Potty training

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Hi all, posting here for traffic. Sorry!

Dd has just turned 3. She is fine doing wees on potty. She is fine, no problem! Poops are a whole different story. Here is a little back ground.

About a year ago she got a bit poorly, nothing serious but was given antibiotics. She became constipated. The poop she did was huge and so so painful!
Since then she has been scared to poo and will quite easily hold it for 5-10 days - creating more painful poos.

We have been to Drs, they have prescribed Movicol and have told us to keep her on it until she has forgotten the painful poos!
They now don't hurt her, but she dances to hold it still.

In September she is starting nursery and needs to be able to use toilet! She point blank refuses to go on potty for poo!

How can I help her, I have sat and cuddled her whilst she is sitting on potty. She screams in fear, I will not keep her scared like that! I have promised her a huge toy. I have even put potty in front of tv with a ton of yummy food. As soon as she can't keep her poo in any more she jumps up and screams!

Do any of you have any advice? DD is my 3rd child, I was never at a loss with the other 2. I don't want to traumatise her, I don't want to scare her any more than she is! She wants to do it, she has told me she wants to, but is so overcome with fear she can't do it!

Tia

My dd hated pooing in the potty because when it was a big one she could feel it touching her bum and she didn't like the sensation. She would happily poo on the toilet tho. Is it worth trying her on the toilet instead?

Have you tried going straight to the toilet? Take her out and let her pick her own little seat for it? My DS hated the potty, wouldn't go near it and would rather wet himself and poo in his pants. Trained in three days going straight to toilet.

Thank you for reply. I forgot to add, I have tried this. Even pooing in nappy is an issue as she just refuses to believe pooing should be a part of life. DP and I are thinking that we should perhaps leave poo at the moment. Keep her on the movicol and wait to see what happens. We have a time limit though.

I feel like there is a book that many have recommended - I can't remember title though!

I feel like I am failing as her mum as I can't find the answer for her.

The book you are thinking of is probably 'Oh Crap'

I've used it and it was great.

I've seen people suggest putting a nappy in the potty for them to poo onto. I can't remember why it's supposed to work though.

Or ‘poo goes to Poo town’?

(I wish I was making that up 😂)

Oh crap!!! Thank you!

I think I will get both 'Oh crap' and 'poo goes to poo town'

Thank you! All suggestions welcome!
DD1 decided she was far too big for nappies at 18 months, DD2 does the quickest poos known to man!

You think with the 3rd you know it all! DD3 was sent purely just to prove me wrong!

Poo goes home to pooland is a free app. It's aimed at slightly older children who have chronic toiletting issues, but we found it great with DD, who was a similar age to yours when we had poo issues. It helped establish some useful phrases and language that we still use.

Brilliant! I will download this now!
I will try anything for her. We are a very relaxed household. So I don't want to create any level of pressure for her. She would pick up on this instantly!

Can you throw a poop party every time she does one? Like when you throw a puppy party when a puppy poops in the right place in the garden during training? Basically all "Yeaaaaaaaaaay! Good giiirl" "High Five" "Wooohoooo!" (And ear scratches and cuddles for the pup) And maybe give her a little bag of chocolate buttons or something as a reward? I don't mean it to sound like to train her like a dog... but it worked with my poop avoidant nephews!

How is it going OP? I am potty training my 2 year old who is also prescribed movicol and potty or toilet poos are a bit of a problem. Do you have any tips you have learned along the way?

Hi @Albamahanna
Wees she is fine. No nappy at all. But poos she is still screaming and getting herself upset until we put her nappy on. We tried to keep nappy off when she needed a poo but it really wasn't worth it. She held it for 2 days, which with her constipation problems caused more of an issue as it became hard again. So now we are just concentrating on wees and no accidents asnd are giving her a nappy when she tells us she needs a poo. She is very aware that she does need to start pooing without the nappy. She said she will try when poos get better.

My advice is not to push it, when we tried to, she point blank refused to wee on her potty and there were tons of accidents. Once we reassured her that she can have a nappy doing a poo she was fine again. I think we will try again in a month.
She will get it eventually and she will get confident with it.
She has a toy in my basket on amazon. She knows that when she poos she can press the order button.

Sorry that is not much help.

I bought the toy and put it on the mantle piece in the dining room, right there in front of DS and mentioned it all the time . He was just defiant rather than there being any issues. However he got so desperate for the toy, that he eventually did it.

Another mum mentioned having a small, medium and large reward boxes. Maybe your DD could get something from the small box for sitting on the toilet first to try before putting a nappy on? Building up to bigger and bigger rewards, maybe shutting her eyes and singing a song (does that relax things?), even if she doesn't go but tries, that might be something to try in time? Just a random thought.

Thank you for that! I will definitely take that advice.
I have the most stubborn 3 year old in the world! She is not naughty but you cannot make her do something she does bot want to do. I come from a huge family with lots of children - none as stubborn as my DD.

