreaking.

No she doesn't have a fissure, it was one of the first things I checked for and still regularly do.

Argh. We'll get there I know (hope)

[Bigdaddys]

I had the same thing with my son who has ADHD, He used to use the toilet or potty for a wee but would refuse to poo until he had a nappy on. He used to tell us that he wanted the nappy to go to the toilet in. For months we used to put the nappy on and sit him straight on the toilet so as it felt like he was using it to go. 2 months after his 5th birthday it finally clicked that the toilet was for doing both. He called us into the bathroom after leaving him to go to the toilet, he had taken off his nappy and used the toilet properly, after this we binned the nappies and he has been using the toilet ever since.

Stay strong and continue to work with her, encourage her and 1 day it will just happen as for starting school in nappies, most schools make you go in and change the child throughout the day as did his so try break this and discourage them before your child goes to school!!!

[TokenGirl1]

We had this with my 5 year old. I asked to be referred to a specialist Dr Anthony Cohn (specialises in bowel problems with kids) who is based in Hertfordshire. It was a fair drive for us to get there but worth every mile.

We'd tried movicol, lactulose, syrup of figs to no effect. He put our dd on Sodium Picosulphate and it worked a treat! She has always been reluctant to use the toilet and still needs to be persuaded for weeks but now that the poo doesn't hurt she willingly takes herself off to the toilet.