TMI! Potty training but DD doesn't seem to know how to poo

[Onebabyandamadcat]

I promise I'm not the poo troll or anything!

We're potty training DD (3 next week) and she's doing fabulous with pees - only two accidents since we started. We're having a horrendous time with poo though.

I will say we tried a few months ago but she was leaking poo and constipated. Dr put her on movicol and it seems to have sorted itself.

Now she needs to poo but doesn't see to know how to push it out. So we're basically having full days waiting for poo which only comes in tiny bits that we need to wipe from between her bum cheeks (sorry!) I've sat with her and said push into your bum, push your tummy inside, had a pretend cake and had her blow out the candle, making scary faces and "grunting" for want of a better word. Nothing is getting her to push the poo out. I honestly don't think she knows how to.

When she was in nappies she'd have four or five dirty nappies a day with little soft poos so I think this is something she's been unable to do for quite a while. I'm at an utter loss what to do. The Dr just asks what her poo is like and no matter what I say they either up or decrease the movicol dose. She's now on no movicol as she has so many poos a day but none of them are proper big poos 🤦

Any suggestions?

That post had paragraphs when I typed it!

She isn’t getting the internal peristaltic contraction that triggers the natural pushing urge.

More fruit and vegetable and a whole foods diet might be the way to go, also allergy testing, could be her system is clogged by gluten or lactose.

She sounds like shes still constipated tbh, i have a child with chronic constipation, she may be impacted, and need medical help.

Get a Bristol stool chart, you can probably find one on line, and fill it out to give the Dr more info.

Pooland app
Worked for wee one and a star chart for pooing

Also give her bubbles to blow on the toilet. App it helps relax everything

Thanks everyone I'll keep going with the training have given her some tangerine and orange juice. She has a good diet but will look at upping the fruit and veg more.

She was impacted that was the original problem. I don't think it's that again, this is different but I'll keeping an eye on it.

I'm fairly certain it's not an allergy cause she has no other symptoms and like I said her diet is and has always been very varied so I'd be surprised if one had suddenly developed but I will mention it to the gp.

Thanks for your help everyone!

Have a look on the ERIC website

I'd consider speaking to your HV . If you suspect they have never been able to do it I would want to rule out any medical reason.