I will update when I get that poo in potty/toilet with the tactic which worked!

Good luck. I thought we'd never manage it with DS, but when he (finally) embraced it we were fine. Luckily a hot summer in the garden made it easier.

Just needed the patience of a saint, and pretending like I just didn't care if he sat on the toilet/got a reward or not. I think not getting the attention through not doing it helped. Almost like 'that's a shame you don't want x reward for sitting on the toilet, never mind' then heading off to do something else.

Is she still taking the Movicol?

If she developed fissures when she was ill, they can take months of really soft stools to heal properly. Then you get the vicious cycle of painful bowel movements, witholding and hard stools which prevent the fissures from healing.

A friend had this with her daughter and it was about 18 months of Movicol before they were able to really break the cycle. Her DD was witholding for up to 2 weeks at a time which is obviously extreme.

Yes she is still on the movical. We have reached 12 days quite regularly.
Dr has checked her over and said no fissures. What has happened is a bad bout of constopation, she is now scared to poo so she holds it, this is then hard as she has held it for such a long time reaffirming her theory that poos hurt. Repeat cycle! The movical is to soften the poo. Dr said she will forget the painful movements, it could take a while though.

Even pooing in a nappy is not easy going. She will still hold. We have suppositories for her with advice to give once she has held it for a week! She will still fight after suppository has been administered.
It is clear she is scared, when she can't hold anymore she screams telling everyone to get away. (This is what happens if she hurts herself, if she falls over she won't let you cuddle her, you have to wait until she has calmed down before checking her over)
Anyway, once she has pood the relief that comes over her face and happy little tears as she tells us it didn't hurt!
My heart breaks for her.

Contact ERIC - their helpline can be hard to get through on but they really do know their shit. Dd2 isn't a witholder but suffers with constipation and did for so long she ended up losing all sensation and control and it's really a long road of keeping them soft and easy to pass to get that back - which you really want to avoid if possible.

If you're on FB the Movicol Mummies group is good too.

I am not on fb anymore, but worth popping on.
DD dances and jumps to hold her bowel movements. Its distressing for all of us.
I will look into ERIC, thank you!
As soon as I get back from work the first thing DO and I discuss is if she has done a poo. My older 2 hate watching the emotional mess she gets into trying to hold it.
It was a relief when she pood a day before her birthday cos we knew if she didn't she would not enjoy her day.
Days out are difficult if she hasn't been. I used to think that the treat would be a distraction. I was wrong.
Thank you for the advice. All advice is welcome!

ERIC have some great advice, some is specific to children who will only poo in a nappy (basically baby steps like go to bathroom to poo, then sit on toilet, then undress and sit on toilet but still with nappy on...)

Keep up with the movicol, chronic constipation can cause difficulties that take years to resolve. I think the rule of thumb is the constipation will need treating for as long as it's been a problem... so if her difficulties started a year ago expect it to take a year to resolve.

This was my child exactly. Holding for over a week at a time, refusing to potty train at all. Lots of stress all round.
For us we kept on with the laxative for quite a long time.
Then I invented a character along the lines of a Father Christmas / tooth fairy type. This character came to our house with a present every time a poo was done. This was before potty training was successful, so just in the nappy. I made a massive thing of praise and getting excited to see what had been brought to us. I picked small things to help with cost, but it was all stuff that I knew would be loved.
The combination of a reward, lots of praise and reassurance, and the laxative did the trick in the end.
When it came to potty training, whilst it was late, it was over with in a day literally. No accidents. I’d worried about a relapse, but once the fear had gone it didn’t come back. We also made a big thing at the end of saying goodbye to the character and wishing them good luck with the next child.
Hang in there everyone. I was so stressed thinking it would never get better, but it did in the end and (touch wood) no issues ever since.

We had a similar problem recently. Ds was good on the potty then had hand foot and mouth just in his mouth. So became dehydrated and wouldn’t poo. We found the book “My name is Mr Poo”. It clicked for him. It wasn’t immediate but it made poo-ing more pleasent as opposed to extremely distressing. Good luck.

Is there a chance she is still constipated? If she can go for 5+ days then her bowel is probably very stretched. To keep her clear and for the bowel to shrink you may need to consider a higher dose of movicol and adding a stimulant laxative like senna. There is an excellent Facebook group called ‘movicol mummies’ (terrible name but so helpful).
I am potty training my 3.5 year old currently who has had bad constipation issues. We have done 2 disimpactions and he is on 4 movicol per day and some senna. This means his poo is very loose but he can’t really withhold. It’s working really well and there have been no poo accidents at all.

Google ‘the poo in you’ on YouTube for a good explanation of the mechanics of this stuff.

Good luck, it is stressful. This has dominated my life for the last 6 months!

This is very useful. I don’t know how to make a clicky link, sorry.

www.bornready.uk/blog/the-mechanics-of-chronic-constipation-and-how-to-treat-it/